I remind senators that the question may be put on any question at the request of any senator.
Senators, I have received, through the Governor-General, from the Governor of New South Wales a copy of the certificate of the choice by the houses of parliament of New South Wales of Dr Mehreen Faruqi to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Rhiannon. I table the document.
Pursuant to standing order 78(1), I give notice of my intention, at the giving of notices today, to withdraw business of the Senate notice of motion No. 1 standing in my name for today proposing that the Product Emissions Standards Rules 2017, made under the Product Emissions Standards Act 2017, be disallowed.
I rise to speak on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018. Australia is blessed with a huge amount of natural resources. It's even in our national anthem: 'Our land abounds in nature's gifts'. There is also 'wealth for toil' off our coast, and we have massive reserves of petroleum available.
In 2018, we will export $35 billion of liquefied natural gas. We have become the largest exporter of LNG in the world. We allow companies to explore and produce the petroleum from our offshore reserves, and rightly so. These companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars creating thousands of jobs for our workers. But let me make this point clear, because it is important: the true owners of these petroleum resources are the Australian people, and it is only fair that the Australian people get fair compensation for their resources. The truth is that the Australian people are getting ripped off, and here today I wish to outline this rort to the chamber.
Our offshore resources are contained in various fields. The Commonwealth government carries out zoning of these fields similar to a housing estate which might zone a big piece of land for various blocks. A company could come in and claim one of these fields by getting a retention lease. A retention lease would give that company exclusive rights to further explore and develop the lease area. The problem is this: there are a lot of retention leases out there and they are held by a select few big companies. There is a lot of potential for development, and yet not much development is occurring. All the while, the competitors of these select few companies are unable to get in and develop these fields themselves.
The evidence shows that some retention leases are being held up for 15 years with no development. That's 15 years of lost revenue and lost jobs for the Australian people. However, the worst part of these retention leases is the lack of information given by petroleum companies, especially to the Australian public. We have no idea what resources these companies have underground, what the value of these resources are, nor what payments are being made to various stakeholders. We have a problem with the transparency of petroleum companies. This bill solves that problem. It will make it compulsory for a holder of a retention lease to provide a taxation transparency report to the regulator. The taxation transparency report will tell the regulator what resources are there and how much they are worth. It will also tell the regulator what payments are made and to whom. It's not just retention holders that will need to provide a taxation transparency report.
The bill keeps information coming with petroleum production licence holders also subject to the same obligations. It's about ensuring we get a clear picture of the sector and then keep that picture clear. I understand that the regulator has some limited information already. This bill would give the regulator a clear picture with more detailed information. This is because one company will have to report for each retention lease or petroleum production licence it holds and not just one broad overview. The government tells us that the petroleum companies have done enough, that they are building some infrastructure and creating jobs, that they have paid fair compensation to the Australian people, but I don't think so. The infrastructure these companies build helps them make profits; it does not help the average mum and dad pay for their kids' education.
The jobs these projects create are only temporary. I have experienced firsthand the recent mining boom in my home state of Western Australia. I have toured the state from Karratha in the north to Albany in the south. I have spoken to local communities and listened to their stories. Everyone agrees that, yes, the petroleum companies created a lot of jobs in the construction phase, but when these projects were up and running, the work dried up. Many who lost their jobs also lost their homes because they couldn't keep up with mortgage repayments.
The government believes a few pipes here and there and a few thousand temporary jobs are fair compensation for this country's resources. It's a joke. We simply can't trust the government when it says Australians are getting a fair deal. We therefore can't trust the regulator, who takes directions from the government and implements its policy. This bill also addresses that problem. A key part of the bill is about bringing the Australian people into the discussion to stop the secrecy. This bill does this by requiring the regulator to put into its register all the information received in a taxation transparency report. It is even expected that the information on the register will be made publicly available. Finally the petroleum companies can come clean to the people of Australia, who can all see for once what they are doing. With information being made public, competitors can also consider that information. One company can say to the other, 'If you're not going to develop that field, we will have a go.'
Australian people pay taxes. Australians expect businesses to pay taxes. Australians expect the government to get a fair compensation for our resources. Let me ask the chamber if they think this is fair. Australia is set to overtake Qatar as the largest exporter of gas in the world, but we will receive a fraction of that revenue—$800 million—compared to Qatar's $26.6 billion. And that $800 million is not from our direct revenue stream, the petroleum resource rent tax; it is from other payments. The very real possibility that Australia, as it becomes the world's largest exporter of LNG, may never collect any direct payments from its natural resources is just simply embarrassing. Even countries that we give foreign aid to perform better on their resource revenue management than Australia. According to one report, Australia ranks 32nd in the word. We scored lower than—wait for it—Botswana, Niger and the Ivory Coast. That same report found Australia's tax transparency is worse than—again, wait for it—Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Mongolia. And the government sits there with a straight face and says that our transparency levels are fine and they don't need changing!
To those who might think from this that we need an urgent review of our tax system: we have already had one. In April 2017, the Treasurer released a report from the Callaghan review into the petroleum resource rent tax. That review exposed the flaws in our tax system. To provide some context, we give tax credits on exploration expenditure. If you pay money to explore, you have a tax credit. We know there is about $238 billion in tax credits that have already been issued, but companies are not required to file on the petroleum resource rent tax with the ATO until after production starts. This means that on top of the $238 billion in tax credits that we know about there are potentially hundreds of billions in additional exploration credits that are yet to be reported. It's when you have a look into the detail of these credits that the really scary stuff start to appear.
Firstly, these credits are transferable. You can shift them around to benefit your tax liability as much as you like. Secondly, these credits are able to increase in value by 18 per cent compounded annually. Thirdly, companies can hang onto these credits by holding onto them. These credits can nearly double their value over four years. With this system in place, petroleum companies have milked these credits for all they are worth and are effectively giving us nothing for our resources. By passing this bill the Senate will allow us to expose the petroleum companies that are playing games with our system to avoid any tax whatsoever.
This bill is nothing new. The US, Canada, the UK and the EU have all forced multinationals to report on payments on their production levels. All Australia would be doing with this bill is bringing us in line with these countries. It's a start. If we are to reform our taxation scheme we must start small. This bill is the first step on the road to fairer compensation. It is urgent that we start now and stop multinationals pillaging Australian resources for free. We must find a balance between the interests of the public, as owners of the resources, against the interests of companies, who need to make a profit. Make no mistake, the interests of the Australia people should come first. This bill includes relatively minor, simple and reasonable reform proposals. It's a small start to the larger changes that we so desperately need. So vote wisely, senators. Who knows, we may even overtake Mongolia.
I thank Senator Georgiou for the opportunity to discuss some important policy matters that are relevant to offshore resource reporting. A number of the ideas raised in the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018 are, I think, good and worthy of discussion—for example, increasing access to information and enabling opportunity for public scrutiny and engagement, as two examples. Senator Georgiou may be pleased to hear that the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science is working on a number of initiatives that go to the heart of the matters that he raised—however, as the bill currently stands, the government is not in a position to support it.
As a fellow Western Australian senator, Senator Georgiou would appreciate that the offshore oil and gas industry has already contributed and continues to contribute greatly to the Australian and Western Australian economies, particularly in relation to thousands and thousands of jobs for Western Australians, and also billions of dollars of tax annually. As I said, this includes jobs. It's a significant contributor to national GDP, regional development, upskilling our workforce and also powering Western Australia to become an energy superpower in the global market.
The point I'd make to Senator Georgiou and this chamber is that the industry's contribution to our nation comes in so much more than taxes. In Western Australia, the first domestic gas deliveries from the North West Shelf began in 1984, which is, today, Australia's largest oil and gas resource development. Over 92 per cent of the reserves feeding Australia's multibillion dollar LNG sector are located off the coast of Western Australia. In 2016-17, sales volumes reached 28.7 billion tonnes generating sales of nearly $13 billion. LNG accounts for 66 per cent of all Western Australian petroleum sales. Austrade confirms that production from this region accounts for one per cent of Australia's GDP and contributes more than $5 billion a year to state and federal taxes and royalties. So, far from the cries that we hear from many in this country, the LNG sector is certainly paying its fair share of taxes, and it will increase. Its tax revenues will keep increasing as production is coming online.
But, of course, resources in Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory are also poised to fuel a gas boom around the rest of Australia. As the Senate is well aware, the PRRT review and issues that it relates to are currently with the Treasurer for consideration. The timing of any announcement on further comment will be determined by the Treasurer. As a Western Australian, I hope it will be sooner rather than later. The Senate may also be interested to know that the PRRT has generated over $33 billion in revenue payments since payments were first made in 1989-90—that's $33 billion of direct revenue payments from that.
Low oil and gas prices, declining production, immature projects globally and recent large investments in new projects are all factors that currently influence the PRRT receipts. I think that is quite reasonable, when companies and their shareholders are investing hundreds of billions of dollars building this infrastructure. It is important and absolutely necessary that these sunk capital costs are taken into consideration in the building phase. The industry is at the bottom of a profit cycle, and this naturally reflects in a profit based tax. Australia has an outstanding reputation as an investment destination for resource sector projects, and it is important for us to not only maintain that reputation but to balance the need to ensure that the Australian community receives a fair return on this development.
This bill raises a number of important policy matters relevant to offshore resources reporting, including increasing access to information and the opportunity for public scrutiny of industry. These are, as I said up-front, good things. The Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 is not the correct piece of law to advocate tax disclosure for public scrutiny; it is there to provide a legal framework to incentivise exploration and development. The National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator, NOPTA, administers titles; it doesn't administer taxes. That's why we think this is the wrong piece of legislation to deal with the issues raised by Senator Georgiou. The National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator—again, as indicated in their name, are a 'titles' administrator—does not have the policy mandate, the legislative basis, the funding nor the expertise to consider or provide protection to taxpayer information. Again, that is not to say that that is not an important issue, but this is the wrong piece of legislation and the wrong organisation to seek that from.
NOPTA would derive limited benefit from the changes proposed in this bill. It already has access to the reserve and resource information to undertake its function as the Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator. Furthermore, the passing of this bill does not necessarily guarantee the public disclosure of information, as is the intention. A number of other pieces of relevant Commonwealth and state legislation could prevent the provision of this information into the public domain. So, regardless of any changes that may or may not get through to this specific piece of legislation, there are other Commonwealth and state pieces of legislation that could well prevent the disclosure of this information into the public domain.
The bill's passing may also bring the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 into direct conflict with other Commonwealth and state legislation, and it could, unintentionally, undermine the consistency of the laws around taxation and reporting for offshore petroleum. The resource information that is subject to this bill is currently provided to NOPTA in a range of confidential submissions. The ATO has access already to this necessary information, required for them to undertake compliance actions. This bill would not enhance the ATO's ability to obtain any more information. The passing of this bill also does not necessarily guarantee the public disclosure, as I've said, of the requisite information, but it would create significant additional regulatory burden, for little or no public good. Other pieces of relevant Commonwealth and state legislation could, however, be used to prevent the provision of this information in the public domain.
Resource estimates are based on technical interpretations, and it is simply not possible to derive a single number for the value of a resource without considering the way in which that resource can be developed and the specific circumstances of the individual field. Information regarding value from retention leases means very little, because it is highly speculative and it is certainly at that stage unclearly defined. By contrast, information on the production licence value would be likely to be based on data such as concrete sales contracts. This contractual information is highly commercially sensitive and is not collected by NOPTA, because it is simply not needed for their mandate.
Entities would not pay tax on a retention lease, as they would not be producing petroleum products. This taxation would only occur under a production licence, not a retention lease. I think it's important for those in this chamber to understand the difference. This taxation would only occur under a production licence and not a retention lease. Entity-level reporting on the MRRT and PRRT and corporate taxes paid is already being publicly disclosed under the ATO's annual report of entity tax information. In addition, many firms also voluntarily disclose additional information on their tax affairs as part of the Tax Transparency Code.
The proposed bill in its current form would, in effect or actually, increase compliance costs and could involve the publication of commercially sensitive information. I certainly know that it is not the intent of Senator Georgiou to do either of those things. The public disclosure of this commercially sensitive information could well—and some would argue would—impact the viability of the industry itself. It would certainly place Australia at a strategic disadvantage to our competitors overseas. It would also likely result in difficulty in attracting and retaining any offshore petroleum investment.
In summary, the bill cannot be supported by the government, for all of those reasons I've outlined. However, I commend Senator Georgiou, because a number of the ideas raised in the bill are certainly good and worthy of further discussion. But this bill is not the right bill to amend to get those outcomes. But those on this side applaud you and agree in principle with the ideas of increasing access to information and enabling more public scrutiny of these matters. We also agree that there is some inconsistency in the public reporting of resources currently and there may also be some value in ensuring consistency in reporting requirements. A discussion of this in public is certainly a laudable and very good idea. In closing, I thank Senator Georgiou for providing the Senate with the opportunity to discuss and debate this important industry for our nation and some very important policy matters that should be aired more regularly in this chamber.
I won't be quite so polite on this matter, Senator Georgiou. I think you can perhaps be ready for that proposition. Labor will be opposing the proposed amendments to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act contained in the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018. You have proposed these amendments without talking to the opposition about them. You may well say that you don't have to, but, if you're expecting us to support them, I think we're entitled to have these matters discussed with us. I've made further inquiries and I've discovered that you haven't actually talked to many people at all about them. It would appear that you've not consulted the industry. It seems to me that, whatever your intention, these measures are essentially a very blunt instrument and show a profound lack of understanding about how the industry actually operates. It has profound ignorance with regard to the way in which our offshore resources industry works, the way our taxation collection system works, the role of the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator and what functions they actually serve. For instance, the bill would require offshore resources companies to provide information that either does not exist or cannot be provided such as information about tax paid on a licence-by-licence basis. This requirement is, frankly, impractical. Any information provided would be, in fact, useless and totally unreliable because income tax is paid on a company level and the petroleum resources rent tax is paid at a project level. The tax is not levied at a licence level. It strikes me that these measures have been drafted for One Nation by people who are financially illiterate. It is a measure that suggests that this is designed to try to gather a headline rather than do anything in a practical way to advance the prospects of this extraordinarily important industry.
I note that the licence fees that this bill says should be made public are already published by the Commonwealth Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator. The bill also seeks information about royalties and taxes paid on revenue earned by retention leases. A retention lease is not a resource that is producing revenue. In many instances, it might never become economic to develop. It is a lease that seeks to retain an asset while doing work to make development stack up, to allow for the assessment of the viability. Companies do not pay royalties or tax on retention leases, because there is nothing to pay royalties or taxes on.
I notice that the minister has raised some issues recently with regard to a review in Victoria on the question of licences that aren't being developed and has sought to change operations of the industry. That's a perfectly legitimate question to pursue, but it won't be pursued by these types of issues. We saw last week that Senator Canavan has commissioned the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator to review the value of south-eastern petroleum titles to see if some fields not being developed could be brought into production. There are a range of questions that require further discussion by this parliament; however, the purpose of a policy development with regard to understanding is how significant these questions are to the supply of energy for the nation—important for skills formation, important to the prosperity of the whole country and important, of course, for the transparency of company taxation arrangements and to check the revenue basis for the Commonwealth of Australia which allows us to be able to provide the goods and services for the people of this country. However, what you've got here is a proposition that clearly does not relate to the actual operations of the current administrations of the titles as they exist.
This bill would force information to be provided and published by the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator that, as I say, can't be provided. It demonstrates a real failure to understand how the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator does function. It doesn't seem to appreciate what information is currently held by the Taxation Office which, I would have thought, would be a fundamental point if you are putting legislation before this parliament for consideration.
For the record, Labor supports greater transparency of our resources industry and of the payments that ought to be made to governments. I note recent media commentary in November 2015 that PRRT receipts have been declining since that time, and that despite the LNG industry's transformation from a $5 billion concern a decade ago to a $60 billion export powerhouse, according to reports in the media, we now face a situation where we are likely to exceed Qatar as the world's biggest gas exporter by 2020. However, the federal government will only receive from that industry some $800 million in revenues at that time, when of course in Qatar there's some $26.6 billion being received. I'm not saying that we should compare ourselves to Qatar in many other areas, but the point that's being made on the arrangements around the world is that there are legitimate issues to be discussed. That's why Labor's saying that we will legislate to establish a mandatory extractive industries transparency scheme and we will require large Australian extractive companies to disclose payments arising from any activity, including exploration and production. That regime will be on a project-by-project basis. The payments to be disclosed will include taxation on income and production, and profits of companies on royalties and dividends.
Labor does support improvements in the taxation transparency of extractive industries, but this bill is not the right way to go about it. We have to appreciate in relation to company tax and the petroleum resources rent tax that the ATO already publishes comprehensive taxpayer data on an annual basis. The proposals contained in the bill will add a further layer of regulatory reporting to this industry. We don't support a two-tiered system where offshore gas and oil companies are under a different obligation to disclose their payments to government than their onshore counterparts and other onshore resources companies generally. If you're going to have these sorts of changes it is only reasonable that you discuss the questions with the industry itself. After all, it is incredibly important that we are able to sustain supply and investment to this industry and to sustain the jobs, the skills formation, that we need to sustain the prosperity of the nation.
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association has noted that a significant proportion of the estimated $35 billion in liquefied natural gas exports referenced in this bill are sourced from onshore projects that are not covered by the scope of the bill. These resources are developed under state legislation. Hence, the bill will adopt a distorted, two-tiered system. The association also points out that industry is nearing the end of a significant phase of the investment cycle, with all large gas projects needing many years before investors achieve a positive return. The whole issue of the profitability of the industry needs to be considered in that context.
What we have here is a very poorly considered and poorly developed proposal based on a profound ignorance of how the industry actually operates. We can't possibly support that. We won't be able to support that. There hasn't been the consultation, it would seem, that would actually render a scheme in place that would make sense economically. What we have here is a misunderstanding of the role of the Taxation Office, and of the significant powers the Taxation Office has to ensure that companies are paying the correct amount of tax.
There is not a weak taxation system operating in this country. We have to actually make sure that the powers of the Taxation Office are in fact used or enforced. There are many reasons to think that some corporations should pay more tax than they do at present, but that's an entirely separate question from these heavy-handed blunt instruments that are being deployed in the bill that is before the chamber. At the recent Senate hearings, the ATO indicated the overall level of tax compliance by the corporate sector in Australia was actually relatively high. In addition, the ATO directly engaged with all large entities in the oil and gas industry on a one-on-one basis to ensure the ATO understands the individual circumstances of each company and the likely taxpaying profiles of each of the companies.
The data presented in the second reading speech in relation to these certain companies includes non-oil and non-gas data. It either misunderstands what is represented as oil and gas revenue or deliberately overstates the amounts to make a political point. The vast majority of Origin and ExxonMobil's revenue relates to downstream or utility operations. It has nothing to do with their offshore oil and gas operations—another example of how this bill has been ill conceived. The offshore exploration in Australia is, in fact, at a two-decade low. Aspects of the bill in terms of the reporting of commercially sensitive information—of course, with the inference here being threats to tenures—will further exacerbate challenges with exploration in offshore areas. I say that in the context where the minister has just launched a review on the 'use it or lose it' principle in Bass Strait—a measure, as I say, undertaken with the Victorian government. There are other ways of actually achieving changes to the industry to secure more gas development through conventional means. This measure doesn't do that.
The retention lease provisions in the act are an integral part of the overall offshore acreage management framework, and we have to actually understand how that scheme currently operates. Making changes to the provisions will compromise an acreage management model that has, in fact, served Australia well over many decades. The public release of the reserve or resources data will place explorers and producers at a competitive disadvantage in terms of the commercial negotiations with customers. That, to me, is a matter that ought to be taken very seriously. It will also mean that entities that are unwilling to commit the funds to explore will have a further incentive to sit back and wait for the results of activities undertaken by genuine parties who are actually seeking to develop resources.
Significant amendments to the secrecy provisions pertaining to the tax information will need to be made to other parts of the legislative framework, including the income tax act, the petroleum resources rent tax legislation and various state legislation, to ensure that companies are not operating in a manner inconsistent with other tax provisions. Forecasting future revenue payments from petroleum projects or businesses is impractical, as there are numerous metrics which will need to have an impact on future revenues and cost.
The global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, for which Australia is pursuing candidacy, is seeking to address a number of the issues raised in this bill on a voluntary basis, with input from various third-party or civil-society representatives. That process seeks to ensure that information released publicly is meaningful and comprehensive and, at the same time, respects the confidentiality of genuinely commercially sensitive data. The approach adopted by this bill is a crash-through, or rather a crash and burn, approach.
The bill also requires offshore resources companies to provide the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator with estimates about the size and value of resources within varying licensing areas. Offshore resources companies already provide this information to the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator. This information is available to government. In order to develop the information, offshore resources companies have to invest a lot of money in exploration and research. This is genuinely commercially sensitive information. It is critical to raising the funds necessary to actually develop the resource. Releasing it creates an unfair advantage for competitors.
It's a very bad idea to undermine the commercial viability of our extractive industries. This bill is another example where One Nation simply fails to grasp the basic economic realities of the way in which industry and resources policy actually works. It might be the case that the petroleum industry is an easy target, but these are problems that do require a proper and comprehensive assessment by grown-ups. This government used to talk about how they were going to be the grown-ups government. You would have expected that these sorts of measures would be rejected comprehensively by this parliament.
The government has done nothing to address the problems created by the high price of gas in the domestic market. What the government tries to do is jawbone the resources sector rather than deal with the fundamental problems of market failure. I'm particularly concerned about the impact that the high cost of energy is having on manufacturers, particularly the larger manufacturers who are creating such significant numbers of manufacturing jobs. Manufacturers of heavy consumer goods are extraordinarily susceptible to gas and electricity price volatility. That's especially the case in metals, food, plastics, chemicals and cement.
Historically, Australia has had relatively high costs in manufacturing but has enjoyed the benefits of the resources sector and the supply of lower-cost energy. We're not enjoying that at the moment. Those advantages have gone. We simply can't afford to ignore these questions. On the one hand, we cannot ignore the questions of energy security, particularly on the question of dispatchable supply and affordability. That will become the single biggest policy failure in the future of manufacturing in the country. On the other hand, we simply can't have a resources industry that treats workers as badly as it does, too.
The dispute with Esso in Bass Strait has seen a lockout there going on for so long. Esso has sought to take away the entitlements and force a 30 per cent pay cut on its workers, which demonstrates that this is an industry that does need to recognise its social and economic responsibilities as well. That will not happen by adopting these ill-considered measures such as those being advanced by One Nation. This is financial illiteracy; these are measures that are politically irresponsible. These are measures that would cause great harm to the future economic welfare of this nation.
The Labor Party will not be able to support the bill. We recognise the question of the future of resources sector is a matter of political importance, is a matter this parliament should take very seriously. That's why the Labor Party will be announcing future measures in this area. That's why the Labor Party does take these matters so seriously, but we will do it on the basis of proper consultation with the industry and on the basis of ensuring that we can make sure that the prosperity of the industry is able to be sustained.
I join with Labor in opposing this senator's proposed amendments to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act. In doing so, I join with Senator Carr in acknowledging that the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018 is ill conceived and does not go anywhere near addressing some of the issues that need to be addressed when we talk about the extraction industry. Looking at transparency in particular, Labor has a better way, a better plan, and one that, of course, would be wholly consulted with by industry.
The first point to address when we look at the bill before us today is it was developed without any consultation with the opposition. If I could offer any advice to the senator, it would be that, when you bring forth a private senator's bill, one thing that is worth doing is talking to the parties in this place that you wish to get support from for that bill. Whether it be the government, the opposition or some of the other crossbench senators and minor parties, you would think you would talk with all, if not at least more than half, of them if you wanted to get your bill through the Senate. However, there has been absolutely no word from the senator to the opposition regarding consulting with us on this particular bill.
Further, the senator has also not consulted with industry. If you're going to bring a bill into this parliament to change a particular industry, you would think that the party and the senator in question would pick up the phone or even write a letter or an email—anything—to inform that industry of their intentions and what it is they're trying to change in the industry to somehow make that industry better, if that is the intention. But that's not what's occurred here. The result, as Senator Carr said, is very much a blunt instrument that shows a lack of understanding of how Australia's offshore resources industry works, how our tax system collects revenue from such an industry and what the role of the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator is. These are fundamental issues that must be addressed but are simply lacking in this particular piece of legislation.
This bill would require offshore resource companies to provide information that either doesn't exist to start with or can't be provided because the tax is paid on a licence basis. What is this party trying to achieve in bringing forth amendments of this kind that require such information? Does it even understand what it's trying to achieve? It seems to me that the information it's trying to extract through this legislation is impractical, and any information provided would prove to be useless and unreliable because income tax is paid on a company level and the petroleum resource rent tax is paid on a project level. The key point that Senator Carr highlighted in his contribution was that tax is not levied at a licence level.
I also note that licence fees, which the bill seeks to make public, are already published by the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator. This bill also seeks information about royalties and tax paid on revenue earned by retention leases, but a retention lease is not a resource that is producing revenue. In many cases, the resource might never become economical to develop. A retention lease seeks to retain an asset whilst doing work to make the development stack up. Companies do not pay royalties or tax on retention leases. Again, I think this shows a lack of understanding as to how the industry operates and what its requirements are from government. Under a retention lease, there is nothing to pay royalty taxes on. On top of these awkward requirements in this strange amendment, the bill would also force this information to be provided to and published by the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator. But, again, I think this demonstrates a real failure to understand the role of the Commonwealth's Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator.
I'm not sure what the senator was trying to achieve, but if it was transparency, Labor supports tax transparency. We very much support tax transparency for our extractive industries, and we have been highlighting that for some time now. My colleagues in the other place highlighted in great detail last year—and I'll go into some of that shortly—some of the areas where Labor would propose a plan to ensure tax transparency in the extractive industry, but this is not the right way to go about achieving that. We certainly don't support this two-tiered system where offshore gas and oil companies are under a different obligation to disclose their payments to government than their onshore counterparts, for example, and other onshore resources companies generally. It's just ludicrous to have two different arrangements for the one industry.
This bill would also require offshore resources companies to provide the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator with estimates of the size and value of resources within varying licence areas. I understand this information is already provided and is available to government. We need to consider the fact that offshore resources companies have invested a lot of money in exploration and research. This is very commercially sensitive information. Releasing it would, in some senses, create an unfair advantage for their competitors and make it harder to develop resources in the future. Indeed, it could damage the industry.
Having said that, I want to go to this issue of transparency, which is something that Labor is very much a strong supporter of and has been highlighting as a way forward. I think that the senator could actually learn something from Labor's approach, because our approach, as an alternative government, is very well considered and researched and we have consulted. Our approach is based on the betterment of our country, for the industry and for those people affected.
I want to share with the Senate a contribution that was made by the member for Kingsford Smith, Matt Thistlethwaite MP, when he addressed an ACFID, Australian Council for International Development, conference, which goes to the heart of what I think is important when we talk about the extractive industry and when we talk about transparency. I'll start with what he highlighted. He talked about a town called Komo in Papua New Guinea's Hela province. In that town, there is a newly built hospital that has never been used. It has no beds, no staff and no electricity. Around the hospital is the Asia-Pacific's largest gas extraction project, a $19 billion Exxon Mobil and Oil Search joint venture LNG project. Proponents of this project promised it would improve the living standards of local communities, transform the PNG economy and boost GDP. But none of this has occurred. Just recently, the PNG project reached record productive capacity of 7.9 million barrels of oil equivalent in the period of three months up to October last year, with work to expand the project ongoing.
As we know, many of the world's poorest nations are endowed with minerals and resources of significant market value that are being developed by multinational corporations and governments. But, despite many years of extraction of these resources, the populations of many of these countries remain some of the poorest people in the world. They suffer, in that sense, from resource curse. Many of our neighbours in the region, including Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Nauru, have multibillion dollar resource projects operated by foreign multinational corporations, yet these nations are failing to meet many of the Sustainable Development Goals, and their economic growth is fairly inequitable. So the extraction and development of these resources offers an opportunity for the governments of developing nations to grow their national income and improve the living standards of their citizens. That's what needs to happen. That's why the lack of transparency around the extractive industry is an issue that has been identified not just by many in Australia but by many in the international community. Indeed, the World Bank plays a key role in implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the EITI, which promotes good governance and accountability in the use of mining revenue in resource-rich countries. This is incredibly important.
Currently, in Australia, Australian companies simply do not meet world's best practice for transparency and accountability in extractive projects. That is why Labor are determined to change this and why we have a plan, which I think the senator who brought this ill-conceived amendment into this place could learn from. What we've learned so far is that the Abbott and Turnbull governments have been proven unwilling to tackle corruption or to promote transparencies in the extractive industries. Labor has consistently been one step in front of the government on this issue of tax transparency to ensure that large Australian resource companies are good corporate citizens and maintain accounting and transparency systems which combat corruption.
A Shorten Labor government will legislate to establish a mandatory extractive industries transparency scheme. Our policy will require large Australian extractive companies to disclose payments arising from any activity involving exploration, prospection, discovery, development, or extraction. Disclosure under this regime will be on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis so that payments to be disclosed will include taxes on income; royalties; dividends; signature discovery and production bonuses; fees, including licence fees, rental fees and entry fees; and payments for infrastructure improvements and production entitlements. These are the sorts of things that we need to ensure have transparency and that we stamp out corruption in our extraction industry, not the sorts of things that have been brought forward in this amendment by the senator from the PHON party. These are the sorts of things that will make a difference to the Australian extractive industry and to those neighbouring Pacific island nations that are deemed to benefit from their resources, from Australian companies and from Australian governance.
Our policy means that payments must be disclosed if they are made to any national, regional or local authority of a country, including a department, agency, or state-owned enterprise. Disclosure under this regime should also apply to large extractive companies in Australia—so, a levelling playing field, the same rules, not two different tiered approaches like we have seen put forward in this ill-conceived amendment. A large company shall be defined as a company that meets at least two of the three following criteria: a balance sheet total exceeding $50 million, net turnover on balance sheet date exceeding $100 million and the average number of employees in the financial year to which the balance sheet relates exceeding 250. This scheme has, of course, been costed. We have done our homework. It has been costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office at $2.2 million over the election forward estimates and is fully offset. It is also consistent with Australia's national action plan for open government and complementary to the EITI, to which I referred earlier in my contribution, that the World Bank refers to. This mandatory reporting regime for extractive industries will increase the availability of verifiable disaggregated information from company financial reports regarding payments made to governments, and that information would build public accountability, and it would build public trust in governments and in companies.
There is more to our approach that I could go on with, but I want to use the last part of my time to highlight what Labor has done and has put forward, and compare that to not only the difference that the senator's amendment makes, which will be highlighted in this bill—which I hope I've already done—but also what we have currently under this government. What we have currently under this government is a policy vacuum. It is a policy vacuum on energy at every single level, whether we look at it from the extractive industry level, from the gas industry level or, today, from the renewable industry level. This government is in such a terrible state. It is in a complete shambles. I will highlight gas for the moment. This is a government that promised to bring down gas prices, yet the ACCC chair, Rod Sims, has described the gas market as unsustainable. When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had the chance to take real action on tackling the gas crisis and impose export controls, he instead chose an unenforceable handshake agreement with the big gas exporters. And where has that ended up? Well, the gas crisis isn't over for the Prime Minister, nor is it over for Australian households and Australian manufacturers who are paying the cost day in, day out. Workers are also paying that price. So it is time that the Prime Minister admitted, firstly, that his handshake agreement on the gas crisis did not solve the gas crisis; it just confirmed that he's always looking after the big end of town.
On top of that, we've had the National Energy Guarantee, which, basically, is not a guarantee at all. The Prime Minister has had a second policy reset in as little as four days. This Prime Minister is all over the place. Firstly, he wants to take the Paris Agreement out of legislation and put it into regulation. That was yesterday. Today—I heard this morning—he doesn't want to have a target set at all, whether it be in legislation or regulation. Basically, Malcolm Turnbull will lie on the floor and let his backbench colleagues walk all over him. He will do anything to save his leadership. He does not care about the future of energy in this country and what it means for households. He has no plan for the future, because he continues to change his plan within 24 hours or less. Australians know what the future holds under this Turnbull government, and that is instability, policy vacuum, higher household energy prices and no way of looking to the future to ensure our children and our children's children will have a future with a reduced carbon emissions set.
Senator Hanson, are you rising to contribute to the debate?
Mr Acting Deputy President, I would like to move that the second reading debate be adjourned.
Senator Hanson, note that there are other senators in the chamber who wish to contribute to the debate. If you follow that procedure, you will shut down debate on this issue.
I move:
That the debate be adjourned.
Senator Collins?
Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, it's unfortunate that an adjournment motion should be moved at this stage. I understand the particular difficulty for you, because you were on the speaking list following the Labor speaker but have now been called into the chair. But I understand the procedural issues involved. It's worth highlighting the point that the speakers list in this debate needs to encompass all of the parties that wish to make a contribution before a matter like this is adjourned.
Thank you, Senator Collins. That is noted. It's not a point of order but it is noted. Senator Georgiou.
A point of order: there would have been enough time for everyone in this debate to speak. We had a gentlemen's agreement with Labor to keep the debates at 10 minutes each, which they obviously didn't follow.
That's not a point of order either, Senator Georgiou, but once again it's noted. A point of order, Senator Collins?
I didn't want to extend this discussion, but I need to, in the strongest of terms, highlight there was no gentlemen's agreement in relation to this issue.
Okay, so we have that on record. Senator Smith?
Was there a gentlemen-women's agreement—a gentlewomen's agreement?
That's also not a point of order, but that is well noted. Thank you, Senator Smith.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Hanson be agreed to.
I rise this morning to contribute to this debate on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018, which has been brought on by the One Nation party. I had the opportunity to have a look at Senator Georgiou's second reading speech in relation to this matter. Senator Georgiou in his second reading speech makes reference to countries such as Canada, the UK and the EU, who have already forced multinational companies like Chevron and Exxon to report on payments to the respective governments as well as production levels, and says that Australia would be bringing ourselves into line with such countries if we were to support this legislation. If we really wanted to be fair dinkum about transparency, we should be looking at the issue of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. This particular bill before the chamber is a ham-fisted approach to deal with this issue. It deals with only a small part of the overall issue of transparency, and the One Nation party would be better advised to get on board with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in the same way that Labor has. I will talk about that in more detail later.
Another pointer to the fact that this is not a fair dinkum attempt to address the issue is the fact that the bill has been developed without proper consultation with the industry. I know Senator Georgiou has a personal interest in this issue. I've followed some of his questioning in the course of estimates proceedings and I understand his concern and I understand where he's coming from on the issue of retention leases being held and no activity. But, unfortunately, this policy is not well considered, and it could well be argued that this is yet another attempt by the One Nation party to tap into an issue which has some broad community interest and support, but they've come up with a response which just doesn't do the job. Unfortunately, this doesn't stop the government from doing deals with Senator Hanson, and I will talk about that a bit later on—preference deals that have been done at election time, and deals on legislation in this house. We know that some discussions took place on the petroleum resource rent tax in relation to deals on company tax cuts, but there's been a backflip from One Nation in relation to that.
This is a government which relies on the One Nation party to force through its ideological agenda. Given the fact that we see Senator Hanson's propensity to change her mind again and again on different issues, whether you're looking at attacks on penalty rates or other issues, is it any wonder this government is relying on One Nation, and is it any wonder that this government is in disarray and chaos as we speak? I wonder if Mr Dutton will be as eager to deal with Senator Hanson when he takes over as leader of the government. What I can say is that Labor will not be doing deals with Senator Hanson at election time, and we will not support legislation that cuts out industry consultation.
The petroleum resource rent tax and other taxes that apply to the extractive industries are highly complex. It is a legitimate matter for public interest and public concern and it deserves a well-considered policy response. Unfortunately, the bill before us is nothing like that. We will not support this type of legislation, these types of stunts. Senator Hanson likes to talk the talk when it comes to cracking down on corporate tax dodgers, and she might think of this as one way to go about it, but we know that this is a stunt.
This bill reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the way our tax system works, how revenue is collected, how the role of the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator operates and how the offshore resources industry works. NOPTA, as it's called, is a titles administrator. It is not equipped to report on these types of issues. There are a range of shortcomings in the bill, which have already been dealt with by some of my colleagues. I don't want to dwell on that or duplicate many of the arguments that have been used, but I think it is worth repeating that the bill would require offshore resources companies to provide information that either doesn't exist or can't be provided, such as information about tax paid on a licence-by-licence basis. We know that we don't have information being collected on that basis. Licence fees, which the bill seeks to make public, are already published by the Commonwealth offshore titles administrator, and the bill would seek information about royalties and tax paid on revenue earned by retention leases. As has been previously indicated, a retention lease, by definition, is not a resource that's producing revenue, and in many instances it might never become economic to develop it. It's a lease that's there to retain an asset whilst doing the work to make the development stack up, so companies don't pay royalties or tax on retention leases because there's nothing to pay royalties or tax on. This, I think, is a pretty fundamental example of the nature of the bill in that it's ill considered. Once again it demonstrates a real failure to understand the role of the offshore titles administrator. It's interesting that this bill would extend NOPTA's power beyond the powers that are currently held by the ATO. The titles administrator is not the appropriate place for this function to be located; it quite clearly should be a responsibility of the ATO. They are clearly best placed to collect and report that information. But, as I've said, we do support greater transparency, and I will talk more about that later.
Whilst this government is busy tearing itself apart, the One Nation party is taking advantage of that, and Labor is getting on with the job. Unlike the One Nation party, we listen to industry. We actively consult with industry. We are on the ground, developing policies that will work, like the extractive industries disclosure regime. We support greater tax transparency not just for the extractive industry but for all industries. But we don't support a two-tiered system, and it's another shortcoming of this bill that it seeks to treat offshore companies in a different way to onshore extractive industries. That's a distinction that we don't support. We are going to crack down on corporate tax dodging across all industries, but, again, this particular bill is not the right way to go about it. Our alternative approach is the extractive industries disclosure regime. This policy includes both large oil and gas companies—as well as mining companies—and it's a much more comprehensive approach than that which is set out in this proposed legislation.
Our approach derives from the global Publish What You Pay initiative, which was launched in 2002 in the United Kingdom by civil society organisations. Many governments, including the European Union, the UK and Canada, have all enacted legislation requiring the disclosure of payments to governments by extractive industries companies. I think that, in his way, Senator Georgiou was alluding to this in his second reading speech, but, as I've indicated earlier, the approach that this One Nation bill takes is ham-fisted, and it doesn't take a holistic approach to the issue. The extractive industries payment disclosure regime aims to encourage financial transparency in the extractive industries by placing rules and regulations on oil, gas and mining.
This is a really important initiative for many of the world's poorest nations that may well happen to be endowed with minerals and resources of significant market value which are being developed by multinational corporations and governments. Despite years of mining and development in some of these very poor nations around the world, they are not benefiting as fully as they could. Senator Singh referred to Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. These countries have multibillion dollar resource projects that are operated by multinational companies, yet these are the nations that are continuing to fall short of Millennium Development Goals and equitable economic growth.
It should also be said that this lack of transparency has the other effect of sheltering corruption. What we are trying to see is a situation where countries receive a fair return for their commodities so they can build the infrastructure and institutions that they need to support sustainable economic growth.
This is not the first foray that Labor have made into this area of tax transparency. We have also announced our tax haven transparency package and multinational tax avoidance measures, which we've indicated are going to improve our budget bottom line by $5.4 billion over the decade by ensuring big corporates no longer get a free pass to sail through the LNP government's tax loopholes. Those are the sorts of things which this particular bill says that it's trying to address and purports to address, but, unfortunately, it falls well short of doing anything meaningful about them.
Labor have always been very clear about our plans to crack down on corporate tax dodgers. In contrast to the government's inertia and inaction, as well as One Nation's misguided attempts to increase company tax and royalty transparency and to crack down on multinational tax avoidance, we on our side have a strong suite of policy alternatives. As chair of the Senate Economics References Committee, I am proud of the work that we've done on this particular issue. Across the life of our Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance, we held 12 public hearings and received 167 submissions. So, on this issue, we have a strong history, both in government and in opposition.
The Economics References Committee's work on corporate tax avoidance, including an assessment of the PRRT, provides a much better and more comprehensive policy response than what both the government and One Nation have provided. The Senate committee report, which was issued in May of this year, contains a whole suite of recommendations, going to things such as making country-by-country reporting more publicly available and free of charge, and converting our existing voluntary tax transparency code to a mandatory code for all large and medium corporations operating in Australia, including subsidiaries of multinational corporations. We called on the government to finalise and release its response to the Callaghan report into the review of the petroleum resources rent tax, and we noted that that response is yet to be provided.
I want to talk further about the committee's report. In particular, I want to dwell on recommendation 3. The committee recommended that all companies with a total income equal to or exceeding $100 million for an income year be required to release tax information of the level specified in the Tax Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Act 2015. Let's not forget that coalition senators came out in support of this recommendation, which is in sharp contrast to the events of 2015 where the coalition disgracefully raised the threshold for private companies to $200 million, taking two-thirds of private firms out of the disclosure process. Labor voted against this measure—a vote that the coalition untruthfully misrepresent as opposing the multinational anti-avoidance law, which is not correct. This dodgy deal took two-thirds of private companies out of the spotlight and back into the darkness.
Recommendation 4 of the Senate inquiry report talked about having a public register of ultimate beneficial ownership that includes companies, trusts and other corporate structures. This is an important initiative to increase transparency and visibility in the sector. Recommendation 5 was that the government require all companies, trusts and other financial entities with income above a certain amount to lodge general purpose financial statements with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. All too often we're seeing special purpose reports being issued, which may well be within the law, but it certainly hinders the level of visibility and accountability of these companies.
I've talked about the country-by-country reporting. But, on the issue of loopholes, we have policies which go to thin capitalisation which are set out in recommendation 1 of that report. We recommend that those thin capitalisation rules be amended so that the worldwide gearing ratio is the only method by which interest-related deductions should be calculated for the purpose of tax treatment in Australia.
On the issue of transfer pricing—this is another really important area for public scrutiny—our committee recommended that the government undertake an independent review into the detriment to Australian tax revenue that arises from the current tax transfer pricing regime and explore options to modify the rules to ensure multinational enterprises make the appropriate contribution to Australian tax revenue.
We also inquired into the effectiveness of the PRRT, as I've mentioned, and we had companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and others appear before the committee. While we're talking about those particular companies—and I know that Senator Georgiou has raised those two companies as examples—there are a range of issues that we should be looking at. Arising out of our Senate hearing in Melbourne, back in March of this year, we know that ExxonMobil has said it will not pay corporate tax in Australia until 2021. That might be the state of the law at the moment, but it certainly is an issue that the average person in the street finds very difficult to understand. It's very hard to defend a multinational company that is making a lot of revenue in this country but not contributing to the Commonwealth coffers so that we can pay for the hospitals and provide the services to ordinary Australians that are required.
At the same time, we know that within ExxonMobil we have harsh labour practices going on. I took the opportunity to visit the Longford site, where there is a long-running dispute. The workers there were put onto a substandard agreement that cut their pay by 30 per cent, reduced allowances, reduced annual leave and significantly cut loadings. Workers there are refusing to accept the 30 per cent pay cut. These are the sorts of practices that are going on. There's a need to change the rules in this regard, and these companies should be held to account.
In conclusion, it is clear this week that the government is in absolute chaos. I urge the senators left in the One Nation party to have a good look at our policy. (Time expired)
Senator Whish-Wilson. Sorry, Senator Whish-Wilson—on a point of order, Senator Hanson.
A point of order—I stood first.
Honourable senators interjecting—
I have a speakers list in front of me, Senator Hanson, and your name appears nowhere. Senator Whish-Wilson follows Senator Ketter. Senator Whish-Wilson, you have the call.
I'm moving a point of order.
What is your point of order?
My point of order is that I want the call to move that the second reading debate be adjourned.
You've already had one go at it, and your motion was defeated. Senator Whish-Wilson, you have the call.
I was going to make a point of order that I thought I was on my feet first, if that helps. In rising to debate this private members' bill, Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018, I'd like to start by reflecting on the great work that this chamber has done on corporate tax avoidance and on tax justice and tax transparency, and I do mean that genuinely, in a 'tripartisan'—if that's the right word—spirit. Senators of all colours in here have worked very hard in recent years to try and improve corporate tax transparency.
I note with some pride and satisfaction that it was my colleague ex-Senator Milne that initiated the first Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance, back in 2014. A number of senators, including myself and others in this chamber, had been lobbied quite hard and extensively by various groups to have this Senate inquiry. Tax Justice Network was one of them. Another one was Micah Challenge, and some fantastic advocates out there for tax justice. Tax justice, tax equality and transparency are absolutely critical, not only to general economic wellbeing in this country but some of the critical issues that we debate in this place, like inequality. Getting the big corporations to pay their fair share of tax, to stop rorting the system, is not only absolutely fundamental for fairness and justice but it's exactly what the Australian people want their representatives in parliament to do. They want us to stand in here, they want us to review the laws and they want us to change the laws and make sure we crack down on dodgy tax rorts.
One of the biggest tax rorts we have in this country, which we have had numerous debates on but have failed to reach an agreement on, is the petroleum resource rent tax, the PRRT. I like to call it the petroleum 'rort' rent tax, because that's exactly what it is. Some of the biggest, most powerful, most profitable companies on the planet—and I'm talking about the big oil and gas companies, like ExxonMobil and Chevron; they're all thrown into the mix—extract resources that are owned by the Australian people and pay bugger-all for them; in fact, they pay virtually nothing for the resources. It's an input into their production. That input is owned by the Australian people, yet we get nothing back from these companies. In theory they should be paying some kind of royalty based on the value of those resources to the Australian people and they should be paying corporate tax. As we discovered in the inquiry—as Senator Ketter rightly said, he chaired the Senate Economics Committee inquiry into the petroleum resource rent tax—the Greens initiated that inquiry but Labor chaired it. We discovered that a number of these companies actually don't pay income tax either. In fact, while the committee proceedings were underway, the Australian Taxation Office took Chevron to the Supreme Court and then the High Court to make sure that they paid their fair share of tax in their crackdown on tax loops, such as transfer pricing.
Why is it important that we fix the petroleum resource rent tax? There are two fundamental reasons. One Nation are in here to represent the first reason. That is, it's just not fair that some of the wealthiest, biggest corporations on the planet aren't paying their fair share of tax, especially when the average Australian has to pay their tax and has to pay it on time, and if they don't then woe to them. As we know, the Australian Taxation Office will crack down on them. It seems fundamentally unfair. There is no justice at all in the fact that because you're powerful, because you can employ the best lawyers and have millions and billions of dollars at your disposal you can somehow rig the system—and, may I say, a totally imperfect system, a system that's too easily rigged. That's another issue we have to address. We have to change some of the laws around these things to stop corporations getting away with unethical behaviour.
The first fundamental reason is that we need justice. We need everybody to pay their fair share and we need a system of changes to our existing laws and regulations that will enable that to occur. That's bloody hard in a place like this when some vested interests that don't want the system changed are in here lobbying and donating to big political parties to make sure we don't get changes. That's also part of the rigged system. We call it the special interests effect: once again the rich and powerful have the means at their disposal to come in here and make sure they get what they want and your average punter on the street doesn't.
Let me tell you what the second fundamental reason is that we need to fix the petroleum resource rent tax. We discovered this during the inquiry, and it became really obvious to me when we heard from a number of witnesses, including Dr Craig Emerson, who was the architect of the petroleum resource rent tax. This tax enables the extraction of marginal resources. It is the tail wagging the dog in terms of oil and gas and energy in this country. We heard from a number of submitters, including directly from the horse's mouth, the big companies themselves, that, if we change the petroleum resource rent tax system, their projects would not be viable. I thought, 'Is that just corporate BS and spin?' It turns out that they actually have a point. A number of these projects are almost suboptimal, and, if it weren't for our extremely generous tax system, especially the concessions they get, they wouldn't be out there exploring for that oil and gas.
The Labor Party has made its position on this very clear this morning, and I know the Liberal-National Party have made their position very clear. They want to support oil and gas and the hydrocarbon industry, but it wouldn't surprise anyone in this chamber if I said the Greens don't. We don't want to see any more extraction under massive trillion-dollar projects that pollute our planet. It's as simple as that. We know that, with political conviction, we can move to 100 per cent renewable energy in this country. We just need to get on with it. In fact, in 2010, the Greens, working with Labor, did bring in the gold standard with the clean energy package. And, as we know, the human wrecking ball, Mr Tony Abbott, destroyed the clean energy package, just like he, sadly, destroyed marine protections that passed this Senate last week. So we're back to the drawing board.
We find today, given the current chaos within the LNP, the Liberal-National Party, that it looks like our Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, is going to walk away from any kind of policy on energy and tackling climate change. So we've had absolutely no progress on tackling what is arguably the biggest issue and the biggest challenge of our generation, which is reducing emissions and tackling global warming. That's extremely relevant to this debate today. If we want to hold big corporations to account, if we want tax transparency, we need to understand why the government are so stuck in their position, why they've ignored the recommendations of the Callaghan review and refused to change, even at the edges, any part of the petroleum resource rent tax system. Their own independent inquiry has recommended those changes, but what they've done is just kick the can down the road. They haven't even changed some of the uplift rates.
Let me tell Australians this. If you're an offshore oil and gas company, you can claim your exploration expenditure at an uplift rate of 15 per cent per annum. If you go out and spend $5 billion exploring the Great Australian Bight, the value of those tax credits is uplifted at 15 per cent per annum indefinitely. For the expenditure on your oil and gas fields while they're operating, it's five per cent per annum plus the bond rate and 15 per cent for exploration plus the bond rate plus your decommissioning costs. And, if you spill oil while you're exploring—like, sadly, we have seen off north-west WA, and we've seen some terrible examples of it in the Gulf of Mexico—guess what? That's tax deductible too, and it's uplifted at 15 per cent. Where companies have multiple projects and can actually transfer these tax credits between projects, the Australian taxpayer, the public, are incentivising these companies. We are giving money to some of the biggest, wealthiest corporations. And it is actually what the system is designed to do. It's fundamentally set up that way. So it's not illegal. It might sound bloody unethical, but it is not illegal. It is the law, and it's been deliberately written so that big corporations, the dirtiest polluters on the planet, some of the biggest tax dodgers on the planet, some of the wealthiest companies on the planet—which, as Senator Ketter said earlier, treat their workers like crap—are being incentivised because we won't change the petroleum resource rent tax system in this country.
I don't know if senators are aware what those current tax offsets, those tax credits, are worth to these big polluters, these big wealthy companies. Last time I checked, in 2009, when we looked at their total tax offsets, they had $9 billion, and that rolled over into 2010-11. That's $9 billion of tax offsets. In other words, they don't have to pay tax. It's $279 billion in the last 10 years. That's how much tax they haven't had to pay thanks to this system that's set up to incentivise and encourage big oil and gas companies to go out and extract uneconomic hydrocarbons in risky areas like the Great Australian Bight. Deepwater Horizon comes to mind. The Great Australian Bight has some of the deepest oil exploration waters on the planet and some of the roughest oceans. Believe me, I like those oceans being rough. It means big swells in places like Tasmania and Victoria. I have seen what the Southern Ocean can dish up. It has some of the most marginal conditions on the planet for oil and gas exploration, yet we are incentivising these companies to come in and explore—because of this tax system.
If we want to tackle climate change; if we want future generations to have what we've had; if we don't want to see the planet burn, sea levels rise, oceans acidify and the Great Barrier Reef gone within our lifetimes, which is a very real proposition; if we don't want to see longer droughts and more suffering for our rural communities; if we don't want to see damage to our fishery industries like we have seen in Tasmania to rock lobster, abalone and aquaculture from warming waters in the ocean and viruses and pests that bring about the loss of jobs and export growth; if we actually care about our planet then we need to crack down on this tax rort today. But we can't do that in this bill.
This bill encourages more transparency, and so we applaud the intent of this bill. We will support anything that makes this industry more transparent. What we need to do is remove the concessions in the petroleum resource rent tax that allow these ridiculous amounts of tax offsets to build. It wouldn't surprise me if these were a trillion dollars in 10 years time. We need to put in place a royalty floor, a platform, so that we are guaranteed every year to get money back from these big polluters and big wealthy companies that aren't paying for their resources. That's why the Greens have called for a couple of things.
We want to change the uplift rates in the petroleum resource rent tax. We want to remove decommissioning costs as a deductible expense against the petroleum resource rent tax. We want a flat 10 per cent royalty rate on the wellhead value of all offshore oil and gas projects. We've had this costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office. This would be allowed to be expensed against the petroleum resource rent tax liability, so big companies could expense this. It would bring in about $1.4 billion in revenue every year to the Australian people. It would be collected from these companies, and there would be nothing they could do about it. We have submitted a number of these costings and we will be releasing them over time. This is the kind of reform that the Australian people want to see. Nobody out there believes this petroleum resource rent tax is a good thing, unless you are in the pocket of a lobbyist or unless you are taking donations from big oil and gas companies to give them what they want in this place. Nobody out there believes this is the right thing. They want to see tax justice.
I can tell you that the momentum is building across this country, as it is across this planet, to get politicians, to get the political class, to get parliamentarians, to act on climate and reducing emissions. While we speak now, plans are still underway to explore the Great Australian Bight. Companies are taking new seismic tests off Commonwealth waters around King Island in Tasmania, for example. I've been approached by the rock lobster industry and other industries to make sure that there is a proper approval process. At this stage, they feel what they're going through with NOPSEMA is a box-ticking exercise. There is a considerable amount of new science—and I've no doubt it wasn't paid for by the fishing industry, like so much fishery science is in this country—which is showing that seismic testing does have an impact on marine life and on commercial fisheries. There are a lot of things that tie back to changing the rort that is the petroleum resource rent tax. While we're there, there are many other things we actually need to do to fix our tax justice system.
The Greens went to the last federal election with a very comprehensive policy around tax justice. We've recently managed to secure, in this place, an increase in transparency through a private member's bill for tax disclosure. We've put up amendments to other tax bills to try and improve tax transparency, and we have seen the MAAL bill—which passed in this place—have some impact on clawing back billions of dollars of revenue from big corporations that haven't been paying their fair share of tax. But we need to go much further. We need to either ban shell companies altogether, as there's a push on in the US to do, or at least start with a beneficial ownership register of these shell companies, which are used so effectively to avoid paying tax. It interested me to read in an article the other day that Donald Trump has nearly 42 shell companies associated with his own business operations. We know these companies are used to dodge tax, and much, much worse. They're also used to launder money for organised crime, and so on and so forth. We need to know who owns these companies, or we need to ban them outright. While I respect there are some legitimate reasons for using tax havens, there aren't many good reasons. Mostly, they are used to avoid tax scrutiny. That's why they're called shadow jurisdictions.
The Greens would also like to see changes to transfer pricing, which we've raised in this place before, and we would like to see a comprehensive review of the system around our international treaties and obligations, and responses from the ATO working with countries or secrecy jurisdictions that won't share information.
All in all, the job's nowhere near done. There has been a lot of good work done in this chamber by a number of senators of all political colours, and I want to reflect on that today and put that on record. But it's not enough. If you actually want to make a difference then I and my party, the Greens, urge senators to consider restructuring real reform for the petroleum resource rent tax: crack down on the $279 billion of tax avoided by these companies. The system was set up in the 1980s for a totally different industry, an industry that was, essentially, petroleum and condensate; it wasn't set up for multibillion- and trillion-dollar offshore oil and gas developments. It's too complex, it doesn't work, it has no transparency, and it is fundamentally unfair that these companies can avoid paying what they owe the Australian people. Any other industry that buys inputs into its production, like things to make bricks, has to pay for that. Why is it that these resource companies don't have to pay for the resources that are owned by the Australian people?
While we're at it, we can actually do something to help the planet. We can make sure that the tax system isn't incentivising companies to go and explore marginal petroleum and gas that is not needed on this planet any more. We need to be moving away from our reliance on fossil fuels. We need to be going to a future that's 100 per cent renewable. If we don't, not only will we not meet our Paris targets, which are nowhere near good enough, but we will continue to see this planet change in our own lifetimes. It is happening right before our eyes now. It is happening in the oceans, and it is happening on land. It is changing. We have a massive moral obligation to do everything we possibly can to move to a different future for future generations. I urge senators to have a very close look at the Greens' proposal to put a 10 per cent flat royalty rate in for oil and gas.
I would like to use some of the time for this debate on the very important issues proposed by Senator Georgiou in the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018 to respond to concerns about how this bill is being considered during private senators' business. Senator Hanson moved an adjournment of the debate previously. People looking at the red for today will see that there were three bills listed upon the red. Senator Georgiou suggested—I would assert falsely—that there was a gentlemen's agreement as to how we would proceed today. I hope that, in managing this very important time, we will be able to move beyond what happened today. For instance, I highlight for the chamber that it looks very likely that opposition time for today won't be proceeded with either. But I think it's important that I highlight where some of the issues or problems in the consideration of this bill have occurred.
A week ago, as the opposition understands it, the first bill, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018, was the matter put forward by One Nation. It was subsequently proposed mid last week that that time be shared with a bill that was either about to be introduced or had only just been introduced, the Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018. Let me say very clearly from the outset: Labor is opposed to that bill. Anything I indicate now in relation to the procedural management of private senators' business should not take away from the very clear and simple fact that we are opposed to that bill. Senators will see from the vote on Senator Hanson's adjournment motion that even senators such as Senator Anning were opposed to us moving on to the next bill. We have before us on our benches a list of amendments proposed by Senator Anning that I suspect senators have barely had any time to digest, with respect to what they might propose to Senator Hanson's bill.
The point I make here, which these amendments highlight, is a point that I made privately to the crossbench meeting some time ago. Procedurally, when we moved to private senators' business on a Monday, the point was highlighted that we needed to ensure party rooms, particularly major party rooms—the opposition, the government and, indeed, the Greens—had an opportunity to deal with matters before they came before the Senate on a Monday. When private senators' business was previously listed on a Thursday, you could see what a matter was, you could prepare a submission to a party room, the party room then could consider such matters and senators would then be prepared for a subsequent debate on the Thursday. On this occasion, in relation to the second matter, the Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018, which was introduced by Senator Hanson last Thursday—
Senator Collins, one moment. Senator Hanson, a point of order?
My point of order is to draw it back to standing order 194: relevance.
I believe that's not a point of order, Senator Hanson. I think Senator Collins explained why she was making comments about your bill and the procedures.
If Senator Hanson wants me to go back again—indeed, we've spent quite a lot of private senators' time today on the first bill—I'm quite prepared to do that. But, given that she herself moved a motion which was to adjourn that bill, I'm surprised that she's making that point of order. Indeed, I'm surprised that she's seeking to limit the opposition's time to explain why her motion to adjourn that bill was opposed.
Why don't you be up-front? Why don't you be honest with the people? You don't want discussion. You don't want debate.
I know that Senator Hanson wasn't at the crossbench party room—if you could call it that—discussion when these issues were highlighted, but, if she wants to screech at the end of the chamber, let me go back to the other point, which was: had we proceeded in the way we should have, in an orderly way, we would indeed still be on the bill that she proposed and we would not have needed to deal with her subsequent proposal that we move to a very contentious bill, the Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018.
The opposition is opposed to that bill and is opposed to time in this debate being used to address that bill in a way that just screams slogans on this important issue. I was surprised that the government, given how things transpired last week in relation to race and migration issues, also were not opposed to adjourning debate on Senator Hanson's bill. I think the way that both the Senate and the House dealt with this issue last week was the way in which these matters should be addressed. Last week was a week where we saw this chamber and the parliament stand together against racism. We have a situation where the government now has supported a motion to bring on debate on a bill that would seek to divide our nation on the basis of race and religion.
Labor opposed that matter being brought on both because of the substantive issues and also because of the procedural issues. It was an inappropriate use of private senators' time. It takes agreement amongst all senators to manage limited time in this space. As it turns out, I suspect Labor have forgone our time today, in what was a lengthened debate, because the majority of the Senate did not want to move on to this second bill, which had been introduced to the chamber with insufficient time for senators to be satisfied with what was proceeding. That's not just Labor and that's not just the Greens; even Senator Anning, who has obviously put a lot of attention into this issue and circulated these amendments, was not happy for the debate to proceed without allowing adequate time to deal with these matters. This chamber cannot deteriorate into sloganising these important race issues.
I'm pleased that, when Senator Hanson moved that the first bill be adjourned to get to her matter, the Senate opposed it. I hope that in the future, though, in relation to private senators' time, we will by agreement amongst the various parties be able to manage better arrangements to deal with the timeslots allocated to each group. But, on this occasion, the first proposal was that the opposition not even have any time. The next proposal was that, yes, the opposition could have some time, but the Greens wouldn't have any time. It's not a surprise that the proposals to carve up time were opposed.
Senator Hanson, on a point of order?
My point of order is section 194 of the standing orders. This bill that we're discussing now is about offshore petroleum. Senator Collins has not raised that for the last eight minutes whatsoever.
I've already ruled on this. This is not a point of order. I will remind Senator Collins of the substantive matter of the debate, but she has outlined the context of why she's raising these issues.
I will use this opportunity to close my remarks. As I said at the outset, the matters raised by Senator Georgiou were very important matters. Had they proceeded in the way that Senator Georgiou had originally proposed, which was that they be allocated the full amount of time allocated to One Nation, then today's program would also have proceeded in an orderly way. Unfortunately, Senator Hanson played with these understandings and procedures with a stunt around her bill, and that compromised the Senate's consideration of this very important matter. I understand that other senators would also like to contribute in relation to Senator Georgiou's bill, but I think I've made the points about the context of this debate pretty clearly.
I would also like to make a contribution to this debate on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Reporting of Gas Reserves) Bill 2018. I don't understand what the One Nation political party are trying to achieve here. What they are arguing is that the titles administrator should take functions to do with taxation. I've had a look at the titles administrator and what the functions of the titles administrator are. The titles administrator is appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. That's done under section 695A of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006.
The titles administrator is not responsible in relation to seeking to increase tax that is gleaned from the offshore gas industry. Neither is it associated with the Taxation Office. It's responsible for the day-to-day administration of all petroleum and greenhouse gas titles in Commonwealth waters in Australia and is the first point of contact for matters relating to offshore titles administration. It operates on a cost recovery basis, funded by the petroleum industry. Its key functions in Commonwealth waters are to provide information, assessments, analysis, reports, advice and recommendations to members of the joint authorities and the responsible Commonwealth ministers under the OPGGS Act and associated regulations. It facilitates life of title administration, including but not limited to joint authority consideration of changes to permit conditions, and approval and registration of transfers and dealings associated with offshore petroleum titles. It manages the collection, management and release of data. It keeps the registers of petroleum and greenhouse gas storage titles.
The joint authorities are the decision-makers for the granting of the petroleum titles that underpin petroleum exploration and development—exploration permits, retention leases and production licences. NOPTA provides advice and recommendations in relation to these decisions. NOPTA has the authority to grant short-term titles. It utilises its technical and administrative experience to develop guidance and legislation through the Offshore Resources Branch. The states and the Northern Territory maintain a titles administrator role in their respective state and Territory waters. NOPTA'S offices are located in Perth.
If you really want to deal with the issue of tax avoidance in relation to the offshore gas industry, you don't do it, in my view, through what One Nation are proposing in this bill. I think this is another example of One Nation just not getting it, not understanding what the real issues are and looking for any argument they can put up to justify the nonsense that they raise continually in this place, which is mainly to deal with race issues, to attack Australians who are not born in Australia. This is just typical, so they can get out there and argue, 'We're trying to get more tax for the battlers out there in Australia.' That's got nothing to do with it. This is about One Nation trying to put up another smokescreen to try to pretend that they actually make a contribution of some significance in this place. The reality is they make no contribution of any significance in this place other than trying to push this place towards debating issues of race and religion, debating issues that divide the community. That's what One Nation do in this place; that's their modus operandi. That's how they get into this place.
If you look at Senator Hanson's past record, originally it was about attacks on Indigenous Australians, then it moved to Asian Australians, then it moved to Muslims. That's been Senator Hanson's modus operandi in this place. She is divisive and she pulls terrible stunts, like coming in here in a burqa, to try to create more division in this country. It's absolutely shameful. And for her to come in here and try to pretend that One Nation has any interest in or actually any comprehension of the complexities of the petroleum resource rent tax and all the issues that go to that just beggars belief. It is simply to try to justify One Nation—that they actually do something a little bit different from the race baiting that is their bread and butter in this place.
So I've got no sympathy for this bill in the context of what's been put up. Getting the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator to have any contribution to this issue is just a nonsense. This is a taxation issue—a very significant taxation issue. My view is that if the offshore petroleum industry are not paying appropriate tax in this country then they should be paying it. Even this government—a government that is so divided, this government that is an absolute rabble of a government, a government with a weak Prime Minister—has had to address this issue, and it's done that by appointing an individual, former Treasury official Mike Callaghan, to do what the government describes as a comprehensive and holistic review.
Now, we support a comprehensive and holistic review into whether the offshore gas industry is paying their fair share of tax. That's an appropriate thing to do. The Auditor-General's report into one offshore project on the North West Shelf, in an industry that's worth $200 billion, found a $5 billion bonanza in tax deductions taken by companies behind the project. These companies were Woodside, Chevron, BP, Shell and BHP Billiton, which have all reduced their royalty bills. That means less money coming to the Australian government to pay for hospitals, to pay for education, to pay for schools, to get a decent vocational education system and to get more apprentices employed around the country. These are the issues that are required to be dealt with—
Senator Hanson interjecting—
And, Senator Hanson, you can mouth off all you like down there; people understand that—
Senator Cameron, I remind you to direct your comments through the chair.
Yes, through the chair. Senator Hanson needs to understand that the public are on to her. They're on to her party. This is just part of the racist, un-Australian position she adopts. She tries to wrap herself in the Australian flag when what she really wants to do is rip the flag apart, rip this country apart, rip our society apart. That's what Senator Hanson's all about. That's what she's been doing for the last few decades in this country—and becoming quite rich through doing that, through manipulating the funding that comes to Senator Pauline Hanson through electoral payments. We all know what it's about. We all know that Senator Hanson is really about division and not about doing something comprehensive or appropriate on the gaining of taxation in this country from these multinational corporations.
So the government has set up this inquiry. We'll have to wait and see what comes out of Mr Callaghan's inquiry. But it's pretty typical of this government that it appoints former staffers of various government offices. Mr Callaghan was a chief of staff to former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello. That report was supposed to have a look at it and outline new measures that would be dealt with in the budget. I'm not sure where that report is, but I know there is lots of support for a proper analysis of all the issues that go to the PRRT and to make sure that multinational corporations in this country pay their fair share. You see, if these corporations don't pay their fair share, what we end up with is an incapacity to build roads and the infrastructure required for a modern developing country like Australia. We've still got to develop in the regions; we've still got to develop in many areas. We'll need a significant amount of funding to deal with population increase so that it's done in a proper—
It being 12.20, the Senate will now proceed to the consideration of government business.
In the absence of Senator Steele-John, who may be on his way, I thought I would jump the gun, if I can put it that way, and speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. What does this bill do? Basically, it plans to reduce business taxes by growing tax cuts. We've already got the business tax cuts for small business—$10 million to $50 million turnover. The bill will grow those tax cuts up more and more as time goes on so that, come 2030, we'll have a tax rate of 25 per cent. It's a hard message to sell. Labor are very good at saying, 'The government's going to give tax cuts to the big banks,' et cetera. We've already billed $6.3 billion of tax over four years to the banks.
That's what you're doing.
Senator Polley is shaking her head. Let's take the Commonwealth Bank, who got a tax cut from 2025-26 onwards. Who would that go to? I wonder how many million Australian workers have superannuation funds invested in that very bank. It would go to building their super and retirement more. That's where it would go.
What?
Senator Cameron says, 'What?' Is he trying to tell me that industry super funds and retail funds don't have superannuation investments in our banks? Give me a break! Of course they do. That's a silly thing to imply, Senator Cameron. Of course they do. So Labor is obviously well against increasing the superannuation and retirement benefits for those workers for when they come to retire.
As I said, schedule 1 of this bill amends the Income Tax Rates Act 1986 to progressively extend the lower 25 per cent corporate tax rate to all corporate tax entities by the 2023-24 income year. The corporate tax rate will then be cut for all corporate entities for the 2024-25 income year to 27 per cent, for the 2025-26 income year to 26 per cent and for the 2026-27 income year and later income years to 25 per cent.
What happens if we're not competitive with our company tax? There've been plenty of arguments in this place about foreign investment, but the fact is foreign investment is good. I just don't like it when they buy a fully established farm. That's the one thing I disagree with about foreign investment. If they're going to buy farms and develop them and grow the exports and grow the jobs and grow the GDP and grow the tax take for Canberra, then foreign investment is very good. One of the controversial issues is buying our land, but, if they go to the Top End of Australia and want to develop land, they should go their hardest—that's my attitude. The fact is foreign companies have invested in Australia for centuries. For example, look at the mining sector and the huge wealth it's brought our country, the people employed, the taxation to Canberra and the benefits to all the families when they're employed in the mining industry. Who does the development? Many of the big companies, of course. One of those multinational companies now is BHP, originating in Broken Hill, and what a great job it's done. So foreign investment is certainly in Australia, and it has been here for so many years. The problem is that, if we do not remain competitive with our business rate, those big companies are going to say: 'Why invest in Australia? If we invest there, we've got to pay 30 per cent tax, but, if we invest in other countries, we pay a lot less tax.'
Let's have a look at some of the other countries' tax rates, the ones that are already in front of us. Australia must reduce our company tax rate to remain internationally competitive, as I said. In recent years, a large number of our international competitors, including Canada, Singapore, the UK, New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Japan, and France, have reduced their company tax rates. In December 2017, the US slashed business tax rates from 35 per cent to 21 per cent. If the Australian rate remains stranded at 30 per cent, Australia will have one of the highest tax rates in the OECD, making it harder for Australian companies to compete in fiercely competitive global markets. It's as simple as that.
We know full well that politics is being played here. It's on the record far and wide that Mr Bill Shorten has said that company tax cuts are good for our country. Shadow Treasurer Mr Bowen has said the same: cut the tax rate. I think Keating also pushed very hard to cut the tax rate when he was Treasurer. Some of the modelling we've seen is amazing. Treasury predict that, if the company tax rate is cut by what is requested, the economy will grow by one per cent. Given that we're a $1.3 trillion or $1.4 trillion economy these days, one per cent growth is an enormous amount of money and a lot of jobs created. As we say on this side of the chamber, the best way for living standards to improve is not to rely on social security but to get a job. We are trying to promote foreign investment, more jobs, more growth and better living standards for all Australians, but there will be a lot of debate about this very bill we're facing in the Senate now.
I won't take up my full time, so I give Senator Steele-John notice of that, but when you reduce company tax, where does the money go? It goes back to shareholders. Many of those shareholders are in the $2.3 trillion, $2.4 trillion—I see they're even quoting up to $2.6 trillion now—of superannuation funds that recently came under the spotlight of the royal commission. Too many snouts are in the trough of that big amount of money and are slicing money out of it. Billions of dollars have been taken out of those funds. Here is an opportunity to put more money back into their retirements.
On that, Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, seeing that you are in the chair: when the superannuation legislation came into existence many years ago now—I think it was about 1993—there were no criminal laws attached to it whatsoever. If you rorted, defrauded, stole, or siphoned money out of a super fund, you didn't face criminal charges. That is appalling. In September last year we brought legislation to this chamber to introduce criminal laws for trustees and directors of superannuation funds, who would face charges of wrongdoing, theft, fraud—you name it—and it didn't proceed to a vote, because we didn't have the numbers. Given what we have found out from the royal commission, I hope that the Greens and Labor do not oppose those criminal punishment laws—a $420,000 fine for individuals and up to five years jail—when they come before this chamber next time. I imagine Labor opposed them in the first place to protect their industry super fund directors and trustees, but given what the royal commission has said now, they would not want to oppose those laws again, or the headlines would be, 'Labor and the Greens protect criminals'.
I have gone a bit off the track of company tax here, but I referred to building up superannuation and hence went to that subject. I support this legislation. I support these company tax cuts, profit to shareholders, profit to people for their superannuation, better retirement, and being competitive when it comes to foreign investment, especially foreign investment, when people overseas are saying, 'We can't invest in Australia; their company tax rate is too high.' I support the legislation, and I thank the chamber for its time.
Across every part of this nation there are essential services, from housing to education to the NDIS, that are chronically underfunded. Millions of Australians are struggling. Thousands—in fact, tens of thousands—go to sleep every night wondering when next they will have a roof over their heads. My office is swamped by calls and emails and messages from those in the disability community who need access to the NDIS, who need good service and yet do not get it because there are not enough staff at the agency. I hear from people struggling to get by on Newstart, because it has not been raised since the year that I was born, some 24 years ago. We must ask ourselves the question: why is this so? As we so often hear, Australia is one of the most wealthy nations in the world, and yet there is such poverty; there is such suffering; there is such a struggle for so many. The answer to that question is that it's because big corporations and big businesses and wealthy individuals do not pay their fair share of tax. They do not contribute fairly to those services that are needed to support people and promote community. Consequently, we must ask ourselves the question: why is that so? How do they get away with it?
If The Daily Telegraph, if Andrew Bolt, manages to dig up one case of a welfare recipient who is seen to have done something wrong then, bang, it triggers a welfare review. So why is it that so many corporations, so many individuals, get away with paying less than their fair share? It is because they donate to those within this chamber. It is because they syphon off their wealth and funnel it into the back pockets of the Liberal Party and the Labor Party and the National Party to make sure that we here in this place craft for them not a taxing contribution system but a tax avoidance system, a system by which they are able to accrue our national wealth for their personal gain, see it come to them as a great golden horde and sell the Australian people the fantasy, the outright lie, that our wealth, by their virtue, might someday trickle back to us. That corruptive influence, that toxic relationship between the big end of town and Australia's democracy is on full display today as we are asked to contemplate the idea of gifting another $60 billion to Australia's biggest corporations. It's an absolute disgrace—a gift given, a ransom paid for the price of re-election.
It does not need to be this way. The Australian people demand that we here do better, that we speak out against this toxic relationship, that we break it down, that we return to the service of the Australian people, that we stop the endless flows of money. It is possible. We know the way, and yet the legislature refuses to act. I have lost count of the times that my Greens colleagues and I have put forward legislation to this place that would have ended that relationship, that would have stopped the flow of big money. I have lost count of the number of times that my colleague Rachel Siewert has made the argument to this chamber that if there is a cent to spare then it must go to those living below the poverty line in the welfare trap, in the poverty trap, in the desperation trap that is Newstart, and yet this chamber does nothing. One side seeks to make it easier for the billionaires, for the industry titans, for the Rupert Murdochs and Gina Rineharts of this country. They seek to give them even more. They seek to rationalise, to naturalise their greed, while the other side of the chamber mumbles mutely. 'Should we have an increase to Newstart?' we ask. 'Ah, let's review it,' say the once great Australian Labor Party. It is a disgrace.
I speak against this bill tonight on behalf of the millions of struggling Australians who need the attention of this chamber, who deserve the attention of this chamber, so much more than those this bill seeks to help. I speak tonight on behalf of the people who are not able to make the business dinners, to give the donations and to offer the free media network time that seems to be so necessary if they are to get the attention of either side of this place. I speak for them. The Australian Greens speak for them. As long as there is one of us in this place, they will have a voice in our democracy. I thank the chamber for its time.
I rise today to speak on the government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. This bill seeks to amend the Income Tax Rates Act 1986 to progressively extend the lower 27.5 per cent corporate tax rate to all corporate entities by the 2023-24 financial year and further reduce the corporate tax rate in stages so that by the 2026-27 financial year the corporate tax rate for all entities will be 25 per cent.
As the Senate knows, my support for this piece of legislation has turned out to be quite significant with regard to the make-up of the crossbench. It was with a heavy heart that I announced my resignation from Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. I now represent New South Wales in the Senate as a member of the United Australia Party. I would like to take the opportunity to advise the Senate of the events that led to this.
As part of a so-called team, the three Pauline Hanson's One Nation senators had negotiated a significant package that was in the best interests of all Australians in return for support of the company tax cuts for all Australian companies. We shook hands on a deal, and I thought that was that. On Monday, 1 June, I received a call from Senator Hanson that she was considering pulling our support for company tax cuts for all Australian companies. I advised her that I was not comfortable at all with going back on a deal we had made and that we needed to discuss it further at a face-to-face meeting with Senator Georgiou later in the week, as we had scheduled. I was shocked to read the following day, on the front page of The Australian newspaper, that our policy position had changed yet again—I think the common phrase is 'flip-flop flip-flop'—and that we now opposed the legislation. When we met later in the week, as previously scheduled, Senator Hanson asked me if I still supported the legislation and if I would vote for it. I informed Senator Hanson that I would. I was then told that I was sacked as the Pauline Hanson's One Nation party whip. Born and raised from humble origins in the Hunter Valley, my father taught all his sons that, once you shake hands with somebody, that's it. A few weeks later, I was saddened to be asked by Senator Hanson to resign from the party and from the Senate for sticking to my word. It had become clear that my relationship with Senator Hanson was irrecoverable and that the best way forward for me to represent the best interests of the constituents of New South Wales was to resign from the party. I also want to emphasise that the deal on company tax cuts between the government and Pauline Hanson's One Nation party was always on the proviso the company tax cuts passed the parliament. Comments made by the government's key negotiator, Senator Mathias Cormann, in the media recently confirm that the deal still stands.
I firmly believe that this legislation, which progressively reduces the corporate tax rate from 30 to 25 per cent for all corporate entities by 2026-27, is in the best interests of the country. We must ensure that Australian companies remain internationally competitive. I remind the Senate that the proposed rate of 25 per cent, which doesn't come in until 2026-27, will still just leave us in the middle of the pack compared to our international competitors.
Many OECD countries have also reduced their company tax rates. In the UK budget of 2015 the government announced legislation setting the corporate tax main rate at 19 per cent for the years starting 1 April 2017, 2018 and 2019, and at 18 per cent for the year starting 1 April 2020. The US has also cut the rate of company tax from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, which has in turn seen its unemployment rate drop to 3.9 per cent.
According to a report from the OECD, the average corporate tax rate amongst the 35 countries listed is currently 21.94 per cent. So in 2026-27, if this legislation passes, our corporate tax rate will still be more than three per cent higher than that average rate. If the trend of lower company tax rates continues around the world, our rate of 25 per cent in 2026-27 may well be still one of the highest in the OECD.
As a senator representing New South Wales in this chamber, I note that according to recent figures published in the media there are 1,622 companies in Australia earning over $50 million. Of that number, 739 of them are based in New South Wales. That's over 45 per cent of Australian companies and their employees that would benefit from this legislation that are based in the premier state—my state.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say to Senator Hanson and Senator Georgiou to honour the deal we made with the government and pass company tax cuts in full to help companies and their employees based in their respective states of Queensland and Western Australia to remain internationally competitive.
It has been reported for generations that Australia's economic prosperity has ridden on the sheep's back and mining booms. I would also like to add that it has been Australia's entrepreneurial spirit to harness not only our rich natural resources but also the blood, sweat and tears of Aussies that have built the likes of BHP, Qantas and Rio Tinto that have grown into globally recognised companies with revenues in the tens of millions.
As the Hon. Mathias Cormann has regularly commented, there are about 4,500 Australian businesses that have a turnover of more than $50 million a year, and they employ about four million people. These impressive figures, like past agricultural and mining successes, have brought with them economic prosperity for all Australians, not just the entrepreneurs, and that is the envy of millions around the world. I would like to thank hardworking Australians and Aussie businesses for making this country a great one, where people with dreams can aspire to have even greater dreams.
We have heard so many times over the past week or so how Australia needs to change for our big businesses to remain globally competitive. It doesn't take a pass in economics 101 to realise that Australia needs to reform its business tax legislation to keep its comparative advantages, to continue on the path of economic growth and to build the BHPs, the Rio Tintos and the Qantases of the future. That is why the United States, Britain, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Israel, France and Japan have reduced their company tax rates in order to remain globally competitive. If we don't change, we'll be left behind.
Even some of the Australian Labor Party's top leaders have recognised the need for that change. In 2011 the current leader, Bill Shorten, recognised the need for change when he said:
… more capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages.
Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard even went as far as to say, in 2012, that if you're against cutting company tax then you're against economic growth. And even the doyen of the Australian Labor Party, former Treasurer Paul Keating, said, as far back as 1993, that the simplest and most-effective way to encourage Australian companies to work for Australia is to lower their tax burden. The Hon. Penny Wong said, in 2012:
We understand that the cut in the corporate tax rate is important to increase productivity, to promote broadbased economic growth and to encourage more investment and jobs across Australia.
Their economic sensibilities were right then, and they are right now. Labor will be right to put party politics behind them and support a policy that they have been on the record as supporting. The policy needs to come before politics. The bottom line is that if Australia's rate stays at 30 per cent then the country will have one of the highest tax rates in the OECD. That does not make economic sense no matter what your politics. That is reflected in the International Monetary Fund's World economic outlook, which states that Australia's gross domestic product will be cut by one per cent if Australia doesn't do something in light of the United States cutting its own tax rate. Treasury modelling released at the 2016-17 budget estimated that our tax cut would increase the size of the economy by about one per cent.
So, it does make simple economic sense for the bill—the policy—to be passed. We need growth, not stagnation. More money in the economy can only mean more opportunities for all. In my first speech I also recognised the need for change when I stated:
In Tasmania, words like 'growth', 'investment', 'productivity' and 'competition' have tended to be used to describe a seemingly far-off dream.
I also recognised Tasmania's and Australia's need to keep its close relationship with China and other export markets to keep growth, investment, productivity and competition a reality. The principles of growth, investment, productivity and competition that I spoke about in relation to Tasmania in my first speech are also the backbone of the Enterprise Tax Plan bill. In reality, there are 14 businesses in Tasmania with a turnover greater than $50 million that this bill will affect. That doesn't sound like a huge figure, but remember: Tasmania has a population of about 520,000 people. So, we are well and truly punching above our weight, and our businesses, big and small, are doing more than their fair bit. But like the hundreds of small to medium businesses that have benefited from the lowering of tax rate to 25 per cent to inject more revenue into the economy, these businesses should be able to enjoy the fruits of a lower tax rate to stimulate competition, employ more people and shine on the global stage.
Just like mainland Australia, Tasmania has also enjoyed the fruits of primary industries. It has also ridden on the sheep's back and experienced mining booms. Just as importantly, Tasmanians have made Tasmania a place also envied by international and mainland visitors. Our merino fleeces have fetched record prices in Europe. Tasmanian minerals, forestry products, and food and wines are attractive to more and more international markets. The world is now coming to us as more and more tourists enjoy the clean and green delights of the island home, and they enjoy the avant-garde attractions like the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart.
We owe it to our exporters, such as salmon producer Tassal Group, shipbuilder Incat and Copper Mines of Tasmania, to keep taxes lower. While the passing of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017 is touted as benefiting companies that earn more than $50 million annually, it is not just about the big end of town. The flow-on effects to regional areas will be immense. It will give big companies the confidence to undertake mineral exploration, invest in new plant and equipment, and employ more Australians. This bill, when it comes down to it, is about growth and jobs. For Australia to continue to go beyond 26 years of continued growth, we must stay internationally competitive. Our business tax rate cannot stay at 30 per cent if Australia is to continue on a path of growth and greater prosperity for all, as the countries we compete against have lower taxes. Our tax rate needs to be at 25 per cent to stimulate the economy for all Australians.
In recent history, Tasmanians have witnessed firsthand the effects of businesses not staying globally competitive. Coats Paton, once the largest woollen mill of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, closed its Launceston doors for the last time in the mid-1990s, with hundreds of jobs gone. Mines have come and gone on the west coast with fluctuating resource prices, and the Australian Weaving Mills factory in Devonport closed in 2013, with the loss of around 150 jobs. But they are not just jobs; they are people, they are families—our jobs, our people, our families. And there are businesses indirectly in the firing line of the pain caused by jobs going offshore. Interestingly, though, Tasmania is enjoying an economic boom, with developer Errol Stewart recently telling me conditions are the best he has seen in 25 years or so. We owe it to Tasmania to keep riding that economic wave of success.
A lot has been said lately about the aspirational goals of Australians, and it appears to me to be illogical to have a lower tax rate for small and medium businesses and not for big businesses. Where is the incentive for a small or medium-sized business to become the next Qantas, Tassal, Rio Tinto or BHP? Passing this bill will give companies confidence to invest and grow as technology advances beyond our wildest dreams. Free trade opens up more markets, and globalisation brings better and fresher opportunities for our children. I want our children, whether they live in a Tasmanian regional centre such as Sheffield or the superaffluent suburb of Sandy Bay in Hobart, to have the same opportunities to experience a world focused on not just agriculture and mining but also the technological changes, global visions and entrepreneurial spirit that can create an even richer, more clever society.
I don't want the Senate to miss the opportunity to pass this bill. Our economy, our workers, our people, our businesses and, most importantly, our children and our future deserve it.
I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. My position on the Enterprise Tax Plan is simple and straightforward. The evidence does not support the contention that the proposed tax cuts would provide the immediate boost to employment and growth that the government claims. In addition, there is no evidence that bringing forward the remaining tax cuts already legislated for companies with a turnover of $50 million or under would provide a significant increase in wages or employment, and I will return to that issue later. I will also oppose any attempt to link the tax cuts to any other initiative that may occur during the discussion of the bill today and in voting on it in the days ahead, regarding coal-fired power or any other matter.
My focus on this, as it is on all other legislation that comes before me, is on the future: the future of the economy and, even more importantly, the future of our families. As a South Australian, I am a passionate advocate for the businesses of my state. Business is the backbone of the economy, and I will do all I can to encourage business growth and prosperity. Arriving at my position on the proposed company tax cuts in this bill was difficult indeed, but I got there using the same principles I would apply to business decisions—that is, by looking at the evidence and treating the proposals on their merits, not as an opportunity to bargain with the government to achieve some other trade-off.
By way of background, it's worth reminding ourselves that the budget is in poor shape to withstand the possible shocks that an uncertain world may visit upon us. Look at the immediate global reverberations from the currency crisis in Turkey, just as a recent example. Gross government debt is more than half a trillion dollars. Interest payments are around $1.5 billion a month, or $18 billion a year. Employment has been improving, but wages are stagnant and official data suggests families are still dipping into savings to pay essential bills. In these circumstances, the government is asking the Senate to endorse the disbursement of at least $36 billion to corporate Australia over close to a decade into the future. On the government's own commissioned figuring, the improvement in employment a decade from now from such a tax cut would be barely perceptible, and wages would increase by a mere 0.4 per cent.
To inform my decisions, I have spoken and continue to speak with a wide range of stakeholders and economic experts, many of them directed to me by the government itself. Our current budget deficit and debt demand that these tax cuts not proceed. Our present tax system is insufficiently robust to support a medium-term fiscal strategy of budget surpluses, on average, over the course of the economic cycle, as has been pointed out by many esteemed economists. My conclusion remains that the legislation is too narrowly based and that the benefits are too small to outweigh the cost.
The evidence is, for example, that there would be a much quicker boost to growth and jobs through greater investment in infrastructure, investment that would have clear intergenerational as well as more immediate benefits. In addition, the actual results from the 2015 tax cuts on businesses with under $2 million in turnover have been reviewed by independent economic consultancies, and that shows that there's been a marginal increase in employment, from 2.1 per cent to 2.6 per cent, for firms above the threshold. Firms beneath that $2 million which received the tax cut were having a marginal increase in employment, but there was a very limited increase in wages growth for those firms, from 4.84 to only 4.88 per cent. There was an increase in investment for those that had received the tax cut, from 1.53 per cent to 2.45 per cent; however, that rise was relatively modest. This evidence was provided by AlphaBeta economics advisers on the survey of Xero accounting firms—those firms that had received the tax cut in the 2015 legislation from 30 per cent to 28.5 per cent. I have seen estimates that accelerating the tax cuts already legislated would cost the budget another $2 billion on the forward estimates. Based on the evidence and the situation in terms of our overall debt and deficit position, we cannot afford it, and I don't believe there is evidence that it would produce substantial economic benefits.
It is not that I am opposed to tax reform, or even to corporate tax reform, but it must be more than just the piecemeal proposals being presented by the government if it is to be of genuine benefit to the community and the budget. A tax cut in and of itself is not tax reform. The Henry tax and transfer review of nearly a decade ago did support a company tax cut, but only as one of 149 recommendations. It was one of seven principal feature reforms, including a uniform resource rent tax, many of which have not been put in place.
I note the acknowledgement from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry that the current tax system 'is becoming unaffordable and no longer fit for purpose'. Quite so. I have been told that the political environment is such that it is impossible to achieve comprehensive tax reform. I disagree, and history suggests otherwise. The economic conditions in the mid- to late 1980s—double-digit inflation and unemployment—could hardly have been more trying, yet the economic reform plan of those years became law. The tariff cuts of the early nineties were introduced in the midst of Australia's last big recession. The GST and allied reforms were promoted at a time when both the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, and his government were deeply unpopular, yet the coalition won the subsequent election, in 1998, and two more to boot. What it took was courage, political skill and the will to promote public discussion, rather than political leaders hurling largely unsubstantiated epithets at each other.
I have been heartened by the response to my decision on the company tax previously, not just from ordinary voters but from a number of professionals who have expertise in the field. It is clear there is a recognition that the tax system is no longer fit for purpose but that any attempt at reform needs to be broad based and surrounded by inclusive discussion, rather than focused on a single initiative without benefits to the general community. In all this we must keep a close eye on the state of the budget—with 'significant error bands', as the Treasury secretary noted, outside of the current forward estimates—the economy and the future prosperity of the nation as well as the wellbeing of our citizens.
As I've said before, large tax cuts for big corporations and foreign investors mean less money for teachers and nurses in my home state, and less money for roads and public transport in South Australia and in Australia generally. They also mean less money for research and development, for advanced manufacturing and for building the jobs of tomorrow. Therefore, I oppose this legislation.
I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017, noting at the start that one of the roles of government is to create a framework that encourages industries to invest, because when industry invests—whether it's a small mum-and-dad business, a medium-sized business or a large international prime—it's that investment, the risking of capital, that creates the opportunity for men and women here in Australia to have a job. More jobs, more investment and more industry, as demand goes up, are what leads to wage rises. They are what leads, with more people in work, to a tax base that enables Australia to support the things that we think are important to our quality of life, whether they be education or health or national defence. It all comes back to the government putting in place frameworks that encourage companies to invest.
Part of the coalition's strong track record in this area over a good decade or more has been its understanding of the drivers, of how businesses see upside and downside risk. Sometimes business will invest because there's an opportunity. In my home state of South Australia we've seen Arrium, with debts of $2.8 billion and 3,000-odd jobs at risk, sold to Liberty OneSteel, who decided that there was an opportunity there for them to invest. And that investment has turned around a whole community. Some 5,500 direct and indirect jobs are now going to be preserved. That new energy in the town has resulted in other companies, in areas as diverse as renewable energy and pilot training, deciding to relocate to Whyalla, because they see that the town has a future, because a company has chosen to invest. And that investment has large flow-on benefits for the economy. This was a unique circumstance of a company that was in trouble and an investor who had a good international background in the steel industry making a decision to invest. But the point is that their investment has turned around the sentiment and the economy in a town and given those people a future. It's leading to increased demand in real estate. It's leading to increased opportunities for work and, therefore, jobs growth et cetera.
Another area where companies choose to invest, which again comes back to frameworks that the government has set, is the defence industry in my home state of South Australia. For years people have talked about defence industry policy, but it wasn't until we had the first principles review and the government adopted the framework where we said industry is a fundamental input to our defence capability and so we will look at long-term partnerships with industry to grow their presence in Australia, their workforce, their capability, because that underpins our defence capability—it was when that incentive was put there—that companies decided to invest. Rather than seeing significant projects go offshore, because that's where companies said they wanted to produce them, we've seen companies invest, we've seen some companies in South Australia double the size of their workforce, we've seen multiple companies increase not only the size of their workforce but the number of graduates and tradesmen they're taking on, and we've seen their engagement with our schools to create opportunities for young people and motivate them to study STEM, to study trades, and to get into engineering and naval architecture.
All of these opportunities come from investment by business, and government has to create the framework whereby businesses will say, 'This is a good spot to put our capital at risk.' Whether they're a mum-and-dad business mortgaging their own home to run a business, or whether they're a global conglomerate that has shareholders that it's accountable to, people are putting capital at risk when they make an investment decision, so they will be looking either for a unique market opportunity, like Whyalla, or for a government program that provides a clear incentive, like our defence industry policy. They will be looking to make an investment decision where they will get a return, so that the mum-and-dad business can say, 'You know what? We can grow our business, we can employ more people and we will keep our home,' and the global player or the larger company can say, 'We are going to deliver a better return to our shareholder.'
The issue with tax is that if a company doesn't have a unique opportunity, or if there isn't a specific program like the defence industry one, and they have a choice of investing that money here in Australia or somewhere offshore, and the tax regime offshore means that the capital they have placed at risk is more likely to return money for the shareholders in that company, it's no surprise that the board will take the decision—which in many cases they are bound to do by law—to maximise the return to the shareholders. They will go to the places where the company has the chance to grow. As we've seen with Whyalla and the defence industry in South Australia, a growing company is an employing company that provides training opportunities, higher wages and career paths for people in the community where they are. So the government needs to provide a framework that will encourage companies to put their capital at risk here in Australia and lead to those benefits here, not in some place offshore.
I'm going to run through a number of countries overseas that have looked at this and said, 'Yes, we need to lower our company tax rates', because they've come to the same conclusion. I'll touch on some of the academics who have looked at this. The IMF and others have studied economic behaviour around the world and have pointed to the fact that lowering company tax rates is good for the economy, in terms of stimulating economic growth, and that the benefit is greatest for people, often in low-paid jobs, in terms of employment opportunities and wage rises. I know those opposite often deride that concept, but I'd ask people listening to this debate to remember that that derision is purely opportunistic and political. When they were in government, their economic spokesperson—the now Leader of the Opposition—back in 2011 in particular, was one of the strongest advocates for lowering company tax rates for all the same reasons that the government is putting forward in this enterprise tax plan now.
What's happening overseas? Our international competitors—Canada, Singapore, the UK, New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Japan and France—have all reduced their company tax rates. In December of last year, the US slashed their company tax rates from 35 per cent to 21 per cent—a huge change. The IMF warned that the US corporate tax cuts would cost Australia's economy, our GDP, around one per cent and threaten the sustainability of the Australian tax system unless Australia responded. What we're seeing here is that international bodies who are credible in the area of economics are saying that the actions by foreign countries, like the ones listed, are not a neutral thing for Australia. It's not as though we watch and go, 'That's nice for them, but it doesn't impact us.' It does impact us. There's actually a double hit to this, in that the actions of other countries which incentivise companies to put their capital at risk elsewhere, rather than in Australia, have a negative impact on Australia's economy.
At the same time, the lack of decision here in Australia and the lack of support from the opposition, from the Greens and from some of the crossbench for this tax plan means that we not only have that negative impact but also miss out on the growth that the IMF, the OECD, Treasury, universities around the country and, indeed, the Labor Party when they were in government have all said will follow. We're actually hurting Australia's economy—and, therefore, Australia's population—twice, because opportunities are going offshore and we're not gaining the opportunities here. If people are concerned about who we can trust, how we can have hope and if there is a career future for our children and our grandchildren, you need to be looking to governments that will actually put in place a framework that encourages business to invest, because it is that investment that drives opportunity. The government have been consistent in our belief that, if we lower the tax burden on companies, we will see an increase in jobs.
What we're talking about here today is the second part of a policy position that the government have had on tax. In the first part, we have seen tax relief going towards small business. The impact on our economy has been significant, with 400,000-odd jobs created in the last 12 months. Since the government was elected, over one millions jobs have been created. Unemployment is at a 25-year low. Even if you are sceptical about employment figures, how they're calculated and the thresholds, look at them from another perspective—the fact that the number of people on welfare is at a 25-year low. That means people are moving off welfare and into employment. The majority of the jobs that have been created in that period have been full time. They have been real jobs. We see here in Australia a very practical example of the fact that tax cuts to employers mean that there will be more opportunities, more work and more hope for Australians about having a job.
In Canada, one of their tax experts, Jack Mintz, has said that repeated studies show that at least two-thirds of company tax is shifted onto labour through higher consumer prices, wage cuts and lay-offs. That lines up with our own Treasury analysis that says the burden is passed on predominantly to shareholders, consumers and employees. So you come back to this fact: if we don't pass this package, we're harming Australia's economy and, therefore, the people of Australia in two key ways. The opportunity goes to those countries overseas, and our lack of opportunity here means there's a double whammy.
The Tax Foundation in the US found that, for every $1 rise in state and local corporate tax collections, real wages fell by $2.50 five years later, and that the reverse is also true. Wages rise $2.50 for every $1 reduction in state and local tax incomes. So those opposite, the Greens and those on the crossbench who are not supporting these measures are saying that they're supporting downward pressure on wages and they're supporting fewer job opportunities and, therefore, less hope for people, whereas those who are supporting this package are saying: 'Based on the facts at hand, we are supporting upward pressure on wages. We are supporting the creation of new opportunities for training, jobs and careers.'
Warwick McKibbin, a former board member of the Reserve Bank, said the gain from the enterprise tax plan set out in the budget would be about $160 billion over the 10 years of the plan. That's economic activity that occurs. That means that there are individuals employed, and we know that the best form of welfare is a job. The flow-on effects to children and to the family dynamic of having a household where people are working are almost immeasurable in terms of the benefit to children and to society. But we've also got that very clear economic benefit: the $160 billion over 10 years. That means more people enter the consumer market, more people enter the real estate market and more people are employed in the retail sector. That means more tax for the government, which then goes into things like health, education and defence.
This is a framework that the government is seeking to put in place that looks at the root cause analysis—what drives growth, what drives opportunity or what undermines it? The enterprise tax plan that the government is looking to put forward is a framework that drives growth and drives opportunity. And despite what they said in 2011, when they understood the position that the government is putting forward now and, in fact, advocated for it quite strongly, those opposite are opposing it now for purely rank, political, opportunist reasons. And Australians should judge them harshly for the fact that they're putting politics ahead of the people of Australia, in terms of opportunity.
More globally, the OECD has also argued that corporate taxes are the most harmful type of tax for economic growth and that the boost to living standards from lowering company tax would be much more significant than from other tax measures. That's what we think, that's what universities think, it's what the IMF thinks, it's what Treasury thinks, and it's what the OECD thinks. And, as I've mentioned several times, it's what the opposition used to think when they were in government. Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen used to say:
… it's a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax, because it promotes investment, creates jobs and drives growth.
That's what they used to believe. I would encourage people listening to this debate and those on the crossbench to ask the question: if all the experts around the world believe it, if Labor used to believe it when they were in government, and if the evidence points to the fact that it will be good for the people of Australia in terms of creating investment, jobs and training opportunities, why would you not support it? Why would you not support a framework that will benefit the people of Australia?
Instead, what do those opposite believe now? According to Treasury modelling, the cost of Mr Shorten's announced new taxes on the Australian economy will be $164 billion. The plan we're putting forward would actually result in more money for the economy. The plan that those opposite are putting forward would strip even more money than that out of the economy—less economic activity, less demand in the retail sector, less demand in real estate. It would actually harm Australia.
The enterprise tax plan is a critical step for Australia as we seek to move away from the years of the mining boom, as we seek to grow opportunities in Australia off the back of things like our investment in defence industries—that framework we've created to encourage companies to invest here—and as we look at things like the National Space Agency, to encourage Australian companies to be able to step up and take a larger share of one of the fastest areas of high-tech growth, and therefore employment opportunities, in the world. Why do we think companies would come here to do that work if they can go somewhere else in the world where they will get more return for the company, which allows them to accelerate their growth and their investment in R&D and innovation? If we want things like defence industry to have spin-offs into other sectors, and if we want the Australian Space Agency to be successful, we actually need not just the primes to come here—those who build, for example, the ships or other assets—but also the R&D—the smart people and the creation of IP. We need those opportunities for young Australians, and they will only come if we have a framework that makes Australia an attractive place to invest. So we've sought to do that.
In May 2017, we passed laws that provided a company tax cut for companies with an aggregated turnover of up to $50 million. It's a good start. That helps around 3.2 million businesses, employing over 6½ million workers. But we can't stop there. In fact, even those tax cuts, and therefore those businesses, are at risk if those opposite should ever come into office. We need to also make sure that those companies have the incentive to grow. We don't need them to perversely limit their growth because they don't want to go into a higher tax bracket. We want those companies to grow and become successful—not just small businesses but medium and large businesses—here in Australia. And that will only come when we recognise that this is tax relief; it's not a tax cut per se. It's their money. They've put capital at risk, they've raised it, and we want them to continue that activity. We want them to put more capital into research and development, into training, into employing more people and into paying higher wages.
Those opposite should go back to what they believed in 2011. The Greens and the crossbench should support this plan, because this plan provides hope and a future for Australia.
I rise to talk about the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017 put up by the government, but first let me clarify a few points that were expressed by Senator Burston today in the chamber.
The agreement, first off, was that One Nation were supporting the corporate tax cuts. Then, on reflection, the budget which was handed down in May showed that there was not going to be much money in the budget surplus by 2020—only about $2.2 billion. The personal tax cuts are going to cost the people of Australia $144 billion when they're introduced, and the corporate tax cuts that One Nation actually supported—we voted with the government—of up to $50 million are going to cost around $35 billion to the economy. On reflection, if the corporate tax cuts were to be passed, they would cost the economy in total $80 billion. That would mean that the Australian people would be at a loss of $224 billion in revenue. That concerned me, and hence my phone call to both Senator Burston and Senator Georgiou on 1 June to indicate to them my concerns about this and my belief that we should actually pull out of the corporate tax cuts. They both agreed. Actually, I've still got a record of that telephone conversation—nine minutes—with Senator Burston. He had no disillusion with what I was asking and totally agreed with me.
He also made reference to the fact that I sacked him as whip because he would not vote against the corporate tax cuts. That was not the case whatsoever and was never in the discussion. Peter Georgiou was actually in my office at the time. Senator Burston was taken out of the position of whip because he was not doing the job and not reporting back. I remember clearly that I was down here to ask a question and didn't know whether I had the call and Peter Georgiou rang me on the phone and asked whether I had it and I said, 'I don't know.' That's why Senator Burston was taken out of the position of whip. And I asked him whether Peter Georgiou would be all right as whip, and he said, 'Yeah, that's fine by me.'
I'd just like the truth, not the conjured-up lies that are made in this place. The reasons behind Senator Burston withdrawing his support for the corporate tax cuts is that he saw the writing on the wall that he was not going to get preselected as No. 1 on the ticket in New South Wales, so he gave me grief and gave the party grief and pulled support for the corporate tax cuts, thinking that I would actually relent and that I would actually endorse him to get his support. Hence when he received a letter from me asking him to resign from the party it was because he was chasing after the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party to join their party, which they refused him, and he was seeking other parties to join. Then, finally, he was endorsed by the Palmer United Party on the Friday before he walked into this chamber and stated that he was an Independent. So, again, he couldn't be up-front with people. But that's the way it is.
But the whole thing today is about the corporate tax cuts and my reasons. I've listened to a lot of the debate with regard to the government's company tax cuts from both sides of this house and from the crossbench. Let's look at the speculated impact it may have on our country with regard to further investment and jobs. We have been told by the government that dropping the business tax rate to 25 per cent will create jobs and increase wages. But of course tax is just one factor in creating jobs. The government wants us to follow suit with the company tax cuts in America. Otherwise, they say, we will miss out on investment. But are they also following suit on reducing energy costs that are crippling our manufacturing industries and small businesses?
The USA has reduced its company tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, not taking into account the added individual state company taxes that equate to a further two to 12 per cent, depending on which state you are in, giving an average of 26 per cent overall. A couple of months ago I went to Ireland as part of a delegation and I asked the member for parliament there, 'You actually have a 12½ per cent tax rate?' They said yes, and they said, 'For the multinationals—if you can get them to pay.' If you put out there that you're actually wanting to reduce it because the rest of the world is reducing their corporate tax rates, then, to me, that is a race to the bottom, because if you drop your corporate tax rates here, when we can clearly not afford it, then another country in the group will reduce their rates to beat you. So, how much is this going to go on? We can't afford it in this country.
If we are comparing apples with apples we cannot overlook an important fact, which is that the USA has some of the lowest energy costs in the world, and this is why they have—and will always have—a clear advantage over us, regardless of how much we reduce company tax. If we truly want foreign investment in Australia, to create jobs, then we must target the real issue, which is energy costs. No political party other than One Nation is trying to stop the ever-increasing out-of-control energy costs that are impacting upon every home, business and industry in our country.
In my talks with the government I have been asking for tax reform in the area of natural gas and other hydrocarbons, because with the exception of one joint venture project, we're currently giving away our gas for free. The low return from petroleum resources owned by Australia is a consequence not of tax avoidance or tax evasion but of a poorly designed tax system introduced by Labor. Despite widespread acceptance of the need to get paid for gas taken from Commonwealth waters, Labor has been mute on this important matter. They spoke about it today in the debate on Senator Georgiou's bill. I guess it needs the huge donations from foreign owned multinational petroleum companies more than it needs to pay down Australia's debt mountain and create new and better jobs. Natural gas and associated products are owned by Australians, and we need to be paid for them by way of taxes on those companies that profit from them. If we can get payment for our gas through tax reform then we can invest billions of dollars in Australia and create more and better jobs for generations.
Government cannot create jobs but it can remove impediments through tax policy, which is the reason I take such an interest in tax bills. In my mind the government's tax cuts bill is about jobs, and jobs are the means by which Australians maintain their independence from government. All those people who wanted to be a fly on the wall in my negotiations with the government need to know only that jobs were uppermost in my mind. But what future does our next generation have when both sides of this House have failed in their duty to encourage and support our ongoing investment in Australian tradesmen and tradeswomen? For too long the major parties have seen immigration as the way to meet our need for skilled workers. The balance between creating skilled workers and importing the skills we need has been lost, because the major parties have lost focus and purpose.
Labor's record in relation to jobs and those in work is a disgrace. It was Labor who withdrew employer incentives for a wide group of apprenticeships in 2012 and destroyed pathways for skilled jobs, but that was not enough destruction: in the same year Labor caused the loss of 2,400 experienced TAFE teacher jobs, and TAFE enrolments fell by 50,000. Over 50 country towns with TAFE colleges suffered as a result of decisions made by Labor. It is Labor who argues that hundreds of thousands of foreign students with work rights are not taking jobs from Australians in the 15-to-24-year-old age group.
Labor dudded Australian workers through enterprise bargaining agreements or EBAs. These EBAs have seen hundreds of thousands of workers get lower hourly rates than similar but non-unionised workers. Penny Vickers stacked shelves at night at Coles when she challenged the 2011 enterprise bargain agreement with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association. She challenged the deal made between her union and Coles, because she was worse off under the union negotiated agreement. In February this year Coles offered 77,000 low paid workers a new deal because of Penny Vickers, not because of her union. It was Labor that opposed One Nation's amendment, which would have seen penalty rates restored to those who had lost them under unfair EBAs. Labor says one thing but does another, and in my mind that makes them untrustworthy. Labor wants to use tax policy to promote class warfare in this country. I will never support tax policy that promotes class warfare.
I want everyone to have a chance in life to learn and to work. For too long we have seen the decline of apprentices regardless of what trade. TAFE colleges across the country have shut. Employers fear for the ability to pay wages for a trainee over a period of years when they may find themselves at times unable to draw a wage. Under my proposed apprenticeship pilot scheme program I want to give 1,000 Aussies an opportunity for a trade and a future. Under the proposal the government will pay the employer 75 per cent of the first year's wage, 50 per cent of the second and 25 per cent of the third. In this way the government partners their education and training as they do for anyone who may attend other educational schemes, including university. The program is intended to give those Aussies who live in rural and remote areas the first bite of the cherry in taking up apprenticeships on offer. It is important that we address the high youth unemployment outside of the cities, and give encouragement to the youth to stay in their towns with their families rather than moving to the cities looking for work.
The proposed and partially legislated tax cuts for companies have next to no support in the Australian community. Of course, sales are not profits, because expenses like the cost of goods sold, wages, energy costs, interest on borrowing et cetera need to be deducted before profits can be calculated and tax liability determined. One Nation supported the tax-rate cuts for businesses with up to $50 million in turnover, despite knowing that any threshold for the tax cuts would encourage businesses to restructure. It's common knowledge that the government wants the 25 per cent tax rate to apply to all business. The government's case for tax-rate cuts for all business is weak. Nothing the government has said has changed my mind.
So what has happened to get my support for the tax-rate cuts for businesses with sales above $50 million? The government has rightly been criticised for the failure to make these tax-rate cuts part of a package of wider tax reform. When the government came knocking at One Nation's door looking for support for removing the $50 million sales threshold for tax cuts, I decided to take the opportunity to start tax reform in relation to Commonwealth-owned natural gas. It is well known that there has been huge investment by foreign-owned multinationals in gas located in the 2,400 kilometre North West Shelf geological formation, which lies off the coast of Western Australia. Less well known is that Australia will receive through the taxation system next to nothing for our natural gas, while foreign-owned multinationals will make billions from the sales of this gas each year.
The government and Labor shake with fear at the prospect of foreign-owned petroleum multinationals campaigning against their candidates at the next election if they take steps to reform the tax system applicable to gas and other hydrocarbons. Both major parties are unwilling to develop a bipartisan plan to get foreign-owned multinational gas companies to pay for our gas so that we can all benefit, in the way Norway and other countries have done. One Nation last year announced its policy to place a royalty on gas in Commonwealth waters to revoke long-held licences that could go into production but are not being used, and to get gas reserves for Australia at a low price so that electricity and gas prices would fall dramatically. One Nation is shocked that Japan's government makes nearly $3 billion a year by placing an import duty on our gas and we get a few hundred million. I have sought to get the government to reform the tax system in relation to Commonwealth-owned gas in return for support for tax cuts, but the government has rejected placing royalties on gas taken from the Commonwealth. It has also rejected a serious overhaul of the petroleum resource rent tax system, which has created a wall of unearned tax credits that see these companies able to ensure they will never make a profit on which tax is payable. Nevertheless, some changes have been negotiated which will see limited reform of the PRRT system, and some of these changes have already been leaked to the press by the government. If there are any changes to the PRRT in the reduction, it's because of One Nation and our push on the government. And if they actually open up these retention leases, which have been held by some companies for over 30 years and never utilised, it is because of One Nation—because we put pressure on both the National Party and the government to actually start doing something about it so we get royalties and more money flowing into this country.
I will not support this bill. I'm getting criticised for it but, as more comes out, and the public are aware of what the cost is going to be to this country and for future generations, a lot more people are now saying no, they don't want these corporate tax cuts. My negotiations with the government also have been that the banking royal commission must be paid for by the banks, and there must be a compensation fund to pay people who have lost their properties and face devastation because of the banks. There are many areas that we need to clean up, and I will go on and on about this until it is done—until the government realises that we are losing so much money from our resources in this country to multinationals that come out here and rip it off.
Of the revenue that we have, 75 per cent is paid by the PAYE taxpayer, those people who have to pay their taxes. They don't get the deductions and they hand over their money. But corporations and other multinationals in this country, those that do pay their taxes, write down everything they possibly can. We need to have a thorough look at our taxation department. They are overworked and they are reluctant. They can't go after a lot of the people they need to. As I said, 75 per cent of our revenue base is from the PAYE taxpayer. Twenty-five per cent comes from corporate tax. Of that corporate tax, 98 per cent is paid by Australian companies and only two per cent by multinationals.
This has been my argument in this place since I was in the other place in 1996, 1997 and 1998. It as about the multinationals paying their share of tax in this country. You are in fear that we're going to lose our sovereignty. No, they come out here because it's a good deal and because we have a safe place. We have the resources, and they can get on and get the job done, not like in a lot of these countries that are faced with terrorism. They come here because they know it is the best place.
And yet we have done free trade agreements that allow them to bring in their own workers. Here we have multinational companies that are employing staff overseas in call centres. They are using their pay as a tax deduction here in Australia. It's disgraceful. You talk about wanting jobs for Australians. I don't see it. I don't see it from either the Labor Party or the coalition.
We have got the best country in the world to prosper like we did in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the1950s, after the war. But we are sliding into this quagmire, this swamp, because you're reluctant to do anything, because you're in fear that you're going to lose the multinationals. What are you losing? Absolutely nothing, because they don't pay their tax here.
Where are you going to find money? Our ever-increasing welfare bill is up now to $187 billion, and it's growing. You've got that many migrants coming into the country that we can't afford the infrastructure, the nursing homes, the hospitals or the schools. Yet you still want to throw out and give these tax cuts. I want to see Australian companies get their tax cuts. They need relief, by all means, but do it in a well-managed way, and don't do it so that we're going to hand on a hell of a debt, a bill, to future generations that they will never be able to pay back.
What will happen is that you're going to have countries like China coming and asking for the money, and ending up with our resources—our ports, our airfields and our land—as they have done in Sri Lanka and in Greece. You think it's not going to happen, but it will happen because of bad management, poor government and the lack of decent opposition in this parliament. You'll only get good government if you have a good opposition, and the Labor Party's not it.
In the Liberal-National party coalition we believe, among other important and worthwhile things, in a stronger economy—an economy that supports its people, one that provides the building blocks for aspiration and for achievement. But what makes a stronger economy? What gives an economy the life it needs to support a country in this way? We need to be competitive. If an economy is not competitive, it is not alive. It's not supporting the people who depend on it. A healthy, vibrant, plentiful economy is essential to the quality of life I know everyone on this side of the chamber wants to see all Australians enjoy.
Even a basic economic education reveals the production line nature of producing an effective economy. Let's start at the beginning. High company tax rates repel investment. It causes international investors to take their capital and the resultant jobs to countries where it's cheaper to operate. The flow-on effect is that Australia doesn't receive the investment it needs and the income from the businesses that would have operated here. Australians are not employed by these investors. Subsequently, unemployment rises and, as demand for labour falls, so too do wages. Hardworking Australians, who we are in this place to represent, are worse off when we have high company tax rates. The government's enterprise tax plan would see by 2026-27 a 25 per cent company tax rate implemented for all companies, the lowest rate since the 1960s. It's a fully funded plan that seeks to accommodate, for the long-term, coalition company tax cuts to promote growth, jobs and innovation in our economy, which will help all Australians reach their Australian dream.
High company tax rates strangle our economy and prevent it from achieving the things that are needed for Australian people. The coalition government is attempting to let the economy breathe again, to revive it from the top down and to let the benefits flow to all Australians. That's because we have some of the highest company tax rates in the world. We need only look to our friends in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Japan and France to see the benefits of maximising competitiveness to revive the economy. In December 2017, our closest ally, the United States of America, lowered their company tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent. Britain reduced its tax rate to 19 per cent and is tracking towards 17 per cent by 2020. France is moving to lower its tax rate from 33 per cent to 25 per cent by 2022. These are all countries that we must observe and learn from. They are also countries we directly compete with. The world is taunting Australia to assert its place once again as a competitive nation.
Speaking of our friends across the seas, the Tax Foundation found in the United States that for every $1 that the company tax rose, for every $1 collected, real wages fell by $2.50 five years later. That's not an equation that works for workers. Back at home, 2016 Treasury analysis provided that a 25 per cent business tax rate here would mean the average yearly earnings of full-time working Australians would increase by $750. The uncomfortable reality for some is that high company taxes hurt employees—not big business, not the banks and not the multinationals but the average Australian worker. The Labor Party knows it too. That's why so many Labor members of parliament are on the record, recently and in the past, supporting reductions in the corporate tax rate. When companies have to pay more tax, they can't invest, they can't grow, they can't create the labour demand that's necessary for wages to rise and workers are not paid higher wages. It really is that simple.
Many struggling families are depending on this parliament to deliver for them. How can we possibly say no? Corporate taxes are the most harmful type of tax for economic growth. That's not me talking; that's the OECD. It's part of the reason why our government is working to reduce them. Canadian tax expert Jack Mintz put it this way:
… companies do not bear the taxes they pay but people do.
On this side of the chamber, we understand that. Approximately nine out of 10 Queenslanders work in a private sector role. These businesses and their employees want to see these company tax cuts passed. Small- and medium-sized businesses particularly want to see them passed. These businesses don't operate in a vacuum, just as economics doesn't. Combined, small- and medium-sized businesses contribute around half a trillion dollars a year. That would only increase if company tax rates were lowered. If big business can afford to invest more, small- and medium-sized businesses benefit as their major customers and suppliers. We know that trade between small and big business is worth more than $550 billion a year. The head of the Council of Small Business recently called for full implementation of the enterprise tax plan, because 'we want to see business succeed, we want to see them get the cut, because they will put the money into us'—'us' being small business. All sectors of our workforce are calling for this plan. We can't let the politics of envy, the politics of populism, stand in the way.
Labor incessantly rails against what they call the big end of town and the multinationals, but they never talk about the way these businesses help small business. They never talk about the way encouraging investment by big business in Australia helps small and medium-size businesses get along. According to the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, the vast majority of Australian businesses are small businesses. They account for 33 per cent of Australian GDP, they employ over 40 per cent of Australia's workforce and they pay around 12 per cent of total company tax revenue. Reducing their burden should be supported by all right-thinking politicians. And we shouldn't forget the way that small business will benefit when we help all businesses by lowering their tax rate. As the ombudsman observes:
A healthy small business sector is a prerequisite for a growing economy with high employment opportunities.
The people in our community who need opportunity most—the people who have been on the unemployment line for too long, the people who have been desperately searching for work—they are counting on us to deliver those employment opportunities, counting on us to keep creating jobs.
This government has set the conditions to create over a million jobs—brand-new jobs for this country, and over 75 per cent of them full-time. Why would we stop now? It is in this very real sense that small business counts. Labor's refusal to support this relief to businesses small and large, but particularly to small business, really reflects the fact that the sectors it is most likely to support are not small business. It doesn't care for the largely un-unionised small business sector, because the flourishing of small business is of no value to Labor's union masters.
The US Tax Foundation has highlighted a range of benefits associated with lowering corporate tax, and it's valuable to repeat them here. They include cutting the corporate tax rate, which will have the impact of promoting higher long-term economic growth. The Australian community keeps begging for politicians to look to the long term and to abandon short-term populism but to do what is needed and not necessarily politically easy but in the long-term interests of this country. So, when we have evidence like this we simply must listen. The same institute has demonstrated that cutting the corporate tax rate will improve competitiveness for those who adopt it. It will lead to higher wages and living standards. It will boost entrepreneurship, investment and productivity. It will lower the tax burden on low-income taxpayers and seniors. It will attract foreign direct investment, which will create more jobs for Australians. It will lead to lower corporate debt and reduce compliance costs.
With all of those benefits, it's remarkable that anyone would stand in the way. Australia could be experiencing these benefits within the year if the enterprise tax plan is implemented. This government wants to see the economy and our society thrive in these ways. On this side of the chamber, it's what we work every day to achieve. But, regrettably, those on the opposite side of the chamber are working towards increasing the tax burden, limiting investment, reducing Australian jobs, lowering wages and strangling our economy. Previous Labor governments didn't strive to do this. Even former Prime Minister Julia Gillard said:
If you are against cutting company tax, you are against economic growth. If you are against economic growth, then you are against jobs.
She's not the only one from Labor's team who has said words to that effect over and over in past years. No doubt she would be disappointed to see a Labor government, if elected, imposing around $200 billion worth of new taxes on households and workers, demonstrating that they are, in fact, against economic growth and jobs.
Mr Shorten himself expressed the view that cutting the company tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. It wasn't that long ago that he had a comment as adamant as this, but now one can only assume that the flip-flop to oppose this proposal is purely about obtaining political advantage. It's an attempt to short-sightedly turn one Australian against another using the most base of emotions, envy. He's seen an opportunity to divide and grabbed it with both hands. What a disregard for the people who would have otherwise seen and felt the benefits of this policy on their dinner tables and in their pockets, instead of seeing their wellbeing used as a class warfare tool, as a bargaining chip to advantage his union mates! Now Mr Shorten stands in the way of investment and growth and higher wages, and what makes it worse is that he knows it. Let us all call on him to stop and instead support a policy that will aid Australian people and their businesses.
As a result of well-thought-out, balanced and intelligent economic policy, Australia's economy is only growing under the coalition government, and our tax plan will increase the size of the economy, clearly highlighting how this government goes from one economic strength to the next. So we want to continue to encourage investment and innovation, growth and employment. We are doing just that with this company tax plan. Of course, we have already delivered on the Personal Income Tax Plan, we have opened up new markets through free trade agreements, we have invested $70 billion in productivity by enhancing infrastructure, we are delivering on a comprehensive 20-year defence industry plan, and we are securing record funding for schools and for hospitals. I could keep going on, but there's really no need, because the coalition government's achievements in securing our future and creating jobs for Australians are absolutely plain. This will support our people and our economy as we manage the transition to a modern and competitive domestic business environment. The only plan, though, that Labor has is one of obstruction and a commitment to funding and creating black holes that would be the envy of Stephen Hawking.
Small and medium-sized businesses contribute well over $22 billion in company tax every year. At this scale of business, every dollar saved goes back into growing the business, contributing to exports and employing more people. This enterprise tax plan is all about giving small and medium-sized businesses what they need, including greater trade with bigger businesses. The benefit of reducing the tax burden on small and medium-sized businesses is the positive message of encouragement that this government sends every day that all businesses are important to growing our economy.
So I encourage the Labor Party and the crossbench to get behind this plan and help the Australian people. It's time to recognise the naked politicking of the politics of envy for what it is and to get behind the growth of our economy, the creation of jobs, and the investment in the next generation of Australian workers and their prosperity.
In 2016, the Turnbull government went to the federal election promising tax cuts to Australia—personal tax cuts, which they've got, and company tax cuts. They narrowly won government and last year tried to make good on the company tax cuts, even though the Labor opposition, the so-called friend of workers and small business, wanted to block any cuts to any business with a turnover of more than $2 million. The then senator Jacqui Lambie and I got that threshold up to $10 million. Senator Hanson, from One Nation, and I improved the figure to $50 million. That is the figure the government voted for as, I'll admit, an interim measure, and they promised, through Senator Cormann, to bring on a big tax cut for bigger businesses this year.
I made it quite clear that I would not, that I could not, vote for a company tax cut for the big four robber banks when they were facing a royal commission into their rapacious, nefarious behaviour. In March I went on Sky News and offered a compromise. I told Samantha Maiden that I would vote for company tax cuts, to 27½ per cent and eventually to 25 per cent, for all Australian companies with a turnover up to $500 million.
Order! It being 2 pm, Senator Hinch, you will be in continuation when the debate resumes.
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Last week the Prime Minister celebrated his victory in the coalition party room, claiming his energy policy received 'overwhelming support'. Does the Prime Minister stand by that statement?
Indeed, it received overwhelming support in the party room but not sufficient support in all aspects for it to be carried through the House of Representatives in the current circumstances. What the government announced earlier today is our plan to further reduce power prices. Indeed, in accelerating our response to the ACCC report, which we commissioned, firstly we will create a default power bill offer for households and small businesses, which is consistent with recommendation 30 of the ACCC's report. This is not a price cap but, instead, a requirement for all retailers to make a new, cheaper offer, set every year, based on the AER's estimate of the efficient cost of the retailer's operation. The AER sets one default offer for each network distribution area. The ACCC estimates that for average customers on an inflated standing offer the savings on moving to a new default market offer could range between $183 and $416. For average small and medium-sized businesses on a standing offer they could range between $561 and $1,457.
We will also give ourselves a big stick to make energy companies lower their prices and we will move more quickly to implement the remaining ACCC recommendations—in particular recommendation 1, recommendation 4, recommendation 32 and recommendation 33. For average customers, as I've already indicated, on an inflated standing offer the savings on moving to a new default market offer could range between $183 and $416.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The default market offer could see up to 1.2 million households save up to $416, which is an ACCC measure. This is on top of the 500,000 who were moved off standing offers or expired market offers last year, which is the AER figure. And, according to AEMO, 1.8 million customers have switched, looking for a better deal, since we first took action.
Order! Before I call Senator Wong, can I remind senators of my plea to be able to hear the question myself. I will hear questions in silence. Senator Wong.
Less than a week ago the Prime Minister said emissions reduction targets in his energy policy would be legislated. What happened?
I think this is asking a question to which you know the answer. What happened is that, clearly, right now there's not sufficient support for that particular part of the policy through the House of Representatives. We remain committed to the emissions reduction target and we remain on track to achieve the emissions reduction target, but right now that aspect of the policy—which did receive the overwhelming support of the party room but not sufficient support for it to pass the House of Representatives—will not be legislated at this time.
Senator Wong, a further supplementary question?
Mr Turnbull has now junked the clean energy target and the emissions intensity scheme, junked down the National Energy Guarantee and committed billions to building new coal-fired power, and he is walking away from his commitment to legislating emissions reduction targets. Is there anything left for this Prime Minister to concede to the hard right of his own party room?
The Turnbull government is committed to delivering lower prices for households, for families and pensioners—lower electricity prices and more reliable energy supplies. We are working flat out to ensure that families and pensioners around Australia and businesses around Australia can get the benefit of lower electricity prices and reliable energy supplies. It is a matter of public record that, in the circumstances, one aspect of the policy was not going to be able to be legislated through the House of Representatives, and we've made relevant decisions accordingly.
Order! I draw the attention of honourable senators to the presence in the chamber of a parliamentary delegation from New Zealand led by Gareth Hughes MP. On behalf of all senators, I wish you a warm welcome to Australia and, in particular, to the Senate.
Honourable senators: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Senator Birmingham. How is the coalition government shifting the balance of the electricity market in favour of households and businesses?
I thank Senator Hume for her question and her absolute commitment to ensuring that Australian households and businesses have the lowest electricity prices possible, which is the driving intention of the Turnbull government and has been for the last couple of years, as we have worked through reform after reform to drive down energy prices. Today, we announced a series of further reforms to further drive down energy prices.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry report in July. They announced and made very clear that the national energy market is not operating in the best interests of Australian consumers and that reform is urgently needed. That's why, today, the Turnbull government has announced that it is going to act on a number of those recommendations. Consistent with recommendations 30 and 49 of the report, the ACCC and the Australian Energy Regulator will begin work on calculating a default price for households and small to medium-sized businesses to replace the current non-price-regulated jurisdictions.
The ACCC found that a significant gap between standing offer prices and market offer prices has become excessive and that consumers have not been seeking the better deals. The default offer will provide additional protection that, for average consumers, could be in the range of $183 to $416. These are real potential savings, which could be between $561 and upwards of $1,400, to households and medium-sized businesses,. The government will also be accepting the ACCC's recommendation to implement a program to underwrite new, stable, low-cost, dispatchable generation for commercial and industrial consumers, ensuring that that's a technology-neutral program as recommended by the ACCC, giving further action to build on our already successful reforms that are already driving down prices.
Senator Hume, a supplementary question.
Can the minister inform the Senate about the government's plan—
Opposition senators interjecting—
Order on my left! I have—
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order on my left and now on my right.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order, Senators Collins and Macdonald! I have asked for silence during questions. Senator Hume, please continue.
Can the minister inform the Senate about the government's plan to ensure that households and small businesses are getting the best possible deal?
Under our plan, as recommended by the ACCC, the AER would be given the power to set a default market offer in each region. Customers who are on high-priced standing offers would see their electricity costs decrease as they move to the lower, default market offer.
The government would also simplify the confusing array of offers that are currently on the market by requiring retailers to use the new default rate as a reference point for all advertised discounts. This will give customers much greater clarity when they consider whether or not to switch energy plans and, if so, which energy plan to switch to. Limits will also be placed on the penalties that customers can face when they don't pay their bills on time and lose their discounts.
The government will work to ensure that states and territories act on this reform but, if they do not agree, will implement it through Commonwealth law because we are determined to make sure this new default offer applies from July 2019 at the latest to give certainty to consumers.
Senator Hume, a final supplementary question?
Can the minister update the Senate on how the government will back the tough cop on the beat to ensure that companies do the right thing by their customers?
Not only are we going to make sure that these reforms are in place but we will hold energy companies to account to make sure they are delivered upon and that consumers see real benefits in relation to these reforms. The ACCC will prepare ongoing reports identifying cases where outcomes are unacceptable. Businesses will have the opportunity to explain and rectify those issues, but if businesses fail to do so the ACCC will be empowered to recommend proportional and targeted responses, for the Treasurer's determination. The range of enforcements and remedies that could be applied are wide ranging and far reaching, and go further than any such remedies ever proposed before. They range from beginning with a public warning notice to be issued by the Treasurer, through court-enforceable undertakings and the conversion of the default market office into a binding price cap, to, ultimately, the potential divestiture of assets or parts of energy businesses to make sure those businesses understand the severity of their failure to put consumers' rights first. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Regional Communications, Senator McKenzie. Yesterday, when asked about the Prime Minister's last-minute changes to his energy policy, the minister said:
I’m not going to comment on something I haven’t seen the detail of, we are going to take that to the National Party party room, we’ve got a meeting at the Lodge where I am assuming we will be briefed on that tonight.
And post that briefing, post discussing with National Party colleagues and party room I will be much more comfortable in discussing those changes.
When and how did the minister first become aware of the further changes the Prime Minister made to his energy policy on Friday?
Senator Farrell, I don't back away from running policy ideas and positions through the National Party party room. We've been incredibly strong for two years on advocating for an affordable, reliable response to the crisis that is facing households and our local industries, with a 300 per cent increase in power prices in my home state of Victoria, on the back of—
Senator McKenzie, please resume your seat. Senator Cameron, on a point of order.
Direct relevance, Mr President. The question is when and how did the minister first become aware of the further changes the Prime Minister made to his energy policy on Friday—that's it.
As senators know, I cannot instruct the minister how to answer a question. The minister needs to be directly relevant to part of the question asked. Senator Cameron, you have reminded her of the final part of the question; she has a minute and 29 seconds remaining to answer. Senator McKenzie.
As I said, we've been advocating for lower power prices for households and for our industries for years. And, as such, our government has instructed the ACCC to do a report into the affordability crisis, which they delivered in June—
Senator Wong, on a point of order.
The point of order is on direct relevance. The minister made a public statement about internal processes. This question goes directly to that public statement—when and how did she become aware—and I'd ask you to remind her of the question and ask her to be directly relevant to it.
Ministers can be asked questions about their public statements. I remind the minister of the question at the end of that quotation from her public statement.
I've made a lot of public statements around the importance of energy affordability and I don't back away from any of them. The comment I made around taking any changes to our government's policy around energy to the National Party party room I think was a sound statement then, and I stand by it. And, following a cabinet meeting last night, where the full package around the government's perspective on this issue was outlined—
Senator Collins, on a point of order.
Mr President, the question refers to one public statement, where the minister said, 'I haven't seen the detail of'. So we're asking: when did she see 'the detail of'—and she continues to avoid answering the question.
I cannot instruct the minister how to answer a question. Senator Collins, in the section immediately preceding your point of order, in my view, Senator McKenzie was directly addressing part of the question.
I will step you through: we have the cabinet meeting, the details are presented, I'm happy with those, we go to a National Party party room meeting. The National Party is very proud to be part of a government that's taking direct action to lower power prices in this country by backing and supporting the construction and refurbishment of energy assets in coal, hydro and, indeed, gas; by making sure we adopt the default pricing mechanisms outlined in the ACCC report—a 25 per cent reduction in power prices as a result of that; and by adopting divestiture mechanisms so that we can actually— (Time expired)
I have a supplementary question. When and how did the minister become aware that the government would be dumping the National Energy Guarantee, as announced today?
As I outlined in my previous answer, cabinet met last night and agreed to a pathway forward, given the reality of the politics that we're in at the moment. The reality for the NEG is that it will have to be pursued through state legislation to ensure the reliability guarantee is met.
What we are seeking to do is to ensure that Australian businesses and households have affordable power. To that end, we've adopted the ACCC's measures in conjunction with ensuring that those big power companies that continue to rip Australians off, that continue to rip businesses off, will be held to account through a tough regime of sanctions, if you like, including divestiture, to address the concentration of power generation assets in this country, which have led to a decrease in competition and an increase in power prices for all Australians.
I have a further supplementary question. At any point has the National Party party room been provided with the details of policy changes announced first on Friday and then today? Do all National Party MPs and senators support the Prime Minister's latest energy policy?
Senator Farrell, I'm sorry that you made your way into question time without actually seeing the press conference by the Deputy Prime Minister; the minister for resources; the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate; the agriculture minister; and me—indeed, the entire cabinet team of the National Party—about 45 minutes ago. We stood as one, post our National Party party room meeting, fully endorsing the Prime Minister's announcement and the cabinet decision last night. And, as one, the National Party have been fighting for affordable, reliable energy across this country. We believe that the initiatives outlined by the Prime Minister this morning face the political reality we are in—that is, the only alternative here is the Labor Party's energy policy, based on an emissions target of 45 per cent and a renewable energy target of 50 per cent. If you think 26 per cent is a problem, go down your path. Your modelling is based on Greenpeace modelling, according to your own energy shadow minister. What a joke! (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Jobs and Innovation, Senator Cash. Can the minister update the Senate on how the Turnbull government's policies are helping young Australians into employment?
I thank the honourable senator for his question. The policies of those of us on this side of the chamber, the Turnbull government, are getting people off welfare and into work. The labour force figures for July released last week show that the number of Australians in full-time work is at a record high. The economy has created, over the last 12 months, in excess of 300,000 jobs, two-thirds of which—that is, 200,000—are actually full-time jobs. The unemployment rate is now at 5.3 per cent, and that is the lowest since November 2012. And this of course is because of the policies that the Turnbull government has put in place that businesses—in particular, small and medium businesses—have been able to leverage off so they can prosper, grow and create more jobs.
But the policies of the Turnbull government are also getting our youth off welfare and into work, and we know that the best form of welfare is a job. The youth unemployment rate is now at 11.2 per cent. That is actually the lowest since April 2012, and it compares to 12.7 per cent when Labor left office—11.2 per cent now, 12.7 per cent when Labor left office. Whilst this is encouraging, we have always said that we need to put in place the right policies to create the jobs and give our youth the experience they need so that they can get a head start in life, get off welfare and get into work. That is why we heavily invested in excess of $800 million into our Youth Jobs PaTH program. This program is all about creating opportunities for young Australians to improve their work readiness, gain work experience, and move from a lifetime of welfare into work. (Time expired)
Senator Martin, a supplementary question.
Minister, why is it important to have policies that focus on getting young people into work?
The Turnbull government recognises that giving our young people job opportunities and their first opportunity in the workforce can make a real, significant difference in their lives and the pathways that they may walk down. That is why we invested in excess of $800 million in our Youth Jobs PaTH program. It focuses on ensuring that our youth have the skills they need, giving them the opportunity to get a foot in the door and then ultimately move from welfare into a job. Like so many of us, I have had the privilege of meeting a young person by the name of John, who had been long-term unemployed and was hoping to find a job. The Eckersley Print Group in Queensland offered John an internship under the PaTH program. He demonstrated to the Eckersley group that he was incredibly capable. Following the completion of his internship, John was offered employment by the employer. That is a great outcome for both the employer and the young person, John. (Time expired)
Senator Martin, a final supplementary question.
Is the minister aware of any risks to the Turnbull government's commitment to getting young people into jobs?
Opposition senators interjecting—
Order on my left! I asked for silence during questions.
It's Mr Shorten and the Labor Party that are clearly an impediment to young people getting off welfare into work, because of the policies that they have committed to, the $200 billion tax hit on businesses, workers and pensioners. It is a fact that these policies will devastate our economy, and if you devastate our economy, businesses are not able to prosper and grow. A business that is not able to prosper and grow is not able to employ Australians. Those on the other side don't seem to understand that a business that has to close employs no-one. That is why we on this side of the chamber will continue to put in place policies that enable our businesses to prosper and grow. We know that, when businesses prosper and grow, they are able to create jobs. Under the policies we have put in place since we were elected in September 2013 the economy has created now almost— (Time expired)
My question is for the Leader of the Government representing the Prime Minister. Minister, today the government has acknowledged the failure of our privatised and deregulated energy market and announced some minimal reregulation of energy retailers. It did this about a year after the Greens laid down a plan to reregulate the energy market. You have implemented the bank levy after you ridiculed us about our proposal. You instituted the banking royal commission a few years after our analysis said that it had to be done. Minister, how does it feel to be gradually implementing so much of the Greens' economic policy agenda?
If Senator Di Natale feels so pleased about what he has just outlined, perhaps it is time that he started to support some of our policies for stronger growth and more jobs. It's not too late for the Greens to vote in favour of better opportunities for working families around Australia to get ahead. What I would say to the Greens is: it's time that you help young Australians get better opportunities to find a better job and build a career here in Australia, and to ensure that businesses here in Australia who employ young Australians have the opportunity to compete with businesses in other parts of the world that pay significantly less tax. Senator Di Natale seems to be very happy with the record of achievement of this government, and it's time that he started supported some of our very important pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-opportunity policies.
Senator Di Natale, a supplementary question.
The Prime Minister didn't mention at his press conference today the ACCC recommendation to abolish the federal incentive for small-scale rooftop solar. Minister, will you now unequivocally commit for the benefit of those many thousands of households, businesses and installers, that you will not pursue the ACCC recommendation to abolish the incentive for rooftop solar?
The Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for the Environment and Energy announced the government's response to the ACCC report earlier today. I took the Senate through that in some detail earlier in my response to a question from Senator Wong. I don't have anything further to add.
Senator Di Natale, a final supplementary question.
Recently, the Greens released a policy to break up the banks, separating insurance, super and complex financial instruments. We want to see the ACCC become the regulator. We want a state-owned people's bank. How long before we have to wait for the government to adopt these policies?
I remind senators that supplementary questions need to relate to the substance of the first question. I ask senators to consider that when they're phrasing their supplementary questions.
I don't have anything to add to my first answer. It's high time that the Greens started supporting some of the important pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-opportunity policies of the government, and all Australians will be better off.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence Industry, Senator Payne. This morning, Minister Pyne said that there is overwhelming support in the party room for the National Energy Guarantee. Is Minister Pyne correct?
Mr President, I fail to see how that relates to the portfolio responsibilities of either the Minister for Defence or the Minister for Defence Industry, but I would assure the Senate that the Minister for Defence Industry is always correct in his observations.
I was going to remind senators that ministers, including those in a representational capacity, can be asked about the public statements of those they represent, but I also note Senator Payne didn't raise a point of order. I'm just making that observation, given debate in the chamber. Senator Wong.
Just to be clear, because I'm not sure—
Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—
Order! Senator Wong, your point of order.
It's not all about me. No, it's not, actually, Senator Macdonald.
Order! I would like to hear Senator Wong's point of order.
Mr President, as I understand your ruling, we can ask Senator Payne questions about public statements that Mr Pyne has made.
The point I was making in reminding the Senate of that, Senator Wong, was that the minister was addressing the question. I was making an observation. No-one challenged that the question was out of order. I was reminding the Senate of what is in order. But the minister may answer in the way they consider appropriate.
Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. If there is overwhelming support for Prime Minister Turnbull's energy policy, as claimed by the Prime Minister last Tuesday and by Minister Pyne this morning, why has the Prime Minister today dumped his National Energy Guarantee?
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! I asked for silence during questions. These are matters for debate. There is an opportunity after question time for debate. Senator Payne.
As Senator Cormann, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, has said so eloquently in his response to the first question today, the actions that the government are taking on a number of fronts are about lowering power prices. That is our priority. That is our focus. It apparently eludes those opposite, but they are the decisions we have made.
Senator Bilyk, a final supplementary question.
This morning Minister Pyne said, 'They always want to try and drive down numbers in the polls because they say, "See, we told you so, and therefore we need to change the leadership."' Can the minister explain to the Senate whom Minister Pyne was referring to?
The senator would have to give me a little more context. I didn't hear all of Mr Pyne's interviews this morning. But let's be very clear about what we're talking about there. During the six years that those opposite were in government electricity prices doubled, and they went up each and every year. Federal and state Labor policies have effectively continued to increase pressure on prices in a number of ways, whether they are jobs' destroying gas bans or moratoriums, whether they are unrealistic renewable energy targets, and if it's even open hostility to reliable dispatchable power. We on this side are focused on reducing power prices, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
Order! I draw to the attention of honourable senators the presence in the gallery of a parliamentary delegation from the National Assembly of Vietnam, led by His Excellency Mr Nguyen Duc Hai MP. On behalf of all senators I wish you a warm welcome to Australia and in particular to the Senate.
Honourable senators: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Minister, the current royal commission into misconduct in the financial sector has opened the eyes of all Australians to the deliberate detrimental conduct by banks in regard to their management of their clientele. Out of approximately 6,000 submissions, only four farmers have been granted the opportunity to speak before the commission. Is it the minister's opinion that those four representations could possibly give the commissioner a sufficient insight and a full understanding of all the issues those farmers have had to face so that the commission can make meaningful recommendations?
I thank Senator Hanson for that question. A royal commission operates entirely independent from government. And, as has been made clear by the government throughout, that is a key feature of a royal commission—that it is independent from government, and the royal commissioner makes his judgements on how he conducts the inquiry absolutely independently from government. In terms of the time frame for the royal commission, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, myself and others are on the public record as indicating that if the royal commissioner provides advice to the government that he needs more time then we would of course grant that. But it is really a matter for him.
Senator Hanson, a supplementary question.
I wrote to the Prime Minister on 23 July 2018 with a request to extend the time and also to extend the terms of reference to include receivers, managers and liquidators in this request. The response was that the royal commission is independent from government and the manner in which the royal commissioner operates is a matter for the commissioner. Wasn't it your government that actually put the terms of reference and the time— (Time expired)
Yes, it was indeed the government that selected the royal commissioner, who by all accounts is doing a very good job. It was the government that determined the terms of reference. But, that having been done and the royal commission inquiry being underway, the operation of the royal commission is now entirely a matter for the royal commissioner. He acts independently from government. But if he were to make a recommendation to the government that he needs more time, or any other recommendation, it would of course be acted upon by the government in the appropriate way.
Senator Hanson, a further supplementary question.
Why will the government not respond to the thousands and thousands of farmers and other Australians who want this commission extended to include liquidators, receivers and people who have done wrong by them? Why will you not put your recommendations to the commission to extend the inquiry to include those people who need to be brought before the commission?
The royal commission is obviously considering a lot of submissions, a lot of representations. The royal commissioner is required to act independently from government and is best equipped to make relevant judgements. If he were to make certain recommendations to government, the government would of course act on them as appropriate.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Senator Canavan. Minister, what is the coalition government doing to aid drought-stricken farmers during this period of devastating drought?
I thank Senator Williams for that question and recognise the difficult circumstances that many of his New South Wales constituents are facing in New South Wales in one of the worst droughts in our recorded history. These are people like Andrew Curro, a farmer from Mudgee, who has said, 'Cobar hasn't seen any real rain since before Christmas and it's a horrible thing to witness.' I'm sure all of us in this chamber express our best wishes to those facing these difficult circumstances. And we continue as a government to support our farmers in the best way we can.
Yesterday, building on announcements we've made recently, the agriculture minister, Mr Littleproud, the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr McCormack, all made further announcements to support our farmers. That takes our assistance to drought affected farmers to $1.8 billion during this drought, recognising this drought in some locations has gone on for many years, particularly in western Queensland. Yesterday we announced a further $75 million for the Drought Communities Program. It's an assistance package to help small councils invest in community infrastructure. That not only helps that local town or community; it also provides important off-farm income for farmers and those in towns suffering from drought. We have announced a further $23 million for the Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative, a very important program that helps cap bores in the Great Artesian Basin, increasing pressure and allowing more water extraction for farmers over the long term. We've increased the amount of concessional loans that can go to farmers, from a $1 million cap to a $2 million cap, again recognising the extent and severity of this drought. Finally, we have invested another $72 million in the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund. This is going to help farms invest in water infrastructure on their properties. It will not only give them jobs and work to do during this drought but also make their place more resilient for the future. These are important investments to help our farmers in this nation.
Senator Williams, a supplementary question.
I thank the minister and I ask: how has the coalition government previously delivered for farming households and regional communities?
As I mentioned in my answer earlier, we are already doing many things in this space and have for many years. We give a commitment to our farming sector and country towns that we in the Liberal-National Party will always support them through these difficult circumstances. We hope that it rains as soon as it can, but we will continue to support them over the years that this drought continues. Previously, as I mentioned, we have invested $35 million in the Drought Communities Program. We have also in previous years invested significant amounts of money in helping protect farmers and properties from the ravages of wild dogs. These are very important investments to build better fencing; it can help lambs and sheep come back into an area. That brings more employment as well. And, of course, we have provided concessional loans and household assistance payments to farmers for the last few years. Now loans have gone to more than 1,500 businesses, amounting to $850 million.
Senator Williams, a final supplementary question.
Minister, how is the coalition government helping farmers to droughtproof and plan for their future?
One important aspect of any response to drought is being able to provide farmers with the financial ability to protect their businesses over the cycle, to make sure they have an ability to put away in good times and to be able to draw on that in not-so-good times, as we see at the moment. The farm management deposits scheme is a key mechanism of the government to be able to provide that support. It allows farmers to put away money in a tax protected vehicle during good years and then to withdraw that money when they may not have as much income in times like those we see now. It is a great message, a great news story, that as at June this year there was a record amount of funding in farm management deposits, $6.6 billion. It has helped farmers prepare for this drought in ways that they may not have been able to in previous years. That is partly the result of the government lifting the amount that farmers can put into farm management deposits up to $800,000. Our farm sector are very resilient; they do prepare for these droughts. Sometimes, however, a natural disaster overcomes any individual's preparedness.
My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann. Last week Senator Cormann sought to reassure the Senate about Minister Dutton's support for the government's policies, saying, 'Don't you worry about my friend Peter.' Reports this morning indicate that 'Peter Dutton is entertaining the prospect of a challenge.' Has the minister told the Prime Minister not to worry about his friend Peter?
I can confirm to the chamber that Peter Dutton is indeed my friend. I can also confirm to the chamber what I said to the chamber last week: it is well known that, for a number of years now, at every day at 5.30 in the morning we meet in the ministerial basement car park and we walk up Red Hill. Every now and then we run into some Labor senators. I think Senator Gallacher used to be accompanied by Senator Sterle, but I think Senator Sterle has dropped off in more recent times—which he confirms! What I can also confirm for the chamber is that Minister Dutton supports the policies of the government. That is what comes with the territory when you are a minister. As a minister, you support the policies of the government, and I don't have any reason to believe otherwise.
Senator Cameron, a supplementary question?
In an article this morning, entitled 'PM's Leadership on knife edge', The Australian reported:
… a number of MPs called Home Affairs Minister and leading Queensland conservative Peter Dutton at the weekend to pledge support should he seek to challenge Mr Turnbull.
Has the minister discussed these reports with his friend Peter?
Let me just say right up-front that, like all of us in the cabinet, I support Prime Minister Turnbull 100 per cent. I think it would not pass the believability test if I said in this chamber that I did not have conversations with my colleagues on current affairs. So let me confirm to the chamber that, as a senior member of the Turnbull government and as a senior member of the Turnbull government who fully supports the Prime Minister, of course I engage with my colleagues as appropriate in relation to current matters.
Senator Cameron, a final supplementary question.
Who does the minister support: the Prime Minister or his friend Peter?
Senator Cameron is so excited that he didn't even listen to my answer to the first supplementary question. As I said very clearly and unequivocally, I support Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Scullion. I ask the minister if he could he tell the Senate what the government is doing to support jobs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in remote Australia?
Thank you for that question, Senator Macdonald. It's a very important question. It is one of the most important things for our side of politics, because in this place we need to make sure the economy works for everyone, not just the people in the big cities and not just the people who currently have jobs. We need to move people into jobs. Since 2013, we've created over a million jobs. They are new jobs. There was a record 400,000 jobs created thanks to our policies. We are job creating with a $75 billion, decade-long pipeline of transport infrastructure. That is going to support 50,000 jobs. There are record investments in the defence industry and supporting small jobs in small business. With the recently announced Future Submarine program, that's 2,800 new jobs. Our tax cuts mean that Australian businesses can keep more of their own money to reinvest back into the economy. Those 400,000 new jobs compare to just 89,000 new jobs in the 12 months before we came to government. It was 89,000—what a pathetic record.
Importantly, these jobs are being created right across the country, particularly in the bush. Our Community Development Program has created 26,000 jobs. Many of those 26,000 jobs are for the most disadvantaged jobseekers in Australia. We suffered so badly under those opposite's RJCP. At the end of their program, only seven per cent of the participants were showing up. We have now got 71 per cent over 26,000 jobs. Take our own program: there were 22,900 jobs that were all about getting people off the misery of welfare and into the dignity of work. How can we afford to have these job-creating investments? It's because we brought the budget back under control and more people on to the taxpayer side of the ledger.
Senator Macdonald, a supplementary question.
I notice that the minister mentioned rangers' jobs, and I ask the minister to elaborate on how the Indigenous rangers program has been driving new job opportunities, particularly in my home state of Queensland.
The Indigenous rangers program is one of the most important ways that we're getting regional and remote Indigenous jobseekers off welfare and into work. This vision of the Howard government turned what was previously a Work for the Dole activity into a superannuated, salaried job. As we've indicated, we're supporting nearly 3,000 jobs across Australia, and over 365 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander jobs in Queensland, the senator's home state—including 13 rangers that I know you know well, the Lama Lama Rangers group from Port Stuart. Last April we announced a further $250 million—that's right: jobs and growth—to expand this rangers program into new parts of the country, a 32 per cent increase in this program since we came to government. This is a methodical, sensible and sustainable way. This isn't like those opposite, saying, 'We'll just double the program,' with absolutely no reference to cost or demand.
Senator Macdonald, a final supplementary question.
Again I thank the minister for his answer, and I ask him to let the Senate know why these programs to support job creation and small business are so important, particularly in remote parts of our country.
Giving Australians jobs and small business opportunities is the whole reason that we on this side of the chamber are here. The dignity of work is the very best form of welfare the government can provide. In my own portfolio there has been a remarkable turnaround in Indigenous jobs and training, which was characterised by churn and training for training's sake by those opposite. We have now supported over 60,000 Indigenous jobseekers into work, which has translated into a 23.3 per cent increase in the number of Indigenous Australians with a job since the 2011 census. We are also supporting small business opportunities. Before we came to government, Indigenous businesses were all but locked out of Commonwealth contracts, with just 30 Indigenous businesses and $6.2 million in 2012-13. Now there are over a thousand, supporting a billion dollars in contracts. Everywhere you look there is jobs and small business growth for Indigenous Australians and for all Australians. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Communications, representing the Minister for Home Affairs. Minister, I refer you to the 119 children currently in offshore detention on Nauru, and specifically to the case of a 12-year-old boy who is on a hunger strike, who weighs just 36 kilograms. Is it true that doctors have advised your government that the boy is at risk of death within days? Is it true that the reason you have not evacuated him to Australia for desperately needed medical treatment is that you insist that he travel without his family? Minister, why will you not allow his family to travel with him?
I can't speak about that individual case, but let me just make clear to colleagues the situation on Nauru in relation to children. Firstly, no-one is detained on Nauru, and children can move about the island freely, including attending school. As of 15 August there are 120 minors in Nauru, three-quarters of which remain engaged in the US process. There are 35 minors who have already been—
Senator McKim, on a point of order.
The point of order is on relevance. The minister has at least partially addressed the question by saying that he's not going to respond to individual cases. I'm wondering if that constitutes a claim for public interest immunity by the minister, because he has given no reason at all to substantiate that statement.
All senators know that I cannot instruct a minister how to answer a question. As long as the minister is directly relevant to part of the question asked, he is in order. The minister is being directly relevant to part of the question you asked.
As I was saying, 35 minors have already been resettled in the US. Two minors settled in the US have since turned 18. There are currently 10 minors and their families residing in the family centre on Nauru. The remaining 110 minors live with their families in the community.
But I want to make clear that neither I nor any colleague on this side of the chamber will take an ethics lecture on regional processing from either the Australian Greens or the Australian Labor Party. It was not anyone on this side of the chamber that was responsible for the policies that saw 50,000 people arrive illegally on 800 boats.
Order, Senator Fifield! On a point of order, Senator McKim.
Mr President, the point of order is, again, relevance. This boy is dying, and the minister is refusing to answer reasonable questions about a boy that doctors are saying will be dead within days.
Senator McKim, please resume your seat.
A government senator interjecting—
Order on my right! Senator McKim, that was not a point of order. The minister needs to be directly relevant to all or part of the question you asked. I note the minister has 35 seconds to continue his answer in a way that is directly relevant to the question.
As I was saying, it was the policies of those opposite, supported by the Australian Greens, which saw 50,000 people arrive illegally on 800 boats, saw 1,200 deaths at sea and put 8,000 children in detention. All I can assume is that Senator McKim is arguing for a return to the former policies.
Senator Keneally interjecting—
I hear Senator Keneally interjecting. Senator Keneally is not aware of what her own party's policy is in relation to this area—
Is it alright for this child to die on your watch?
which her persistent interjections confirm. She is completely unaware of her own party's policy.
Government senators interjecting—
Order, Senator Keneally! Order on my right! Senator McKim, a supplementary question.
Resignation syndrome is a rare psychological condition that afflicts traumatised children when they are overwhelmed by stress. They stop eating, they stop drinking, they stop talking and they stop toileting themselves. They essentially go into hibernation. Minister, how many of the children you are detaining on Nauru are exhibiting these symptoms, and how many have been diagnosed with resignation syndrome?
I make clear that all residents of the Nauru Regional Processing Centre receive health care broadly comparable with Australian public health standards on a 24/7 basis, including after-hours emergency care. Specialist health services are provided, including—
Senator McKim on a point of order.
Mr President, once again, it's on relevance, and I do believe I'm on solid ground here. The only issue I ask—
Government senators interjecting—
Order on my right! The minister's—
You might think dying children is funny. I don't.
Order! Senator McKim!
Government senators interjecting—
I don't, mate!
Senator McKim! Senator McGrath, Seselja, Fierravanti-Wells, order! Turn to your point of order rather than debating the question, Senator McKim.
Mr President, the point of order is relevance. In my question I asked only about resignation syndrome. The minister is reading out a prepared answer that has nothing at all to do with the subject of my question. I ask that you at least remind him of my question.
Senator McKim, you have reminded the minister of the specific nature of your question. I heard the minister. You asked about diagnosis. I heard the minister talking about health. He has 41 seconds to continue his answer. I do believe what the minister was saying was directly relevant, but you've taken the chance to remind him.
International Health and Medical Services provides mental health services in Nauru. Where clinically indicated, IHMS may refer patients to receive additional health care. As I was saying previously—
How many children are in a catatonic state, Minister?
How many children have drowned under your policies?
Senators McKim and Macdonald!
specialist health services include psychology, psychiatry, dentistry, obstetrics, radiography, pharmacy services and trauma counselling services, and additional specialist services may be deployed to Nauru through the visiting specialist programs on an as-needs basis.
Senator McKim, a final supplementary question.
I'm not expecting an answer to this either, Mr President. Minister, how much more do the children on Nauru need to suffer before your government will take action? How many families need to be torn apart and ruined? How many children need to die, Minister? Or will you take action now and evacuate these children and their families to Australia? In fact, will you close down your whole bloody offshore detention system?
Senator McKim, there's an appropriate way to ask questions, and use of such terminology in a question is not appropriate. Senator Fifield.
There is absolutely no morality in returning to the policies of 2007 to 2013.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Fifield. On Thursday, Minister Dutton told 2GB radio:
… I'm not bagging my colleagues or my Prime Minister publicly … if I have something to say to them, I say it to them in private … if my position changes—that is, it gets to a point where I can't accept what the Government's proposing or I don't agree—then … you resign your commission, you don't serve in that Cabinet …
What assurance has the minister given the Prime Minister that he continues to support the Prime Minister and what the government is proposing?
Minister Dutton has been absolutely clear and absolutely explicit that he supports the policies of the government and that he supports the Prime Minister, as does everyone sitting along this front bench here today—crystal clear.
Senator Sterle, a supplementary question.
Despite reports on Friday and Saturday that he was considering challenging Prime Minister Turnbull, Minister Dutton waited until Saturday before he finally commented via Twitter. Why did Minister Dutton allow speculation to fester for 36 hours before he commented?
Minister Dutton has been clear and consistent in his support for the policies of the government.
Senator Sterle, a final supplementary question.
In his tweet, Minister Dutton said, 'My position hasn't changed from my comments last Thursday.' Can the minister confirm that resigning from cabinet remains a live option for Minister Dutton?
Minister Dutton, in the interview to which Senator Sterle referred, was giving a very clear and thorough exposition of the way that the Westminster system works. It was a useful civics lesson for those who tuned in. Minister Dutton, as Senator Sterle indicated, did confirm that over the weekend.
My question is to the Minister for Rural Health, Senator McKenzie. Will the minister outline to the Senate how the coalition government is supporting the mental health of Australians living in the regions?
Thank you, Senator Brockman, for your question and for your concern and care for those living in rural and regional Australia. This government has put the mental health of rural and regional Australians firmly on the agenda as part of our budget's $338.1 million investment. It's a record investment. We recognise that in the modern day there must be much more flexible and innovative ways to deliver mental health support, particularly for those living outside capital cities in regional areas where access to qualified health professionals can sometimes be a challenge. Nowhere is that more obvious than in regional Australia. The tyranny of distance is an everyday occurrence, where even basic chores can involve hours and hours of driving.
As we all saw last Sunday week on Insiders, driving—and there was a bit of crunching of gears—in general can be a bit of a challenge for Labor leaders when they're faced with the horror of visiting regional Australia. So foreign are rural areas to them that they don't even trust themselves to speak on camera about them. In rural and regional Australia, you don't just pop into the shops; you don't just grab a half-hour appointment with a mental health worker during your lunch hour. These are barriers that rural and regional people, the seven million of them, face. They're not a fringe group; they're not just some small tribe who happen to live outside the coastal fringe. There are seven million Australians who face these types of barriers each and every day.
It's not only the distance that is a problem. In July this year we announced three new mental health intervention programs—Rural Minds; Deadly Thinking; and Resource Minds—to support people who are struggling. We know that 100 per cent of New South Wales and much of Queensland is in drought, and it won't be going away soon. The government is on the front foot, supporting the mental health of our farmers and their families and their communities with $11 million in funding as part of the drought mental health package.
Senator Brockman, a supplementary question.
Can the minister outline to the Senate how these investments complement the government's recent budget investments in the mental health of all Australians?
The drought mental health package will increase the availability of telehealth and virtual psychology services in the regions. This will be delivered with locals and charities on the ground.
When we think about the farmers who are fighting the drought, they're the ones that are at home listening to very hungry sheep and listening to very hungry cattle, not just all day but when they go to bed and when they wake up. The mental stress of that needs a response that is localised, tangible and accessible in the privacy of their own homes and in their own local communities and with the support of their local GPs.
We've made the changes to our drought mental health strategy to accommodate the fact that we need a local response, in particular for those communities. This is supported by our Primary Health Networks with $10 million to deliver the empowering our communities grant, which is going to provide $1 million to each of the affected local councils to find local solutions to empower, increase resilience and provide mental wellbeing programs.
Senator Brockman, a final supplementary question.
Will the minister provide an update to the Senate on the government's comprehensive rural health package, as announced in the budget?
Yes, I can. The government's investment in our transformational $550 million Stronger Rural Health Strategy reflects our commitment to improving access to quality health services for people living out in rural and regional Australia. Through better teaching, training, recruitment and retention, the strategy will deliver more than 3,000 doctors and 3,000 nurses and allied health professionals over the next decade. We're already seeing elements of this package rolling out, commencing from 1 July this year, addressing the oversupply of doctors in some urban areas and shortages in rural and remote parts of Australia.
The rising cost of the health system is unsustainable and there will be greater incentives for non-vocationally recognised GPs to obtain those much-needed specialist qualifications. As part of this package, the Royal Flying Doctor Service will also roll out a new mental health outreach program in January, part of our $84.1 million additional funding package for that organisation. Our thoughts and prayers are with our farmers in drought.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Defence (Senator Payne) to a question without notice asked by Senator Bilyk today relating to energy policy.
Oh my goodness me, what an absolute shemozzle we are seeing in this nation at the moment. I honestly don't think Hollywood could have done any better at putting out a couple of fictional episodes as the very poor show that we've seen, particularly in the last few days. Here we are going into a national debate on energy, which we've been in for about 10 years. On Tuesday morning we saw beamed live on our TV screens, and then the front pages of the next day's papers, the Prime Minister out there with Minister Frydenberg saying, 'We have locked away the national energy agreement, the NEG. It's is locked in. Everyone's backed it in. Here we go full steam ahead'. I think that lasted about 10 or 15 minutes. I'm not sure what version we're up to now.
The total dysfunction of this government has actually got to the stage where it's embarrassing. It's been embarrassing for a number of years. I'm asking: who's seen this movie before? I certainly have. I can't believe it's an instant replay. Here we go again. It's the same culprits. What a bunch of backstabbing people. You wouldn't want these people anywhere near you, let alone behind you. The Prime Minister and the minister are out there saying, 'What a great job we've done. We are going to lower household electricity prices'. Then in the next instant it's led by the member for Warringah and Senator Abetz—these are the usual suspects, there's a whole gaggle of them. Then there's the usual suspects like Mr Christensen and that fellow who keeps popping up on Sky News, Mr Kelly. Seriously, Barnum and Bailey's couldn't match this outfit. It's absolutely unbelievable. While the rest of Australia sits back and thinks, 'What the hell is going on in Canberra?'
And then, as I'm walking down to question time, there's Senator Molan with his homemade video—'Look at me! Look at me!' I thought I was watching Australia's Funniest Home Videos, but he was fair dinkum. He was talking into a microphone and a camera on his iPhone. But he hasn't made his decision; he'll have a look at it. He can speak for himself, but he's guaranteed the small audience that happened to walk past ABC Radio at the same time as me that a decision will be made today. My goodness me!
Then we have—here we go!—the fixer, Mr Christopher Pyne, who, on this morning's radio—I'm really not making this up, seriously, but I needed this to keep the adrenaline going—actually said that the Liberal government is doing a magnificent job.
Ha!
, seriously, Senator Bilyk—'Fantastic results in the Super Saturday by-elections. The Liberal government is so successful.' I don't know how they can absolutely just erase five by-elections that happened only a month ago, when the Prime Minister himself made those by-elections on leadership. Quote me if I'm wrong, but it was about eight or nine weeks. We haven't seen anything like that. He couldn't wait to rush off to a double dissolution that cost the nation hundreds of millions of dollars instead of waiting another month, but he took eight or nine weeks to go to the Super Saturday by-elections. The father of the great candidate in Mayo got up on the TV that night and said, 'We're a bunch of nation-builders, us Downers.' I mean, seriously! It's gone from House of Cards to something that John Cleese would do. Seriously, this really is unbelievable. And there's Christopher Pyne telling us how great they've done in Longman. I've got to tell you: the last time I looked, your primary vote had a 2 in front of it, let alone that the candidate that you preselected was the Big Trev, who was going to be the next best thing.
Oh, my goodness me! Why don't you just do the right thing? To the backbench over there, while you're knifing your leader in the back, while you're giving Mr Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, in the other three-ring circus, every piece of fuel to undermine your Prime Minister and to embarrass the politicians in this nation: it's very hard to walk to suburbia and to say the majority of us, especially on this side—well, most of this side. I'll leave that corner over there out. Most of us on this side are decent people, who went into politics to make a difference. What does the nation have to put up with? I don't know what's going to happen. I actually get out of bed each morning thinking to myself, 'Could it get worse?' And you know what? It can. It gets worse every time. So I'll give those on that side a bit of advice. By the time the sycophants and the snivellers all start doing the numbers to see who'll get a promotion if you do knife your Prime Minister—we've seen it all before when you got rid of Mr Abbott—do us one favour. Why don't you just tighten your belt? Why don't you pull your pants up a little bit, tuck it in, and take it to an election? If you're that great, as Mr Pyne said, and you're doing such a great job, take us to an election. Why don't you do something decent for the nation, because—my goodness me!—Australians do not deserve this dysfunctional, childish, immature government we've got at the moment? (Time expired)
That's five minutes of my life I will never get back. Thank you very much, Senator Sterle. Obviously, Senator Sterle, as we well know, is one of the noisiest voices in the overcrowded clown car that is the ministerial wannabes on the other side of this chamber. The only thing that Senator Sterle has brought to the energy debate is availability.
Let's get on to what the real issue is here. The real issue is that Australia's energy resources and technological capabilities are the envy of the world, yet, for over a decade, we have seen successive failures. Ideology, politics and uncritical groupthink have invaded political discourse and policy. I will stand up here now, proudly, and say: yes, Australia's energy crisis is entirely government made, and it is arguably, probably, the most expensive policy failure of our lifetime. But this government—the Turnbull coalition government—is doing something about it.
Let's just recall that, during the six years of a Labor government, electricity prices doubled, and they went up each and every year. State governments have worsened the situation with their ideological and job-destroying policies of gas bans, moratoriums on gas exploration and crazy and unrealistic renewable energy targets that appease the inner-city green flanks at the expense of industry, businesses, families and households. Of course, my greatest personal frustration is that the open hostility towards reliable and dispatchable power, such as the Andrews government's 300 per cent increase on coal royalties, forced the closure of Hazelwood Power Station in my state of Victoria. How irresponsible, how negligent and how reckless can any government have been to intentionally the source of our greatest competitive advantage for decades?
We in the coalition have always known that fixing this mess will not be easy. It requires federal, state and local governments to focus on not political opportunism but national interest. The mission is certainly urgent. Electricity prices are way too high. Your bills are too high. Business is suffering. Households are suffering. Our progress, our prosperity, our entire economy are weighed down by the anchor of an inefficient energy market. But the Turnbull government have grasped the nettle and we are fixing this mess. We have developed and are systematically implementing a comprehensive suite of measures that will bring prices down. We've been doing this for over a year already, and already the effects are being felt.
Power prices have in fact reduced in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia since 1 July, 2018, and we expect reductions in Victoria when prices are repriced on 1 January. We've secured priority gas supplies before gas is exported overseas, and already this has brought down wholesale gas prices by 25 per cent. Bless the Guy opposition in Victoria, who have committed to reducing Daniel Andrews' ridiculous ideological moratorium on conventional gas exploration. We have required power companies to provide better deals to millions of consumers. Retailers have been brought in and asked a 'Please explain'. If they're not offering customers the best deal possible, why are they not offering customers the best deal possible? Already the retailers have written to more than 1.6 million households and saved them hundreds and hundreds of dollars on their annual bills.
We've stopped the energy networks gaming the system—a Gillard policy, bringing in the limited merits review. Network costs make up about 40 to 50 per cent of household bills. No longer can networks challenge the AER's decisions. We're investing in national infrastructure like Snowy 2.0, expanding the capacity of this iconic nation-building scheme. We are taking action on a number of fronts to lower prices through the ACCC and are supporting the financing of projects that will see new generation assets built for large commercial and industrial customers. We are creating a level playing field through the National Energy Guarantee that will ensure all types of energies are part of Australia's mix, ensuring reliability and affordability.
But what is the Labor alternative? A 45 per cent emissions target, a 50 per cent renewable energy target, more taxes, more subsidies, more appeasement to your Green-left flank. Our focus is on reducing power prices. Our policies are pragmatic and principled. Our approach is comprehensive. And our mission is clear: power prices will only come down under a coalition government. (Time expired)
What an amazing lack of answers from Senator Payne, who represents Minister Pyne, to the questions I asked her in question time today, and that's what we're taking note of. I feel Senator Sterle's pain and frustration about this, because on this side we're all feeling that. What are you guys doing? You've been in power for nearly five years. You've still got no idea of what to do. Seriously, life is not a dress rehearsal, over there. You're supposed to be running the country. I'm still waiting for good government to begin—still waiting for it.
One of the questions I asked today was: 'Minister Pyne said that there is overwhelming support in the party room for the National Energy Guarantee. Was Minister Pyne correct?' Well, I suppose he may well have been at that point in time, but, by this afternoon, we know that the Prime Minister made a statement to say that they're taking the NEG off the board for now, they're taking it off the table for now, because he couldn't get enough support on his own side. They've got the numbers in the House, and he couldn't get enough support! I have to say, if ever I've seen a government that is in disarray, that is divided, that has no unity about it, this is the one.
I feel sorry for those on the other side, because the National Energy Guarantee policy has changed so many times. It seems like it's not even day by day but hour by hour or minute by minute. It would be really hard for anyone to keep up with, so I do feel a bit of sympathy for them. But then we've got the Prime Minister trying so hard to ward off a leadership challenge and keep some of those in his party happy that he's given up on everything to help make them happy. I call that wimpish, really wimpish. We need a Prime Minister who will stand up, who has the courage of his convictions. But we've seen this on so many issues with Mr Turnbull. He did a backflip in regard to same-sex marriage and he's done a backflip in regard to a number of other things. Now it's: 'Oh, we'll take it off the table.' So we wasted most of last week in this place having a debate on it, only to have it taken off the table. What a joke! What a way to run the country! I'm not sure what plan he intends to go with in the future—if Mr Turnbull remains Prime Minister, and of course that's very iffy. We might have Mr Pitt's plan or we might have Mr Kelly's plan or we might actually end up with a whole new Prime Minister and have Mr Dutton's plan.
We heard today—I think it was The Australian that mentioned it—that many MPs called Mr Dutton through the weekend, supported Mr Dutton and asked him to become the leader. It's pretty interesting to see The Australian writing that sort of thing. We even had Mr Abbott on the weekend speaking to some Young Liberal members—in Tasmania, as I understand it—and saying he was entertaining the idea of serving under a Dutton government. Mr Abbott was in Launceston on the weekend talking to Young Liberals and actually talking to them about serving under a Dutton government. It doesn't really matter what those on the other side say, because we can all tell there is going to be a leadership challenge. Even though Mr Turnbull has taken this off the table for now, his position is still under threat. Christopher Pyne said yesterday:
There are some people who don't support the current leader and that is quite obvious.
I would say it's very obvious.
We've got those on the backbench of the government playing their own little games with energy policy, not worrying about the people of Australia, but the people of Australia know all too deeply that, under this Prime Minister, a profound energy crisis has emerged which has led to a collapse in confidence in our energy system. They've seen power bills go up, not just for households but for businesses. How can those on the other side say they support businesses when they're so happy to put this aside because it's all got a bit too hard?
One of the things that really amazed me in all this discussion— (Time expired)
It's hard to know what this take note motion is about. Senator Sterle has certainly spoken to us in glowing terms about a range of things, but nothing specifically precise. Senator Bilyk mentioned that she asked a question about overwhelming support, a question which, of course, Senator Cormann answered in the very first answer in question time today. It's a great comfort to me personally to know that Senator Sterle actually watches my Facebook page. That puts him in a very great group of people many, many tens of thousands strong. And Senator Bilyk said that she felt Senator Sterle's pain. I can assure you, Senator Bilyk, that we feel it as well. We listened to Senator Sterle for quite some time and we feel that pain very, very much.
What I'd like to talk about really is: what does Labor believe in? This seems to be a question of overwhelming support, but overwhelming support for who or what? Whenever I think of overwhelming support for Labor Party policies, I immediately go to border control. Border control in the Labor Party is a classic example of a greatly confused series of people who find they do not and cannot support the policies of their own party. I need only mention Ms Ged Kearney MP and Ms Linda Burney MP. At the last election at least 30 Labor Party members, although their leader kept saying that their policy was exactly the same as the coalition government's policy, declared that they did not believe in regional processing centres.
Let me assure you that I support government policy. I will go through a few of the policies in order to illustrate what I mean. We stand for affordable and reliable energy for household and businesses; Mr Shorten stands for blackouts, higher power prices and a brand new tax on electricity. We stand for lower business and personal taxes for stronger economic growth, more jobs and money in the pockets of Australian workers; Mr Shorten and the Labor Party stand for appalling higher income taxes, company taxes and small-business taxes, and new taxes on electricity, housing and investment. We stand for strong border protection; on the Labor side Mr Shorten stands for weak border policies that led to 1,200 deaths at sea, 50,000 illegal arrivals and the opening of 17 detention centres, which we subsequently closed. We stand for reforming private health insurance to make it simpler and more affordable; the Labor Party will cut the rebate, increase costs and hurt millions of Australian families. We stand for a guaranteed and fully funded Medicare—despite the lies we hear from the Labor side—via a dedicated fund, the lifting of Labor's freeze, and record levels of bulk-billing; Mr Shorten has no guarantee for Medicare and stands for the politicisation of the health system. We stand for drug-testing welfare recipients to help them get into work, and getting 120,000 young people to experience work through the PaTH program; Mr Shorten and the Labor Party oppose drug-testing of welfare recipients to help them get into work, and getting young people to even experience work. We stand for fair, needs based funding for schools, yet the Labor Party stands for unfunded school promises and special deals that do not deliver needs based funding.
In the take-note debate today, if we're going to talk about overwhelming support, we should make a comparison of who supports what, what individuals don't support their own party's policy and what makes a very good government, which is the coalition government. (Time expired)
I remind you that the take-note debate today was in response to questions from Senator Bilyk to Senator Payne. You started off well and then strayed fairly far from the topic. I gave you some leniency.
I also rise to take note of the answers to the questions from Senator Bilyk to Senator Payne. As a number of my colleagues have already outlined, the shambles that is the Turnbull government is becoming more and more clear every hour. I thought I'd seen it all before question time began today, but we saw it again here in this chamber, where minister after minister tried valiantly to defend the latest energy policy put forward by this government, while their backbench behind them were putting their head in their hands, trying to be anywhere other than here. From what I've been reading on Twitter I understand it was very similar in the House of Representatives. Every backbencher in this place—House of Representatives or Senate—would have rather been anywhere possible other than standing or sitting behind their ministers as they tried to defend the latest energy policy from this government.
I thought the most interesting thing about Senator Payne's answers to Senator Bilyk's questions was the lengths to which Senator Payne went in order to avoid answering these questions. She was up on her feet straightaway trying to deflect the questions away from her, saying it was nothing to do with her, nothing to do with her portfolio. I think Senator Payne was doing the right thing there, because why would you, as a minister in this government, want to take any personal responsibility for what this government's current policy is when you know very well that it's probably already changed? It is now half an hour after question time, so I suspect that once I sit down I will see that there's been yet another shift from this government in response to internal pressure.
Apart from the rollcall of coalition backbenchers in their internal ranks, one other person who has been speaking up very loudly about this government's position on energy is Senator Hanson. In the last week or two, we have seen her being very active on social media, putting forward her position on energy, and she has been doing it down here again today. It's interesting that Senator Hanson should be speaking so loudly about energy, because we know what is really going on in the background is that, for all of Senator Hanson's comments to the contrary, she is on the move and she is yet again trying to do a deal with this government on company tax cuts. We resumed the debate on company tax cuts just before question time, and it was interesting that Senator Hanson was one of the only contributors in the limited time that we had before question time intervened. The reason she wanted to get on the record is that she is still desperately pleading with this government to do a deal with her and get these company tax cuts through.
The notorious flip-flopper from Queensland is at it again. I think we're up to position No. 13 from her on company tax cuts. Her current position is that she's not going to support them, but, just as you can be sure that the government is going to change its policy again on energy, you can be absolutely sure that, by the end of the day, Senator Hanson will have changed her position yet again on company tax cuts. She even used her question to Senator Cormann in question time today as another attempt to put a deal to the government. She was indicating very clearly the kinds of things that she would be looking for from the government if they want to get her vote and the vote of her colleague on company tax cuts. Her questions were about the banking royal commission and what this government is prepared to do to step in and better help the victims of the banking scandals.
If this government actually cared about the victims of the scandals in the banking royal commission, it would have the decency to join Labor and come forward with a compensation package. But instead they're having to have their arms twisted into it by a dirty deal with Senator Hanson. Even apart from her question to Senator Cormann, in Senator Hanson's speech before question time today, she actually outlined in crystal clear terms the terms of any deal she would be prepared to make with the government to see it get its company tax cuts through. She outlined that what she is looking for from this government is changes to policy on the banking royal commission. She wants to see a reform to the tax rules for large gas projects and changes to ensure that gas licences are used. She wants to see more apprenticeships, ignoring the fact that she voted with the government to cut apprenticeships already. And the list went on and on and on. She used her speech to outline the terms of a deal that she would be prepared to make with this government about company tax cuts. Now, this isn't someone who opposes a deal on company tax cuts. This is someone who is using her speeches to the Senate to outline the very terms of a deal that she's prepared to do. I can't believe that anyone who ran in the Longman by-election would want to do a deal with this government, but it looks like Senator Hanson is up to her old tricks.
Thank you, Senator Watt. I remind you that the Senate was taking note of the answer given by Senator Payne to a question asked by Senator Bilyk. The question is that the motion moved by Senator Sterle be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Communications (Senator Fifield) to a question without notice asked by Senator McKim today relating to children in immigration detention.
Despite what the government tries to tell us, the fact is this: there are still well over 100 children that Australia has exiled to Nauru or that have been born into detention on Nauru. There are 40 children who've spent their entire lives in detention. They have never known freedom. Last week, we learnt that some of those kids are suffering from a rare psychological condition called resignation syndrome. They are basically catatonic. They've stopped eating, they've stopped drinking, they've stopped talking and they've stopped toileting themselves. They've essentially gone into hibernation. They've withdrawn from the world because of the trauma they have suffered at this government's hands. As we speak, there's a 12-year-old boy on Nauru who's on a hunger strike. He weighs just 36 kilograms. Doctors say he's at risk of death within days, yet the government is refusing to medevac him to Australia. The government is insisting—Minister Dutton, the man who would be Prime Minister and who could be Prime Minister by the end of this week—that the child cannot be supported by his family on his journey to Australia. He is insisting that this child travels alone. The child is 12 years old. There can be no justification—none—for treating anyone, let alone children, in this inhumane way.
Today's the first day of a new campaign across the non-government refugee and social justice sectors and aid sectors to evacuate children from Nauru—all 119 children whom Australia is detaining in its offshore detention system on Nauru—and the Greens are proud to support this campaign. It's targeted at evacuating all 119 of the children Australia has exiled to Nauru or who have been born into detention in Nauru to Australia or to a safe third country. The situation is a profound test of this country's leadership. Last week we heard speech after speech from Labor and Liberal MPs waxing lyrical about unity and people's basic rights. Well, here, right now, is a chance to put those fine-sounding words into action. We need to evacuate not just the children on Nauru and not just their families but every man, woman and child Australia has exiled to Manus Island or to Nauru and who are suffering, who've been tortured, who've been assaulted, who've been attacked by armed forces, who've been murdered and who've been referred to by their boat numbers and not their names. We need to evacuate them all as a matter of urgency, and they all ought to be brought here to Australia so we can look after them properly, in line with our massive moral obligation to them and in line with our international legal obligations.
As a matter of urgency, we've got to get those kids off Nauru. I ask senators to think about their own children—how they would feel if their children had never known freedom, if their children were referred to by a boat number rather than their name, if their children didn't have access to a decent education, if their children didn't have access to decent health care, if their children were in a catatonic state, if their children lived in a system designed to systemically dehumanise and deliberately cause harm. Senators, think about your kids. Think about your families. Think about the kids of your constituents, and please act to end these kids' suffering and do it soon.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of Senator Bernardi, I withdraw notice of motion No. 977.
I withdraw notice of motion No. 1 standing in my name.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to Senator Pratt for today, 20 August, for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to Senator Paterson for today for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Storer, I move:
That the time for the presentation of the report of the Select Committee on Electric Vehicles be extended to 4 December 2018.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) in September 2017, the Douglas Shire Council in Far North Queensland formally opposed the Adani Carmichael mine project and any new coal mine operations in the Galilee Basin, and
(ii) on 8 August 2018, the Douglas Shire Council voted unanimously to submit a motion to the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) annual conference for the LGAQ to "make vigorous representations to the Queensland State Government urging it to immediately cease any considerations to supporting, financially or by any other means, and either directly or indirectly, the proposed Carmichael Coal Mining Project by Adani in the Galilee Basin"; and
(b) calls on:
(i) the LGAQ Conference to support the Douglas Shire Council motion, and
(ii) the Queensland Government and the Federal Government to revoke all licences from the Adani Carmichael mine project and commit to no new coal mines in the Galilee Basin.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Liberal-National government strongly supports investment in the Galilee Basin through developments such as the $16.5 billion Carmichael coal project. The Carmichael mine will create 3,900 direct jobs in operation, with total direct and indirect jobs of over 10,000. The Carmichael mine has all Commonwealth and Queensland government environmental approvals and has registered Indigenous land use agreements with all four native title groups with claims to the project area. Native title proponents—the Wangan and Jagalingou people—met in April 2016 and voted 294 to one to sign the Indigenous land use agreement with Adani to enable long-term jobs and opportunity for their people.
The question is that general business notice of motion No. 931, moved by Senator Bartlett, be agreed to.
I ask that general business notice of motion No. 972 standing in my name for today relating to proposed abortion laws be taken as a formal motion.
Is there any objection to this motion being taken as formal?
Yes.
There is an objection.
Pursuant to the contingent notice standing in my name relating to formal business, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the motion being moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate.
I was put on notice of the fact that formality would be refused to this motion today, but I'm at a disadvantage in that I don't understand the motive of the Australian Labor Party in resisting this motion. So my contribution needs to anticipate what their argument may be, and no doubt they'll have the courage to take to their feet to particularise why they've resisted the motion. I know why they've resisted it. It's because a bill will be introduced into the Queensland parliament today that liberalises abortion in my home state all the way through to late-term partial-birth abortion. We all know what that involves. That's a partial birth of a child before instruments are applied to its cranium, and it's crushed a minute or so from birth. Its opportunity at life is measured in seconds.
Our friends in the Labor Party sitting opposite don't want to expose that some of their senators would support this motion. That's what this is about. It can't be about arguments around comity or states' rights, because in this very place, you might recall, Deputy President, the Labor Party supported and, in fact, engineered such a motion. The architect of that motion, who was here at that time—a senator who will go unnamed—wasn't bright enough to have thought about it himself. He was a crossbencher. In relation to investigating the actions of the Queensland state government, the motion made reference, in particular, to reviewing all legislation implemented by the Newman government to determine its appropriateness and compatibility with social justice and natural justice requirements—their words. It was a motion supported by them. A select committee was engineered, occupied and managed by them. So I don't anticipate that their resistance will be around comity or the Commonwealth government taking an interest in state legislation. Remember: once this abortion opportunity is completely liberalised, the Commonwealth will have an interest in these abortions because they'll be available through the public system.
They are also anticipating that part of the legislation will be that any doctor who conscientiously objects to the conduct of an abortion will themselves be exposed to criminal processes. Think about that. These men and women, who have taken the Hippocratic oath, which has lasted 2,500 years, will be subject to reaction from the state if they fail to euthanise a child who's seconds away from living.
There's a lot of science, and I've listened today, and I don't want to digress. We've got the Greens, who will obviously support this lack of formality. They are arguing about a child in Manus—someone whom I have great sympathy for. According to the senator, that child is near death. But there is not one mention of these babies, not yet born, whose deaths are guaranteed in a partial-birth abortion. Now listen! We need to stand up; humanity needs to stand up. The world needs to look at how you vote on this motion today. I say that to every one of you, every single person in this chamber. Your vote denying formality for the question to be put to the floor of the Senate means that you support late-term partial-birth abortions. I can hardly hold the thought: a baby who is seconds off being named, or even prenamed in many cases—certainly, in my family line and in most of the families I'm involved with—will be euthanised with a blunt instrument where they, first of all, sever the spine and then compress the cranium.
This isn't about denying formality; this is about you not wanting to put your foot on the sticky paper of this abhorrent practice that's about to be introduced by legislation. (Time expired)
The Labor Party will oppose the suspension motion but not for the reasons that Senator O'Sullivan has anticipated. Let me describe one basic Senate procedure to Senator O'Sullivan, but he should understand this, given his length of time here. It is the prerogative of any individual senator to deny formality, and that is what occurred. But, in relation to this suspension motion, the Labor Party will be opposing it for the reasons we have outlined on at least two occasions when motions such as this have been put forward in formal business.
Formal motions have been a feature of the Senate's routine of business since the beginning. They exist to deal with business expeditiously or, to put it in plain English, quickly. To use parliamentary jargon, they are a blunt instrument to deal with routine and uncontroversial matters like extensions of time for committee reports or authorisations for committees to meet—simple matters that do not require discussion. Unfortunately, sometimes, like now, that point seems not to be well understood. More and more, the formal business procedure is being misused or overused by some senators for complex and sensitive matters. That is not appropriate and it abuses this important feature of the Senate's routine of business.
But let me conclude this statement with one further point, given Senator O'Sullivan's anticipation: I am one senator that will not cop a lecture like that on abortion.
As the substantive motion involves a matter of conscience, in line with longstanding practice, government senators are free to vote in accordance with their own consciences on matters relating to the substantive motion and any procedural motions.
I will oppose the suspension as well and will support the Labor Party on this. Deciding to terminate a pregnancy must be the most traumatic time in a woman's life, and to see a middle-aged white man in old-fashioned braces, with equally old-fashioned ideas, lecturing women on what they should or should not do with their bodies is disgraceful and insulting to all women. This motion has no place in this chamber. I raised the same objection when Senator Anning attacked exclusion zones for abortion clinics.
I believe using the Hippocratic oath and 2,500 years of Western culture is grotesque. I said the last time that I was ashamed, as a male senator, to even discuss today's agenda with female members of my staff. I will try to excuse this zealotry on the grounds of religious beliefs, but Senator O'Sullivan once told me he had lost his faith in God when, as a policeman, he saw what men created in His image could do to children. If this move hadn't been taken by Labor today, my plan was to get up and try to seek leave to make a short statement and say to Senator O'Sullivan: I implore you to withdraw this insensitive, disgraceful motion.
I feel impelled to add a contribution to this debate about Senator O'Sullivan's general business motion regarding abortion, and I must express how disappointed I am in Senator Hinch's personalisation of it. Simply because another senator has a different point of view, he targets him as a 'middle-aged white male'. Are you ageist? Are you sexist? Are you racist? That is the question, Senator Hinch, because it stinks of hypocrisy.
The substantive motion here—and I take the point of Senator Collins, that, if you go back into the ideal world of what formal notices of motion were about, they were meant to be uncontroversial, blunt instruments. The reality is that in the 12 years I've been here they haven't been used in that manner. In fact, they are used now as debating points, where everyone gets to make a one-minute statement, and they raise all manner of contentious issues for debate. The tortuous language that is used obviously stops people from supporting them because of one particular political point or other that is made. So, in effect, they have lost their original intent, Senator Collins. I would put that to you.
I also respect the fact that Senator Collins is not someone who should be lectured to about this, because she's a person of very strong values. But I will reject entirely the merits of the argument that late-term abortion has any business in this country—not only the horrors of it, as Senator O'Sullivan has pointed out, and the grotesque nature of it, and we note that some of our international colleagues have also outlawed it, but the reality that you are dealing with a human right here. And the trite response that a woman should be able to do with her own body what she wants ignores the fact that this is dealing with late-term abortions. It is where you've known you're pregnant for 34 or 35 weeks and you decide you're going to have a termination. I don't know anybody who really thinks that's a credible argument, but maybe you can put that forward.
The second point about this motion that I think is really important is the horror of gender-specific abortion. People are choosing to terminate their pregnancy based on the gender of the child that is in the womb. We saw that just on the weekend. To those on the Left of the political spectrum, those who support the transgender movement: you should be horrified, because it undermines every single one of your arguments. How do you know, just because of the genitalia of the child, what they're going to identify with later on? That is essentially what your argument is. Yet you're going to defend the right of a parent to choose to terminate their pregnancy and kill a child—an unborn baby—because it is a boy or because it is a girl. I find that horrific.
This is not in effect about the merits of abortion or otherwise. There are many people who would defend the right of a woman to have a termination, particularly early in pregnancy. But please outline the justification based simply on the genitalia, or how you can justify a partial-birth abortion—a late-term abortion where we can see the child. It is fully formed. It is kicking. This is when parents are celebrating that this child is there and it's wonderful and a new life is going to be brought into the world. How can anyone justify the killing of a baby at that point?
We know there are extremists out there, people like co-Greens-founder Peter Singer, who say that a child is not a sentient being even after it's born. He's happy for you to take its life then—even after it's born. Where do we draw the limit? At what point do we accept that a child can live outside of the womb and is a human life? For me, it would be different to where many other people would draw the line. But there has to be a point where we accept that this is murder of a child. It is murder of an unborn baby that could exist outside of the womb, and it shouldn't be done on what I would say is the simple demand, or the selfish demand, of an individual involved.
I support this suspension of standing orders because I think we should be able to have a conversation about the horrors of what we're discussing now. We need to be able to bell the cat on this because too many people who just say it's the woman's choice are ignoring the realities of what actually takes place. So I'm standing with Senator O'Sullivan on this. I know I stand with millions of people around Australia who find this grotesque and horrible. We shouldn't be supporting state governments advancing the cause of gender-specific late-term abortions, because it undermines our very humanity and the dignity of every individual.
Senator Stoker.
Thank you, Madam Deputy President—
Senator Stoker, please resume your seat. Senator Whish-Wilson.
Deputy President, on a point of order, Senator Rice was on her feet two or three seconds before Senator Stoker. Three times now she's tried to stand up.
Thank you, Senator Whish-Wilson. There are a range of people who wish to speak in this debate, and I saw that Senator Stoker had the call. Senator Macdonald, did you wish—
On the point of order, I was going to say that I was on my feet before Senator Rice, if that is in any way relevant.
Thank you, Senator Macdonald. Senator Stoker, please continue.
I support the procedural motion that has been advanced by Senator O'Sullivan today. This house is charged with being courageous on the issues that matter. We're not supposed to shy away from things because they might be a little bit controversial or uncomfortable or because they might make our colleagues in other states have a slightly more difficult week. We need to be willing to confront the issues as they arise.
We've heard today an explanation from those in the Labor Party of why formality is opposed here, but I can tell you that this is not about some deep-seated belief in the purposes of using notices of motion in this chamber. If that were so, we'd have a different response to more than half the motions that come to this place. But that's not what happens, because, when it suits the members of this chamber, we are more than happy to confront things that might be controversial. We can't be shutting down the freedom to speak about matters when the topic no longer feels a comfortable one. What it is, in truth, is a repugnant attempt to stifle the clarifying power of the scrutiny of policy in this place, an attempt to shut down the freedom to speak on a bill that the Queensland parliament hopes will slip into law without being exposed for the brutality that it is. And I don't use the word 'brutality' lightly.
Many people might have differing opinions about abortion in the early stages, but this is about ending the lives of children beyond the age at which we are, for other people, investing a fortune to save premature children. How can we be investing the entire weight of the medical profession's expertise and of public expense in saving premature children in some circumstances while we simultaneously kill healthy children born in other circumstances? It's wrong, and we should be able to debate it on the floor of this chamber for what it is. The idea that a healthy, viable child could be killed by its own parents simply because it happens to be a girl or happens to be a boy when the other sex would have been preferred is a sad indictment on who we are as a society, and we need to be willing to have the conversations needed to say, 'We can do better.'
The bill also seeks to put in place exclusion zones that would shut down freedom of speech in a way that we should all be very concerned about, and it plans to unduly and unfairly confine the rights of doctors to live out their beliefs. Doctors who conscientiously object will be forced in many circumstances—defined broadly as emergencies, but I can tell you that that seems to be a very loosely used term—to participate in a process that would actively kill a child that could otherwise survive on its own. This is not a small thing, and we should not be running away from the opportunity to confront the reality of what is a barbaric bill. I commend the procedural motion.
The Greens will be opposing the suspension of standing orders for the very reason of the types of debate that we have just experienced over the last 15 minutes—the offensive anti-women, patronising, patriarchal, anti-abortion propaganda. No woman has an abortion lightly. No woman does it without thinking. The awful, offensive garbage that has just been expressed in this chamber, talking about women as if they are murderers, is absolutely appalling.
Senator Rice, please resume your seat. Senator Hanson-Young.
Senator Anning interjecting—
I'd like to ask that Senator Anning withdraw what he said to Senator Rice just then. I'm happy to put it on the record.
There's no need to put it on the record. I didn't hear the comment, Senator Anning, but the usual practice is that, if you said something which is considered to be unparliamentary, you withdraw it without repeating what it was that you said.
I'm not sure what she heard, but I certainly won't be withdrawing.
I ask that you reflect on that. As I said, generally speaking, in this place senators withdraw in the spirit of encouraging everyone to have their say through the formal debate process.
Could Senator Hanson-Young refresh my memory on what she thought I said?
If you recall, I requested that Senator Hanson-Young not repeat what it's alleged that you said, and the general practice in this place is that we don't withdraw and then also re-emphasise the offence, so I am asking you in the spirit of goodwill to simply withdraw if you—
Without her telling me what she took offence at, I'm not withdrawing anything.
I will further explain myself. It's not that someone took exception to that; it is the fact that it's considered unparliamentary. I have asked you, in the spirit of ensuring that the Senate continues in a collegiate way with spirited debate, to withdraw the comment that you made. If you don't withdraw the comment, I can only assume you are saying that you didn't make an offensive remark.
That's exactly it. I didn't make any offensive remarks.
Madam Deputy President—
Senator Hanson-Young, Senator Macdonald is seeking the call.
With respect—you are in a difficult situation, perhaps—how can you ask any senator to withdraw something which you didn't even hear and I didn't hear, and where the senator involved has indicated that he doesn't believe anything he said to be unparliamentary? I'm challenging your right to continue to ask this when the senator has indicated that he doesn't think—
You will be aware that on many occasions the person in the chair does not always hear the offence, yet, because another senator has raised the issue, the question is put. Senator Anning has, by not agreeing to withdraw that remark, indicated to the Senate that he didn't make an unparliamentary remark, so that is the end of the matter.
I'm sitting next to Senator Anning, and I didn't hear any offensive remark.
I'm not asking for general debate.
I don't want to repeat the accusation, but it was in reference to Senator Rice, who said, 'You're accusing women of being murderers.' There was a response that came from Senator Anning. That might jog your memory. I would ask him to withdraw.
I've formally asked Senator Anning to withdraw. He has chosen not to do that.
The very debate we have just been having shows why we should not be discussing abortion in a suspension of standing orders. It's bad enough that we have to have one-minute statements on abortion with Senator O'Sullivan's motions and others like it. Abortion is an incredibly sensitive topic. For it to be misrepresented in the way that it has been by some of the contributions in this debate is not how we should be discussing abortion. As I said, no woman has an abortion lightly. This is about women's right to have that control over their own bodies and not be dictated to by people who have not had that experience—
Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—
I would ask that senators respect other senators' rights to be heard in silence.
and about women making what is always a difficult decision being supported in making that decision. Accessing abortion in Australia has been a struggle. The law reform that has occurred across the country has occurred. For those senators on the other side who are trying to debate this issue here today, it is only a matter of time before we have full decriminalisation of abortion across the country, following on from the states where it has already occurred. It will occur in Queensland, because this is about women's reproductive lives. It is about their ability to control their own bodies. It is about every woman who needs to access an abortion having the right to access this vital health service safely, affordably and legally.
Abortions occur even when we have legislation that has criminalised abortion. They continue to occur. Abortions will continue to occur for a whole range of reasons. We need to put in place a legal framework to make sure that they can occur legally and safely and we need to change our laws across the country. The Greens have a commitment to legalise abortion, because we recognise that that right is essential. My new colleague Senator Faruqi tried to get changes to the New South Wales abortion laws. That legislation was defeated last year, but that legislation will be put up again. New South Wales laws will be changed. The Queensland laws will be changed. The difficult decision that a woman and her medical practitioner have to make to determine whether an abortion is the appropriate thing to do is what women right across this country go through every day. They can be trusted to make the right decisions about their own bodies. They do not need to have men in this place telling them that those decisions are wrong and that those decisions are something to be ashamed of.
Accessing abortion is still too difficult in Australia. Women in Australia still have to run the gauntlet of protesters as they go through this difficult time in their lives. It is expensive. It is not available to people across the country. We have been through the debates in Tasmania. You have not been able to access an abortion in recent months in Tasmania. It is not available in public hospitals. It should be available across the country. These are the barriers that are still being put in the way of women accessing abortion. These are the barriers that need to change—we do not need to move further away from changing our laws—so that all women have an opportunity to have control of their own bodies and are able to look after their health in a way that is safe, affordable and legal.
The motion before the chair is that so much of standing orders be set aside as would prevent Senator O'Sullivan from moving this motion as a formal motion. That's the part of the debate I want to briefly contribute to. I find the attitude of the Labor Party absolutely hypocritical, and I encourage Senator Collins to read the Hansard of what Senator Chisholm said last week in dealing with the same situation. Senator Chisholm said that the Labor Party would never stop any motion being dealt with as a formal motion and allowing people to vote on it.
On the substantive motion, which I always think shouldn't be discussed on these occasions to set aside, can I say this: I'll be leaving the chamber when the motion comes up. There are elements of the substantive motion which I totally agree with. The suggestion of any abortion being based on gender selection is abhorrent to me and should be to everybody, and senators should be allowed to have a vote on that. There are some elements, some wording of the balance of the motion, that give me some concern—and which weren't going to be amended—so I'm going to leave the chamber and not vote. But, having said that, I think it is hypocritical of this chamber, in this particular instance only, to prevent the motion being dealt with in the normal course of events. These sorts of things happen all the time.
With respect to Senator Collins—her argument was pure hypocrisy, in that the Labor Party, every day of the week, and the Greens, every day of the week, have these similar sorts of motions brought before the chamber, dealt with as formalities, and then senators are old enough and wise enough to be able to form a decision on whether they either vote for them, vote against them or abstain by leaving the chamber. I would urge the Senate to allow Senator O'Sullivan's motion to go ahead. It is a motion that should be able to be dealt with by senators as they deem fit, and to do otherwise would be so hypocritical and so contrary to what usually happens in this chamber.
I fully support what Senator Macdonald just said, because the Labor Party want to stop formality when it suits them, as they did today when I tried to move my motion for a plebiscite on the migration bill. They stonewalled on everything so that I would run out of time. So, again, they didn't allow debate in this chamber. They didn't want to allow debate, because it would show them up for who they really are. Whether you want to support this motion or not, they're not even giving it the opportunity to go to a vote on the floor of the chamber and let the senators here have their say. You know what? It really cuts close to the bone for their Labor Party in Queensland, who want to pass the bill.
Senator Rice made a comment about it not being up to men to get involved in this debate. Well, I totally disagree with her, because those men are fathers. Everyone has a right—
Senator Hanson, the time allotted for this debate has expired. The question is that the motion to suspend standing orders moved by Senator O'Sullivan be agreed to.
I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am two proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Collins:
Dear Mr President,
Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:
'Division and dysfunction within the Turnbull government causing policy paralysis that is hurting Australians.'
Yours sincerely
Senator Jacinta Collins
Senator for Victoria
Is the proposal supported?
More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
The proposal is supported. I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.
I've been in this place just over 10 years, and I know some very strange things can happen in politics. But the idea that, by the end of the week, Mr Dutton could be Prime Minister of Australia is one of the most bizarre things I've heard. Yet this is a reality. Despite the howls of denial from those opposite and the casual dismissals from government frontbenchers on morning radio, we all know that the leadership tensions among those opposite are very, very real. We can summarise the situation in two simple words—it's on. While Mr Turnbull should be focused on improving the lives of Australians, he is instead looking over his shoulder, his attention focused on saving his own job as Prime Minister. Ironically, this is a situation that has been brought about by Mr Turnbull's own inaction and indecision on a number of issues.
When a government starts to focus in on itself, good policy and, in turn, the Australian people suffer as a result. A case in point is the National Energy Guarantee. We're still trying to figure out where Mr Turnbull and the rest of the government really stand on their own NEG. We've had the bizarre spectacle of Mr Turnbull declaring a victory in his own party room, followed by government MPs announcing their own energy plans—threatening to cross the floor—and the threats of a leadership challenge. It only took three days, since claiming that a legislated emissions target was non-negotiable, for the Prime Minister to do a spectacular backflip and announce the target would be in regulation instead. Now we've learned that the legislation has been pulled entirely, because Mr Turnbull couldn't guarantee he could get it through the House of Representatives. Clearly, Mr Turnbull is in panic mode, and he's making policy on the run—policy that's guided by what he can do to save his own political skin, not by what would be in the best interests of Australians and what would be in the best interests of Australia's energy consumers or the environment.
We find the government is also introducing regional price hikes for broadband and a new tax on other providers, because of the failure of Mr Turnbull's second-rate copper network to deliver revenue, and Mr Turnbull is still struggling to convince the Senate crossbench of the merits of his multibillion-dollar big business tax giveaway. For what it's worth—very little in our view—this tax cut is meant to be the government's signature economic policy. So what is their economic policy if it fails to pass the Senate? On policy after policy after policy, we see the Prime Minister beating a hasty retreat. His credibility is in tatters.
The Australian public must be scratching their heads wondering what, if anything, Mr Turnbull really stands for right now. At the same time they must also be wondering, 'If Mr Dutton is the answer then we have to ask: what is the question?' Do those opposite seriously want to give the leadership to the former health minister who introduced the GP tax and who slashed billions of dollars from hospitals in the Abbott government's horror 2014 budget? Mr Abbott told a meeting of young Liberals in Tasmania just on the weekend that he was looking forward to serving in a Dutton Liberal government. Is this a sign that, if Mr Dutton is successful with his challenge, Mr Abbott could make a return to the frontbench? How much influence would Mr Abbott and the conservative politics that he represents have on any Dutton government? The Australian public and the Liberal Party themselves rejected Mr Abbott several years ago, but, should Mr Dutton be successful in his bid for the leadership, we know that Mr Abbott would be the de facto Prime Minister—that he would be the puppeteer pulling Mr Dutton's strings.
I have a little bit of advice for Mr Turnbull, and I'll give it to him for free. If he wants to fend off a leadership challenge, there's a simple way to do it: let the Australian people decide. Call an election. Call it now. Regardless of who is victorious in this leadership spill—and trust me: the leadership spill will happen—whether it's Mr Dutton or Mr Turnbull who wins, or maybe some unexpected third candidate—who would know with those opposite?—the chaos, the dysfunction and the division in this government will continue.
There's only really one way that this farce will end, and that's a federal election. The Australian people are relishing the opportunity to put this government out of its miserable existence. They know that a Shorten Labor government will be ready to hit the ground running with a set of policies that put Australian people front and centre. Unlike those opposite, we are united and we are ready to govern in the interests of all Australians.
I just have to compose myself and control my mirth at the comment that the Shorten government is ready, willing and able with all the policies to go ahead. It's so far from the truth it really is laughable.
I'm very proud to be a member of a party in government that has achieved such magnificent things for Australia and Australians in the last several years. Senator Bilyk talked about significant economic policies. I'll tell you what the most significant economic policy of the Turnbull government has been, and that is that more than 412,000 jobs were created in the last 12 months. That's 412,000 of our fellow Australians who now have a job. Since the coalition government came into power four or five years ago, the number of jobs created is something like over one million. If I can put that in perspective, for one million of our fellow Australians who under six years of Labor did not have a job—with the good economic management of the coalition government those one million of our fellow Australians now have a job.
Since September 2015 the number of Australians who were unemployed has fallen by over 60,000. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.1 per cent under Labor to about five per cent under the coalition. In the last year of office for Labor, unemployment rose by 33,000. No wonder I laughed when Senator Bilyk said that the Shorten government was ready to govern! There'd be another 33,000 Australians unemployed if the Labor Party were ever able to implement the policies they've spoken about.
We heard in question time the crocodile tears of the Greens political party about one child on Manus Island. But I'm delighted that under a coalition government we have saved upwards of 1,200 people, many of them children, from death by drowning, which occurred under the policies of the Labor Party, supported by the Greens. They don't seem to worry about the 1,200 whom we know were drowned—and many more thousands, I suspect, that we will never know of. They're very concerned about one child but can't bring themselves to thank the coalition government for stopping the deaths of 1,200 people who died from drowning.
We have secured the borders, and we've saved lives in doing it. We've got 8,000 children out of detention in Australia, children who were put there by the Labor Party, supported by the Greens political party. Yet they complain about a dozen or so children on Manus Island—who are not in detention but in open living arrangements on that island. The Greens would carry on about them when, under Labor—the party they support—there were literally thousands of children in detention in Australia, all released, all taken out of detention by successive coalition governments.
The other thing I'm very proud of this government for is the tax policy. Remember that after the last budget Labor Party people around Australia were running the mantra—no doubt directed by that great intellect Mr Shorten—that there was nothing in it for the people of Herbert or for the people of Kennedy, two electorates that I'm very involved in. But they forgot about the 70,000 people in the electorate of Herbert who are paying less tax today than they were on 30 June because of the activities of the Turnbull government in reducing taxes for all Australians. And I'm very proud about the boost given to small business in this country through our taxation regime and our instant asset write-off. We all know that it is small business that creates jobs for Australians. That's why in the last 12 months over 400,000 new jobs have been created—not by government but by government-supported small and medium businesses. One of this government's signature economic achievements is the help it's given to small business, which has enabled small business to employ more people and to invest in their businesses, which again makes it easier for people to get jobs.
I'm also pleased with what we've done in the health sphere. We as a government have provided affordable access to over $9 billion worth of new, life-saving medicines. These listings, which were announced in recent times, slashed the cost of medicines to sufferers of diabetes, asthma, arthritis, cancer, eye disease and hepatitis. These new drugs were able to be brought onto the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme because this government has been able to manage its money so that it has money available for those life-saving drugs that have meant so much. It is not often talked about. When we think about Medicare and health, all we remember is the lie of the Labor Party at the last federal election when they said that Medicare was to be sold. Everybody, including the Labor Party, knew that was a lie. But, if you say it often enough and you repeat it loudly enough to voters who don't really understand, you can change the result of an election, even on the basis of what is now accepted by everyone as an outright, absolute and abject lie. Yet what we think about when we talk about Medicare is 'Mediscare'. In fact, the real Medicare has never been stronger. We're investing more and more money in Medicare. Why? Because we can afford it, because we run the economy properly and because we watch the cents. If you watch the cents, you can save the dollars, and that's what we've done. We've increased Medicare funding, which will go up every year from $23 billion in 2017-18 to $24 billion in later years, to $26 billion and then to $28 billion in 2020-21. Spending under Labor was very, very static at about $19.5 billion in 2012-13. So you can see how, under coalition governments, we have been able to invest more in health.
I'd like to have more time to talk about the great success of coalition governments with free trade agreements. Labor fiddled around for eight years and did nothing. It was the same as their shipbuilding rhetoric. They were there for six years and didn't build a ship; they didn't even plan to build a ship. Under the coalition government, we are now building ships in Australia for the Australian Defence Force. On free trade agreements, Labor talked about them for six years and didn't sign off on one of them. Under the coalition government, there have been any number of free trade agreements, the most recent being the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has been wonderful for Australia, particularly for beef and sugar, two very significant export commodities from the north of Queensland, the area that I represent in this parliament. That Trans-Pacific Partnership has just been a wonderful exercise in increasing Australia's competitiveness overseas and allowing Australians to export more. That means, of course, that our businesses in those fields get bigger and better, and that enables us to provide real jobs for Australians.
Our government, the Turnbull government, and the coalition governments have been wonderful managers. They have made very significant economic advancement for this country. I'm proud to be part of it. I can only fear that at some time in the future the government will change. (Time expired)
The Senate is debating a proposal put forward by the Labor Party suggesting the division and dysfunction within the Turnbull government is a matter of public importance. I'm sure it's a matter of public interest, but I have to say that I'm not actually sure it's that important. I don't think it's really very important whether the leader is Mr Turnbull or Mr Dutton. It's going to be an appalling, disgraceful, divisive and destructive government whoever is leading it.
The current dysfunction is apparent to everybody, and the division has been apparent to everybody for literally years. It has come to a bit of a head in the last few days, and, frankly, where that goes I really don't care. Until we get rid of this government altogether, the harm being done to the majority of Australians will continue. I would really urge those people in the media—who, of course, love nothing better than to sit around all day interviewing each other about the latest leadership permutations and combinations and internal gossip—to actually focus on the policy issues, the legislation, as some of it will still get discussed in this place. Who knows what version of the national energy guarantee legislation we might deal with? But there is still other legislation being dealt with there. There are other matters before these houses of parliament that are hurting Australians, that are continuing to cause massive and potentially irreversible damage to our natural environment and that are undermining and fraying the social fabric. That is what the attention of not just the press gallery but all parliamentarians and legislators here should be focused on.
Not only have the internal personal enmities within the Liberal and National parties, both jointly and severally, been clear for a long time; it has also been clear for a long time that there has been no binding or uniting philosophy or value base in the coalition. As with any organisation that is basically part of the establishment, its main focus remains on keeping itself in power and continuing its privileges. Any shred of keeping a consistent value base is jettisoned a long time before it ever becomes a threat to maintaining those privileges and that grip on power.
It's all fine to have a diversity of views within an organisation, but the coalition have become so disconnected from each other in their parliamentary representation, let alone the disconnect from their membership base, that it's very clear that the main purpose of their existence is to keep a hold on power and keep anyone else out of it. It was not something that suddenly appeared this week or in the last month or even since Mr Turnbull rolled Mr Abbott. It was very, very clear from the very early days of the Abbott government, if not before—and that is what is hurting Australians. I guess you could say that is policy paralysis, although, when you see some of the very destructive policies that do get through this place, I wish they would be paralysed a bit more often and did even less to push through the measures that are causing ever-growing inequality in Australia, continuing to lead to massive environmental destruction and continuing to damage the fundamentals of our economy.
Let us not forget: we are in an era now where we have record corporate profits. Perhaps one thing that does unite this government is its attempt to give tax breaks to corporations when their profits are at record levels, whilst we have continuing wage stagnation, growing casualisation of the workforce, increasing job insecurity and increasing underemployment. Anybody who has been watching the inquiry in my state of Queensland recently would realise that we have outrageously entrenched, systemic amounts of wages theft. Many people are not getting even the inadequate wages that they should be getting. They are being ripped off to unimaginable levels by the banks and by the superannuation funds. People have been calling that out for years and years and years. I wouldn't say it has been policy paralysis; rather, it has been a conscious decision to enable that to continue, to harm Australians, because this is a government that puts its mates first. It puts its corporate donors first. It puts the interests of the political elite and the establishment first, and the vast majority of Australians last.
So I don't think the division and dysfunction within the Turnbull government at the moment is particularly important. It is a symptom of political parties that have decayed from the inside. I shouldn't reflect on you while you're in the chair, Acting Deputy President Bernardi, because I know you can't respond, but your actions in disconnecting yourself from that party is, itself, an indication of the fraying of all the divergent views within the current government, which means the only thing that's holding them together is trying to keep a grip on power.
We have seen, in this place, continuing attacks on the poorest people. We've seen the continuing expansion of the disgraceful robo-debt program through Centrelink, which is seeking to claw back money from the poorest in the community. In many cases, it's money that they don't actually owe; it's money that they are legally entitled to. We've seen a reverse onus of proof, targeting people who are already the poorest, trying to rip money back off them. We've seen the handing out of huge amounts of money, billions of dollars, to the wealthiest and the biggest corporations. We're seeing ever-increasing fees for people who, having finished university degrees and TAFE courses, are trying to retrain and trying to get into the workforce, having to go into debt to get those additional skills. Now they are being forced to pay back that debt before they've even got to an income level that matches the median, the middle, income level. By definition low-income earners are being forced to pay back a debt whilst they're still in poverty.
Newstart has not increased in real terms since 1994. Talk about policy paralysis: that's been a policy paralysis of both the Labor and Liberal parties for over two decades. That's where we need action. That's where the real hurt is. There is massive hurt for the enormous numbers of people who are homeless, who are in insecure housing, who are in financially-induced housing stress and having to pay massive proportions of their income on their rent or their mortgage because of the ridiculously overheated, turbocharged property market—turbocharged deliberately by governments that operate in the interests of their mates in the development industry rather than seeing housing as a fundamental human right to ensure somebody has a home. That's the policy paralysis that's been injected into this political system by the poison of neoliberal thinking, going way back to the 1980s when Labor was in government. That has paralysed the thinking of governments ever since, meaning that they put the interests of the market first and the interests of the community last. That is the paralysis that we've got to deal with.
This short-term political theatre that is happening at the moment is, I'm sure, fascinating to many people in this building. But I can tell you that most of the people outside in the community couldn't care less. They want to see these issues addressed. They want measures that will increase their wages, that will increase their job security, that will lift them out of poverty, that will increase Newstart, that will stop them getting evicted without cause, that will ensure that they can afford a home, that will ensure that they can afford health care for their children, that will ensure that they can get proper education for their children, that will ensure that the schools their kids are going to are properly funded, that will ensure that those people with disability or caring needs have proper support, that will ensure that people in regional and rural areas have proper services and adequate public transport, and that will ensure that there are measures to address the rapid expansion of greenhouse emissions that is causing not just environmental damage but the economic damage that goes along with it.
The paralysis has been longstanding, and the hurt to the Australian community—and many other communities around the globe, because governments elsewhere have also adopted the mantra of neoliberalism and austerity—is very long-standing. We need major change. We need it very quickly. Who leads the Liberal Party at the moment is irrelevant to that change. They could pull a name out of a hat; it's not going to give us the change we need. What we need to change is the government and the people who are elected in the House of Representatives.
Rudolph Giuliani took American politics through the looking glass yesterday when he helpfully explained that truth is not truth. We seem to be approaching a similar point in energy policy today. It is a mess. It is an absolute mess. You could describe the situation as a farce, and I've done it in the past, but it's actually ceased to be funny. It is actually embarrassing, watching the Prime Minister sell out on climate change, an issue he was once prepared to cross the floor on. It's actually tragic. It is tragic watching the coalition sabotage, yet again, Australia's opportunity to take meaningful action on climate change, to establish a stable foundation for investment in the energy system and to finally start dealing with the underlying cause of the prices that people have been experiencing over the last five years. All of that has been put to one side.
Where are we now? Today the Prime Minister unveiled his fifth energy policy. Over the past few years, the Prime Minister has floated an emissions intensity scheme; a clean energy target; the National Energy Guarantee that the PM took to the party room last week after long discussions at COAG; then the NEG, the version announced on Saturday; and again, today, another version of the NEG. We are up to five energy policies in one term. The version announced today is apparently the government's policy—or is it? Well, it is until it isn't. It turns out that the Minister for Home Affairs had it correct when he described the NEG version 1.0 as the government's 'current' policy on radio last week. As Giuliani said, 'Truth isn't truth.' At least, it's not for this crowd.
The only consistency through all of this has been our commitment to taking meaningful action on climate change, to renewing our ageing energy infrastructure and to bringing those two things together. We have tried and tried to work in good faith with the government through their tortured and convoluted processes. We have tried to offer bipartisanship, despite the government's best efforts to sabotage that through indecision and division. Here we are; we are all here again. As of less than six hours ago, the government has a new energy policy. It's a bit like a newborn baby giraffe: it's a bit unsteady on its feet, it's a little bit clumsy and it's a little bit unworldly. Will it see out the day? Nobody knows. Nobody knows if this is the government's final policy. No-one can tell, least of all the Prime Minister. This process has revealed just how little power and respect he has in his own party.
Indeed, for all of the discussion of leadership today, it has become quite clear that the Prime Minister has not been leading his party for some time. The Prime Minister explained to the House of Representatives earlier today that the NEG had been improved following consultations with colleagues. What did those colleagues say about this respectful consultation process? Mr Christensen said:
We have a new energy policy thanks to a band of Liberal-National rebels who stood firm and fought for common sense.
He went on to say:
This is a victory for common sense, in that we take advantage of the abundant coal reserves this country still has, and we use that abundance to deal with this issue of power prices once and for all.
It sounds a lot more like extortion than consultation.
The Prime Minister can pretend that the changes to the NEG were made on the basis of policy, but we all know what it's actually about. It is about his inability to enjoy the confidence of his colleagues, whether in the party room or, amazingly, in the parliament. The Prime Minister confirmed during question time that he had legislation drafted and ready to go on the NEG. Why hasn't it been introduced? He explained in question time today:
The government will introduce the legislation when it has concluded that it has the support in the House of Representatives for it to be passed.
In other words, the government cannot be confident that the legislation will pass a chamber it supposedly controls. I suspect that the Prime Minister will find it difficult to get the necessary support for any compromise. Anything that he offers will be rejected, especially if it contains even the weakest commitment to dealing with climate change.
How can the Prime Minister have the authority to stand up for what he used to believe in when he is too busy, hour by hour, fighting for his own job? Even TheDaily Telegraph's afternoon email update was titled 'How long can Turnbull be PM?' There are reports that the president of the LNP, Mr Gary Spence, has been encouraging members of parliament to support the member for Dickson. Today, he dodged an opportunity to deny it. He said:
You are asking me to talk about private conversations with MPs. A party president has private conversations with Members of Parliament all the time. … I think everything that needs to be said has been said today. I haven't got anything further to add.
As for whether Mr Dutton would make a better Prime Minister, he went on to say:
Everybody has their own view. My view is my view. The MPs and Senators choose the leader.
Well, thanks very much! I'm sure that Mr Turnbull is extremely grateful for Mr Spence's insights into how the LNP works, but it's hardly a ringing endorsement. Even the member for Sturt, on the radio this morning, referred to the Prime Minister as 'the current leader'. It's embarrassing. Throughout all this the Prime Minister has been emphatic that he enjoys the support of the party room, but, again, I guess truth is no longer truth.
Would a spill fix things for the government—or for energy policy, for that matter? I don't think changing the leadership will bring about leadership. That is because this conflict is about much more than personalities. Part of it is personal, of course. There does seem to be an implacable rump in the Liberal party room that will hate everything that this Prime Minister does, and it doesn't take very much imagination to identify who they are. But it is a mistake to imagine that this is all of it. A large part of the Liberal party room will never agree to meaningful action on climate change because deep down they do not believe that it is real. It is a schism that can only be solved by the hard Right accepting the science and moving climate change out of the culture war basket into the policy basket. In so doing, you could move energy policy out of the culture war basket into the policy basket and you'd get a fix—the fix everybody wants you to find. But there is no indication that anyone on the other side of the chamber is willing to do this.
Energy policy now seems ready to join the elephants' graveyard of the government's failed policy ambition, and it is in very good company. School funding is beset by problems. Every sector is aggrieved at the way the minister has handled their concerns. It takes special genius for our coalition education minister to irritate the independent school sector, to irritate the Catholic school sector and to irritate the public school sector simultaneously, but that is what Minister Birmingham has achieved. Tax reform stalled in the Senate after years of talk—years and years of talk.
And, when the government isn't outflanking itself, it's basically outflanked by events. One of the biggest policy events of the year is, in fact, the banking royal commission, and its revelations have seized the headlines and have shown the inadequacies of the current policy settings. But this was not a policy actually supported, embraced, by this government. It was established by the government despite their own fervent objection to it. The Prime Minister even described it as 'unfortunate' at the press conference when he announced it. He only did so at the urging of the major banks, who had the wit to understand that the calls for intervention in their sector would only cease when a proper examination of the issues had been undertaken. The Prime Minister was the last one to see it and to understand it. One of the very few good things to happen in this parliament, one of the very few achievements, was done on sufferance, not on the initiative of the Prime Minister or the people around him.
This Prime Minister is like a ship in a storm. He is slowly sinking, and he's tossing policy ideas overboard to stay afloat. Like his famous namesake, his crew are mutinying, and he is no longer in any way in control of where this ship goes. But the great tragedy for everybody else is that we're all part of it. We can't get off the ship. This crew is taking us all with it. The only way we will restore sensible policy processes and overcome the paralysis is actually to vote this government out. That is the only conclusion any sane observer could reach after the events of this week and last week.
I will make some commencing comments in relation to Senator Bartlett. He said the ripping-off of superannuation funds is a disaster, and a terrible thing in relation to the royal commission. I agree. What I want to put on the record here is that in September last year we tried to bring in legislation for criminal punishments, criminal laws—$420,000, I think, was the fine, and up to five years in jail—for those trustees, the directors of those super funds, who stole workers' superannuation money. And guess what? The Greens—Senator Bartlett part of them—and Labor would not support that legislation. 'Let the criminals run free'—that was your attitude. When Mr Keating brought in superannuation with no criminal laws attached to it, the Senate said it didn't need it—or they spoke to the industry super funds who had been building their way up through the union movement. Senator Bartlett makes a point: people have been ripping off our super. I wonder: when that bill comes back here to bring those criminal laws in, are the Greens, including the new Senator Faruqi, going to vote for some proper criminal laws for those people that have been stealing our workers' money? Good point, Senator Bartlett, I'm glad you raised it. I'm sure Senator Polley and Senator Ketter will not forget this either. When the bill comes up, we'll see if they'll get fair dinkum.
I'll be frank, Mr Acting Deputy President: it's been a rough week for the coalition. But that's politics, because only a few weeks ago those on that side had a very rough week, when they showed what they thought about business and business tax, and winding back the tax cuts for small business back to a $2 million turnover—oh, they back-pedalled quickly then.
Now we have a policy together, and it's about price, it's about competition and it's about supply in electricity networks, because the cost has been outrageous. Who's to blame for it? Probably every state and every federal government of every political persuasion for the last 10 or 15 years. And now the coalition, under Prime Minister Turnbull, has had the courage to take the issue up. It's mainly a state issue. Where did we add to the cost? Renewable energy certificates and renewable energy targets, where the Rudd government wound it up to 41,000 gigs. We wound it back to a proper figure of 33,000, because 41,000 was going to be around 26 per cent, and costly. If we were to construct one wind turbine today—Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, you'd be interested in this, since you come from South Australia; when I grew up down there, they were everywhere—that's three megawatts, and if it were to spin for eight hours a day, 365 days a year, and if the large energy certificates were trading at $80, then we would give the owners of that one turbine $700,000 a year before they'd sold one watt of electricity. I've seen the newly constructed ones up near home: hundreds of tonnes of cement at the base of them, and an enormous amount of steel. These are huge towers they're building up home between Inverell and Glen Innes. With all the metals in the generating system, from the copper to the steel, and probably aluminium as well, I wonder how long those things have to spin before they become carbon neutral. I really do. I think their lifetime is 25 years. They are probably going to have to spin for 15 years before they actually pay—if I can put it that way—the carbon usage to construct them.
Going back to some of those on the other side: Senator McAllister is a young lady; I'm sure she's not suffering any memory loss. Let me just bring back a few things about when Labor was in government, a little walk through history and the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era. What was the story when Kevin Rudd came here? He said the greatest moral challenge of our time is climate change. When the Senate rejected his policy of an emissions trading scheme for a second time, did he go to a double dissolution? No. Head down, tail between the legs, he ran off to the corner. Then it was Ms Gillard, who said: 'Challenge for Prime Minister? I've got more chance of playing full-forward for St Kilda.' I don't think she made a very good full-forward, but you never know. Of course, the next day it was on. Why did they sack Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister? They had the kitchen cabinet—there were four people running the country. They brought out things like the pink batts scheme—what a disastrous campaign that was! There were the school buildings. It was amazing. We had the launch of our National Party campaign in Wagga Wagga and, while we were there, the school building fell over It was brand new, poorly constructed and cheaply done. There was the infamous Grocery Watch, and then there was Fuel Watch. There was the huge debt building. Remember the then Treasurer, Mr Wayne Swan: 'We will have a surplus in two years time,' and the next year, 'We will have a surplus in two years time,' and in the next budget, 'We will have a surplus in two years time.' We never saw a surplus. We only ever saw debt. Now, at least, with proper financial management, in 12 months time we'll be looking at a surplus at last.
Then, of course, there was the biggest disaster of all, when a TV program forced the Labor Party to abandon live exports of cattle to Indonesia. That's the way you treat Indonesia when some in the abattoirs do the wrong thing—you cut off their supply of food! That'll fix them. What a disaster! The people of the Top End, who couldn't get rid of their cattle, what did they do? They put them on trucks at the top of Western Australia and road-transported them down to Bindaree Beef in Inverell, where I live—thousands of kilometres—because they couldn't send them on the short journey across the water to Indonesia. That was the kneejerk reaction of Labor in power, yet they sit over there throwing political hand grenades at us. It's amazing how quickly they forget.
I'm proud of the fact that job numbers have grown so much in Australia under our government. We're now looking at a proper budget surplus, and hopefully that will grow and we can start winding back the debt. There are the little things we've done for small business, like the effects test in the Competition and Consumer Act to give small business a fair go. There are the changes to day care, where it's capped at $7,000. We had parents going out to work. Dad might have been the main wage earner but often mum would want to work as well. There are many, many mothers—millions of them—working these days, of course. They'd get to the stage, as the year went on, where, by the time they'd paid for day care and paid tax, they'd be working for nothing. Thank goodness we made a change to that for the better. There are the free trade agreements. It's a pity the drought's on, because, with the sheep prices, mutton prices, wool prices, lamb prices and beef prices, the agricultural sector in Australia has never looked so good.
Sadly, the rain is not there, but those opposite think they're going to change that. They're going to bring in huge emissions targets, with a huge cost of electricity, and they're going to change the planet. Even though China, India, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam are building coal-fired power stations, leaving us way behind, those opposite think somehow we're going to change the planet from Australia. No, we're not; we're going to put the cost of doing business up and up until we're uncompetitive and we force those businesses overseas.
I too rise to speak about division and dysfunction within the Turnbull government causing policy paralysis that is hurting Australians. Those opposite are up to their eyeballs in dissent, and the government are in despair. I've not heard one contribution from government senators that denies the dysfunction and chaos that is taking place within their caucus. Liberal division and dysfunction are in fact on steroids. Last week, Mr Turnbull had ministers threatening to resign and backbenchers threatening to cross the floor of parliament, and all he wanted to do was talk about Bill Shorten. According to the newspapers—and I tend to agree—Malcolm Turnbull is a dead man walking. He might still have the title, but it's quite obvious he isn't the leader of his party.
I would ask you to refer to the Prime Minister by his appropriate title, thank you, Senator Polley.
Basically, we have a Prime Minister who is willing to lie on the floor, roll over and be the doormat to the right wing of his party as long as it saves his prime ministership. Last month, Mr Turnbull said this about the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten:
This is a leader who has no authority within his own party, he has no credibility, he can't keep the same policy position for a week.
How far from the truth can this Prime Minister be? 'Speak for yourself, Mr Turnbull,' I say. Today we've seen your fifth energy policy in five years and your second policy reset within as little as four days. You are in fact all over the shop. How long will today's policy stand? That depends on the media and whether or not Mr Turnbull changes his mind yet again. The fact is that the Prime Minister is digging an even deeper hole for himself. He called a press conference in which he declared himself 'a hostage of a group of wreckers from the Liberal Party's conservative wing'. The Prime Minister himself has acknowledged that he is a hostage of the right wing of his caucus. This isn't something that those in the opposition are saying or that's happening within the media; the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged that fact.
This is a man who stands for nothing. He promised so much when he went to the people. People in the community thought Malcolm Turnbull was going to stand up for climate change, that he was going to deliver a stable government, that he was going to be the Prime Minister of an adult government. Well, there's nothing further from the truth. On climate change he has caved in to the sceptics within his party. We're seeing now that the former Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott, determined the policy at the very top of government, and this doesn't make a good government. Prime Minister Turnbull isn't leading the party room. The right wing of his caucus are playing him like a puppet. Frankly, it's sad to see. No advanced democracy should have to be witness to such incompetence. With all of his backflips, perhaps Mr Turnbull can get a job with the circus after he's turfed out. He's Tony Abbott's performing seal. That's the reality of this government at the moment.
I'd ask you to refer for the member for Warringah by his appropriate title.
Sorry—Mr Abbott's seal. We have known for some time that the Australian people have stopped listening to the Turnbull government, because it's so chaotic; it's out of touch. We see that there's such division and that it's a weak government that doesn't really stand for anything. Mr Turnbull promised a stable government, as I said, and all he's been offering is instability and uncertainty.
The Australian people deserve so much more. They deserve to know where the Prime Minister stands on issues, and they want to know that the government is putting them first rather than the big four banks and the big end of town. Mr Abbott said recently:
It's no way to run a government—making absolute commitments on Tuesday and breaking them on Friday.
Mr Turnbull's credibility is shredded, and his popularity is in freefall. The people of Australia want consistency and continuity from the Turnbull government, but all they're getting is a government that is 100 per cent focused on themselves and their own jobs and a Prime Minister who will literally say anything it takes to save his own job. We know this because it's the playbook that unfortunately the Labor caucus went through, as we get reminded of, in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd phase. So, we know the plays. We can tell, as the media can and as the Australian people can. We learnt our lesson, but those on the other side haven't, because they're desperate. We know that at least 20 of their backbench would be very uncomfortable, looking at poll after poll showing that they're in deep trouble. We know what will happen: there'll be more and more pressure. And it doesn't matter what Mr Dutton has to say, because the reality of what's in the media and what's talked about through the corridors of this place is, quite frankly, that the numbers are being done, and as soon as Mr Dutton has the numbers there will be a challenge.
But what's been really disappointing is that a former investment banker such as Mr Turnbull has had no influence over the economic fortunes of this country. He's been nothing but a disappointment in that Australian families' costs of living continue to go up. We talk about the NEG and the fact that on this policy he's had so many backflips, whereas now he's in limbo. Nobody knows, really, where the Prime Minister stands. Times are tough, and people are looking to the Turnbull government and to the Prime Minister wanting to know what they're going to do to help them.
Remember when Mr Turnbull told us he was a strong leader? Well, that's not what the Australian people are seeing. What they are seeing and what they are experiencing is stubbornly high underemployment and stagnant wages, which are hurting families under this government. There are still 706,000 unemployed Australians. The number of underemployed Australians is now at 1.123 million. The Australian people are seeing that the youth unemployment rate remains more than double the national average. When it comes to secure, decent jobs, Mr Turnbull is silent. His only plan is to attack workers' wages by supporting cuts to penalty rates. What we have is the wrong Prime Minister with the wrong priorities. The Prime Minister's words after the 'super Saturday' by-elections are ringing in my ears. He said that he 'will look very seriously and thoughtfully and humbly at the way in which the voters have responded' to what the government put forward during the by-elections.
Well, power prices are going up, hospital waiting lists are blowing out, wages are almost flatlining and we now have over 108,000 older, vulnerable Australians waiting for home care. But the only thing the Turnbull government and the Liberals are focused on is themselves and giving the big end of town a tax cut. Since when does corporate Australia come first, before the people? With a merchant banker as its leader, are we really surprised to have such an out-of-touch coalition government? It doesn't matter what trick the Prime Minister tries—whether he tries all his backflips or whether he uses smoke and mirrors—everyone knows that Mr Turnbull is all about the top end of town. Mr Turnbull's big policies, the National Energy Guarantee and the tax cuts for the big end of town, are falling apart, just like the government. Mr Turnbull's one-point plan for an economy is to give $17 billion in new tax handouts to the banks. That's all he's got. The community doesn't buy the neoliberal, trickle-down economic myth. Study after study has shown that no corporate tax cut will lead to jobs, growth or an increase in take-home pay for working people. Australians are firmly against these company tax cuts and they don't want to see them put through. The question really is whether Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison have learned from the humiliating lessons they got in Longman and Braddon.
In question time today, Senator McKenzie said that the government's priority was bringing down electricity prices. They say this, but the out-of-touch legislation they currently have before the parliament will abolish the energy supplement for anyone who started to receive a pension or allowance after 20 September 2016. The Liberals' plan to scrap the energy supplement will mean a cut of $14.10 per fortnight, or around $365 a year, for a single pensioner and a cut of $21.20 a fortnight, or $550 a year, for a pensioner couple. No-one should have to choose between turning on the heater and putting food on the table. If this government really wanted to do something about making power more affordable then they would dump their plan to axe the clean energy supplement. This government is in chaos. The time clock is working down for Mr Turnbull. All we can say is: the Australian people want the opportunity to vote this government out.
The matter of public importance which has been raised today addresses division and dysfunction. Let me tell you, I certainly know where I can find division and dysfunction, and that's in the Labor Party and its policy on borders, its policy on border control, the continual series of Labor lies in its policy on migration, its policy on Palestine and the dysfunction in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments on borders, defence and spending, which has been spoken about by Senator Williams. Why would it ever be different?
What an interesting thought it is to go back and listen to people who say that Labor has learned its lesson! There will never be a chance for Labor to show that, so it's an interesting claim to make. We have a range of policies that we are very, very proud of. Senator Polley claims that she hasn't heard anyone who denies her claim of policy paralysis. Well, I do. This is a party where we are actually encouraged to think, and better policy is the result. We're not the drones of the Labor Party. We have policy, which we are very, very proud of, in the areas of energy, tax, borders, health, welfare, education, the NDIS, a fair go in the workplace—Senator Cameron—child care and budget repair.
When I think of dysfunction and division, I think of Ms Ged Kearney MP and Ms Linda Burney MP. What does it take to establish division and dysfunction within the Labor Party but people like these who blatantly oppose the so-called border policy of the Labor Party. At least 30 Labor Party members at the last election declared they did not believe in the regional processing centres, yet their party believes there is not a cigarette paper between the policies of this government and the policies of the Labor opposition. So we have good policies and we have a record that we can be very proud of.
Let's see exactly what one of these policies in particular is, and that is driving power prices down. The big picture is that the Turnbull government has today announced a set of policies, a package of measures, to put downward pressure on electricity prices and stop energy companies from gouging their customers. What are we doing? We're backing the ACCC to drive lower electricity prices for households and for small businesses.
What is the state of the energy market? If you understand where we're going, it's very important to understand where the energy market is at the moment. According to the Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry report released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, in July, the national energy market is not operating in the best interests of consumers and reform is urgently needed.
So what are we doing? The government is implementing a number of key recommendations from the ACCC inquiry. The ACCC and the Australian Energy Regulator will be directed to set a default price for households and small to medium-sized businesses, a price that will deliver genuine savings to customers. This will replace the current standing offer in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and South-East Queensland—jurisdictions where prices are not regulated. The ACCC found that the significant gap between standing offer prices and market offer prices has become excessive and consumers who have not sought a better deal are being ripped off, but that better deal can be sought and can be obtained. A default offer will protect consumers from being exploited while still allowing for the benefits of retail competition. This measure will prevent retailers from exploiting consumers and small businesses with inflated standing offers.
Under our plan, the Australian Energy Regulator would be given the power to set the maximum price for the default market offer in each region. Customers on high-price standing offers will see their electricity price decrease as they move to a lower default market offer. The ACCC estimates that, for average residential customers on an inflated standing offer, the savings from moving to the new default offer could range from $183 to $416.
What about small business? We also think that small businesses have the right to the same protection and support. The ACCC estimates that savings for the average small to medium-sized business on a standing offer could range between $561 and $1,457.
The government will also act to simplify the confusing array of offers that are currently on the market by requiring retailers to use the new default rate as a reference point for all advertised discounts. This will give customers more clarity when they compare retailers and offers and help ensure they get the best deal. Limits will also be placed on the penalties customers can face when they don't pay their bills on time and so lose their discounts.
The government will initially seek to work with the states and territories on this reform. If the states do not agree, we will implement the offer through Commonwealth law. We expect the new default offer to apply from July 2019 at the latest. In addition, the Treasurer will direct the ACCC to hold an inquiry into prices, profits and margins in the National Electricity Market. The inquiry will run until 2025 and will include monitoring of retail prices and margins, our wholesale bids and conduct and contract market liquidity.
We will need regular monitoring—there's no two ways about that. We will need regular monitoring. The ACCC will prepare ongoing reports at least six months—
Senator Molan, the time for the conversation has expired.
On behalf of the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment I table a ministerial statement on the 'Investment statement 2018: five good years for Australia'.
I table a response to a question taken on notice during question time on 16 August 2018 asked by Senator Keneally relating to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and seek leave to have the document incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The answer read as follows—
Dear Mr President
Iwrite with regard to a question I took on notice from Senator the Hon Kristina Keneally on Thursday, 16 August 2018, on the matter of a former director of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (the Foundation).
The Foundation has demonstrated its ability to deliver Government funding appropriately on a number of occasions, including with grants from the former Labor Government.
Mr Stephen Roberts was a Director of the Board of the Foundation from November 2015. While the charges do not have anything to do with Mr Roberts' actions with the Foundation, he has stepped down from the Board. The Foundation's robust governance arrangements appear to be handling the matter appropriately and the Foundation's Board remains fully operational. The Government will not comment further on what is an unresolved matter that sits with the ACCC.
I have copied is letter to Senator Keneally.
Kind regards
Mathias Cormann
Minister for Finance
20 August 2018
I indicate to the Senate that these bills are being introduced together. After debate on the motion for the second reading has been adjourned, I will be moving 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—
CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT (INCORPORATION OF PROPOSALS) BILL 2018
The Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2018 contains a number of amendments to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to assist Australian businesses and consumers and further enhance the operation of the act.
Firstly, the bill will make amendments consistent with Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2018, providing a "Free" rate of duty for imports of Indonesian insecticides and herbicides under the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. This proposal implements an early outcome of the Indonesian-Australia Closer Economic Partnership Agreement that commenced on 20 September 2017 as announced by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Honourable Steven Ciobo. This early outcome benefits Australian businesses and farmers by reducing their costs and improving access to the Indonesian market for Australian sugar exporters.
Secondly, the bill will make amendments consistent with Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2) 2018, which will remove the duty payable on eligible blinded clinical trial kits and placebos imported for use in clinical trials. This measure was announced in the 2018-2019 budget and complements the government's efforts on making Australia an attractive destination for international clinical trials. The measure makes the importation of these goods into Australia cheaper through the removal of customs duty while also simplifying the import process and reducing red tape.
Finally, the bill will make a technical amendment to schedule 12 which covers the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. This amendment removes a redundant item from the schedule, re-aligning it with the other schedules to the Customs Tariff Act.
HOME AFFAIRS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (MISCELLANEOUS MEASURES) BILL 2018
The Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018 is an omnibus bill that makes a number of amendments to the Migration Act, the Customs Act, and the Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act.
Schedule 1 of the bill will amend the Migration Act to ensure that, when an attempt is made to remove an unlawful non-citizen from our country, that non-citizen does not enter the destination country and is instead returned to Australia, the non-citizen can be returned to Australia without a visa. In addition, they will be treated as if they had never left Australia for the purposes of the visa application bars imposed by sections 48 and 48A of the Migration Act.
Currently the Migration Act allows an unlawful noncitizen who has been removed from Australia to return without a visa, if the unlawful noncitizen was refused entry into the destination country. The Migration Act does not currently allow for the return without a visa of a non-citizen who we have attempted to remove from Australia in other circumstances where it may be necessary. For example, there is no facility to return a person to Australia without a visa, if a transit country refuses to allow the removed person to transit or if the United Nations Human Rights Committee makes an interim measures request that the removal not be completed. The amendments in schedule 1 to this bill will address this inconsistency.
Similarly, the current law provides that, when a non-citizen is returned to Australia without a visa because they were refused entry to the destination country, the bars on making further applications imposed by sections 48 and 48A of the Migration Act will continue to apply as if they had never left Australia. The amendments will ensure that the same rule applies to a non-citizen who is returned to Australia without a visa in any circumstance covered by these amendments.
Schedule 2 of the bill will amend the Migration Act to make it clear that the department can provide correspondence to a person by making it available through their online account.
The bill represents another step in the government's Digital Transformation Agenda, by permitting the department to make greater use of its online facilities. Already, visa applicants can provide visa applications and additional information to the department by uploading that information into the person's online account in the department's online system. However, the current provisions in the act for giving documents to visa applicants and other persons do not clearly allow documents to be given through the department's online account system. This bill corrects that by adding this additional communication method to those already available to the department.
Schedule 3 of the bill will insert a new power into the Customs Act to enable the department to refund duty or drawback of duty in circumstances where a person has been paid a refund or drawback that they were not entitled to. This amendment is proposed in order to reduce the risk of breaching section 83 of the Commonwealth Constitution which may result from refunds and drawbacks of duty being made otherwise than in accordance with legislation.
Schedule 4 of this bill amends the Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act to introduce a new head of power that will allow the department to recover the merchant fees that it incurs where a person pays passenger movement charges with a credit card.
Schedule 5 of this bill makes minor technical amendments to sections 58A and 208DA of the Customs Act to ensure these provisions operate as originally intended.
THERAPEUTIC GOODS AMENDMENT (2018 MEASURES NO. 1) BILL 2018
I am pleased to introduce the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2018 Measures No.1) Bill 2018, which amends the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.
This bill enables the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to implement a mandatory reporting scheme for medicines shortages, in order to better address the public health implications associated with medicines shortages in Australia. There are also a small number of minor, unrelated measures outlined in the bill, some of which support the implementation in 2017 of the Government's Response to the Expert Panel Review of Medicines and Medical Devices Regulation.
Medicines shortages have become an increasing problem in recent years, not just in Australia but around the world. A shortage of a critical medicine places patients' lives at risk. This bill responds to concerns raised by patients, their carers and health professionals as well as many representations from members of parliament on behalf of often-distressed patients seeking information about a shortage of a critical medicine. The recent shortage of EpiPen auto-injectors, which are critical in the response to severe allergic reactions in many people, including children whose lives can depend on having rapid access to this life-saving medicine, is a case in point.
The current voluntary scheme for reporting medicines shortages by medicines sponsors which has been in place since 2014 has, unfortunately, proven to be ineffective. A significant number of medicines shortages of critical patient impact have not been reported to the TGA, or not reported in a timely manner.
As these voluntary arrangements do not oblige sponsors to report, the TGA is not always able to alert the Australian public to a shortage or give them timely advice about steps for alleviating its effects or, significantly, to inform health practitioners so they can work with patients to minimise a shortage's impact.
In response to these concerns, a Medicines Shortages Working Group comprised of the Medicines Partnership of Australia, the Australian Medical Association and the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia, chaired by the Department of Health, developed a revised approach to deal with medicines shortages. In particular it will be mandatory for companies to report all shortages to the TGA. The TGA will principally publish information about those shortages that are of particular impact on patients, so that prompt action can be taken to address the needs of affected patients. I would like to thank these groups for their input into this new regime and for their support of this bill.
The bill would ensure that the new mandatory reporting scheme is properly targeted to higher risk medicines - principally prescription medicines, but other non-prescription medicines that are registered in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods may also come within the scheme. Examples of products that may be included in this way may be EpiPens and Ventolin inhalers.
The bill stipulates timeframes by which sponsors must report. For shortages of critical patient impact, a sponsor will be required to report the shortage to the secretary as soon as possible but no later than two working days after they first know, or ought to have reasonably known, about the shortage. For shortages that are not of critical impact, sponsors must notify the secretary no later than 10 working days after knowing of the shortage.
Under the bill, a 'shortage' will exist if its supply in Australia will not, or will not likely, meet the demand for it at any time in the next 6 months, for all the patients in Australia who take it or who may need to take it. This takes a balanced approach by focussing on the overall situation for a medicine's availability in Australia, meaning instances of short supply that only occur at particular locations would not be shortages under the bill—avoiding the over-reporting of events that may turn out not to be widespread shortages.
To allow for forward planning of patient care, the bill will also require sponsors to notify the secretary of a decision to permanently discontinue the supply of a medicine in Australia. For such discontinuations of critical impact the sponsor must notify the secretary at least 12 months before the proposed discontinuation or, if this is not possible, as soon as practicable after the decision is made. For all other discontinuations, the secretary must be told at least six months before the proposed discontinuation or as soon as practicable after the decision.
For the sake of clarity, a Medicines Watch List will be established as a legislative instrument. This list will set out those medicines that, if in shortage, would have a critical impact on patient care. A shortage or permanent discontinuation of a medicine not in the Medicines Watch List may still be of critical patient impact if certain criteria in the bill are met—for example, if the shortage could have a life-threatening or serious impact on affected patients. Meeting these criteria will trigger the mandatory reporting obligations for critical impact shortages or discontinuations.
The bill introduces civil penalties for sponsors who do not comply with the requirements to notify the Secretary of a shortage or permanent discontinuation of a reportable medicine within the applicable timeframe, with maximum penalties of 100 penalty units for an individual or 1,000 penalty units for a body corporate. The details of such action, and names of non-compliant sponsors and affected products, will also be published on the TGA's website.
It is important to note, however, that the TGA would, in practice, work with sponsors to ensure awareness of the scheme and an understanding of how to comply with it, and take a graduated approach to instances of non-compliance.
The bill also includes a small number of minor measures not connected to medicines' shortages, mainly to remove inefficiencies or make minor improvements to the regulation of therapeutic goods under the legislation.
Debate adjourned.
Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.
I move:
That the following legislative instruments, made under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, be disallowed:
(a) the Social Security (Administration) (Trial of Cashless Welfare Arrangements) Determination 2018 [F2018L00245]; and
(b) the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Declinable Transactions and Welfare Restricted Bank Account) Determination 2018 [F2018L00251].
These two instruments that we are debating today relate to all three of the current cashless welfare card trial sites—specifically the Ceduna, East Kimberley and Goldfields areas.
The first of these instruments, the Social Security (Administration) (Trial of Cashless Welfare Arrangements) Determination 2018, sets out a number of matters relating to the Goldfields trial. Firstly, it excludes Plumridge Lakes from the Goldfields trial area. Secondly, it determines the class of participants for the Goldfields trial area. The determination also revokes and remakes the determinations previously in place for the East Kimberley and Ceduna trial areas. The only provisions from the previous determinations that are not contained in this determination relate to the boundaries of the Ceduna and East Kimberley trial sites, as this information is now contained within the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, following amendments made by the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Act 2018. Accordingly, the determination retains the provisions that determine the class of participants for these two trial areas. The determination also repeals and remakes four other legislative instruments—specifically, the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Community Body—Ceduna Region Community Panel) Authorisation 2016, the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Community Body—East Kimberley Region Community Panels) Authorisation 2016, the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Excluded Voluntary Participants) Determination 2016 and the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Variation of Percentage Amounts) Determination 2016. These legislative instruments were due to cease on 30 June 2018.
The second of these two instruments, the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Declinable Transactions and Welfare Restricted Bank Account) Determination 2018, sets out that the kind of bank account to be determined by participants for the receipt of restrictable payments during the trial is a debit card account with Indue Ltd. The terms and conditions in relation to a welfare restricted bank account and declared kinds of business in relation to which transactions involving money in a welfare restricted bank account may be declined by a financial institution. It repeals and remakes two legislative instruments, specifically the Social Security (Administration) (Trial—Declinable Transactions) Determination 2016 and the Social Security (Administration) (Welfare Restricted Bank Account) Determination 2016. These were due to cease on 30 June 2018.
With regard to these two instruments, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights reiterated the concerns it raised when commenting on earlier versions of these determinations. Those concerns were specifically in relation to the declinable transactions determination; the compulsory nature of the scheme; the restriction of a person's agency; and, in relation to the trial of cashless welfare arrangements determinations, whether the measures were—or are—rationally connected to the objective. They made specific reference to the Goldfields region, saying:
It is also not clear from the statement of compatibility to the trial of cashless welfare arrangements determination how the findings of the ORIMA report are relevant to the effectiveness of the measure as it applies to the Goldfields region.
In order for the cashless debit card scheme to function according to the government's intentions, a number of rules need to be set out in legislative instruments.
Both of the instruments before us today deal with at least one aspect of the cashless debit card scheme that is essential for the scheme to be implemented. If these instruments are disallowed—and I really hope they are—the scheme could not continue as it is. Just to be really clear, what the Australian Greens are presenting to the Senate is the opportunity to knock off these cashless welfare card trials. The Australian Greens have been opposed to the cashless debit card scheme from the beginning and have advocated for it to be scrapped at every opportunity since its inception. We will continue to do so if these disallowances are not supported.
It is a form of compulsory income management. The evidence from the Northern Territory intervention showed this approach does not work. In fact, the evaluation of the Northern Territory intervention showed that it met none of its objectives. I don't think any fair-minded person would say that the situation has improved in the Northern Territory. In fact, the indicators show that things have become worse. We are seeing an increasing number of children, for example, going into out-of-home care. Of course, we've had the royal commission into juvenile detention since the intervention has been in place. Yet the government decided that 10 years of evidence—in fact, it's now 11 years—were insufficient and decided that they would try compulsory income management yet again.
Given the recent Australian National Audit Office report entitled The implementation and performance of the cashless debit card trial, it is clearer than ever that the evidence just isn't there to support the continuation of these trials or, for that matter, a further rollout of the card, which will be debated—well, it's on the red for tonight. Who knows if we'll get there? This week, the government wants to debate the further rollout of the card into the Hinkler region in Queensland. It is, to anybody's mind, a damning report. It found that the department's approach to monitoring and evaluation was inadequate and that, consequently, it was difficult to conclude whether there had been a reduction in social harm and whether the card was a lower cost welfare-quarantining approach. Additionally, the report found that there were deficiencies in elements of the procurement process, there was a lack of robustness in data collection and the department's evaluation did not use all of the available administrative data to measure the impact of the trial. Finally, the report found that the trial was not designed to test the scalability of the cashless debit card and that there was no plan in place to undertake further evaluation.
I've got to say that none of this is surprising to me—none of it—because that's exactly what people who read the ORIMA reports, both wave 1 and wave 2, of the first two trials commented on at the time. The academic literature pointed out the extreme flaws in the evaluation process. We said in this chamber what the evaluation process would do. We debated in this chamber that there was nothing to compare the trial sites to and that the adequate baseline data collection hadn't happened. On numerous occasions in this place, the Greens have raised the inadequacy of the evaluations. We have raised the fact that a number of the datasets were conveniently not being used.
When the government first announced the trials, they didn't collect that baseline data. They didn't have the baseline data there. They didn't have a compatible site to compare the two trial sites with—in other words, to adequately test the effectiveness of the card compared to providing decent services to these trial site areas. When the ORIMA reports were released, we and others, as I just articulated, pointed out the flaws and were critical of their reliability. We also pointed out that the government could not use those reports to justify rolling out further trials or the continuation of the trials in East Kimberley and Ceduna, yet that's exactly what the government did: 'Let's not worry about the evidence'—even though they tried to claim there was evidence. 'Let's not worry about the evidence, and let's just proceed.' In other words, it's an ideological decision that this government takes to income quarantining and income management, because quite clearly the ANAO report shows that the evidence of reduced social harm is not there.
We pointed out that connecting the initial two sites meant that we did not get a clear picture of the situation in East Kimberley and in Ceduna independent of one another, because the reports conveniently rolled data in together. It was pointed out that alcohol restrictions in Kununurra made it impossible to make any plausible claims about the card and that the evaluation reports were missing basic information, such as police statistics from the trial areas. We had to get that information through the state parliament of Western Australia. The evaluation was widely criticised by social scientists and academics for not adhering to academic standards, for having major flaws in both methodology and the way it was reported, and for relying on piecemeal and anecdotal evidence. Their concerns included research design, sampling strategy, questionnaire design, recall bias, social desirability bias, rising refusal rates of those surveyed, and the combination of longitudinal and intercept data, amongst others—in other words, a list as long as your arm.
Despite the ANAO's report on the limitations of the evaluation and the general lack of evidence that the trial communities or, indeed, the majority of recipients have benefited and there has been a reduction in social harm, the government is determined to persist with the current trial areas and, in fact, the broader concept of the card and rolling it out further, instead of implementing policy based on evidence. The scheme is ideological and punitive—one that punishes those subject to it purely because of where they live and the fact that they receive an income support payment, regardless of their personal circumstances.
The scheme restricts 80 per cent of a person's income support payment so that it cannot be used to purchase restricted products, leaving only 20 per cent that can be withdrawn as cash and spent at the person's discretion on whatever they want. The scheme discriminates against people on low incomes and indirectly discriminates against First Nations people, who make up a significant number of the scheme's participants. The government believes that the scheme will magically solve problems of addiction; however, if it were that simple, a lot of medical professionals would simply be out of a job. The government also thinks that it will magically produce jobs where there are currently a low number of jobs or where jobs don't in fact exist.
Addressing complex health and social issues through our social safety net is a flawed approach. There is a lack of a causal link between receiving income support and experiencing drug, alcohol or gambling problems. Instead of wasting public money on compulsory income management, the government should be addressing the underlying causes of disadvantage, intergenerational trauma and lack of work opportunity, and investing in well-funded, timely wraparound services that genuinely help those who are struggling with substance abuse or gambling issues. This is what the communities of the trial sites have been calling for. No-one denies that we need to be investing to make sure that we are addressing these very complex issues, but we strongly disagree with the way the government is directing that funding.
Unfortunately, communities have been subject to the card regardless of whether or not they wanted it, which appears to have led to divisions within the communities. Despite the government's claim, consultation has been poor, particularly with those who are subject to the cashless welfare card. In some cases, it has been secretive. Communities have certainly been unable to provide free, prior and informed consent. For as long as the scheme has been running, we have heard from those subject to it that it is disrespectful, stigmatising, humiliating, intrusive, harmful and disempowering.
We have heard accounts of individuals having difficulties using the card to purchase necessities and pay their bills, experiencing increased hardship, and running out of money to buy food or pay for items for the children. There is also no ability for joint accounts to be linked to the card. Individuals have been unable to buy second-hand goods due to a lack of cash, which is particularly disruptive for people on low incomes. We know that, in so many cases, people on Newstart and other income support payments are already living below the poverty line and that they rely on second-hand goods to get by. They cannot afford to buy all the second-hand goods that they need with the 20 per cent that remains under their full control.
The government says the card will help people, but, in reality, it is making their lives more difficult and making it harder for those on low incomes to manage their limited resources. It is entrenching poverty. People speak very strongly of the humiliating experience of feeling stigmatised when they're standing in a shop having to use the card. Without cash, parents have reported not being able to buy second-hand textbooks for their children, families have not been able to shop at the many op shops that don't have EFTPOS facilities, and people have reported not being able to afford to buy their children canteen lunches. Some individuals have also found it impossible to pay their rent. We also know that some people left their communities when they heard that their area might be a trial site. This is particularly devastating for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and those in remote locations. First Nations people should not have to choose between living on country and having proper access to income support.
I received an email in July from a constituent living in one of the trial sites. She is a mother with two children and is a trial participant. She escaped domestic violence twice. She told me in great detail about the problems that she has had in being able to budget and survive in her particular circumstances. She talked about how she is not able to buy second-hand clothes through the internet now. She talked about having to choose between buying clothes for her children and giving them a treat. She said that the stress over the last year, and especially the last few months, would be enough to make the strongest person break: 'I have come so close to breaking point, and I feel personally attacked by this card. Strangers in shops judge me like a criminal. Other kids and parents judge my son when he has to buy his school lunch with 5c, 10c and 20c pieces.' This is not an isolated email. This is not an isolated example of the stigmatisation that people feel and the despair that people feel. This is one of many emails I've received from participants over the years. I find the emails heart-wrenching, and I know that we can and should be doing better for these individuals who are being put through this.
Today we have an opportunity to put a stop to this card, and the stress and the shame and the harm it is causing participants in the East Kimberley, Ceduna and Goldfields areas. These communities have been through enough of this social experiment. We've been doing this 'experimental' trial with income management for 11 years. For 11 years, we have been harming people with this approach. It can't be properly demonstrated that social harm has been reduced, and the evidence to support the continuation of these trials does not exist. We've had enough. We don't need to keep putting these people through this harm.
I urge members of the Senate, the opposition and the crossbench—in fairyland, I can imagine the government would actually look at the evidence and see that this causes social harm, and drop their ideological support for this failed social experiment that causes harm to our fellow Australians and, particularly, to First Nations people—let's learn the lessons from the intervention. Let's learn the lessons from this trial, and from the trials that have already happened. Seriously, how many of those in the government and the opposition have read the ANAO report? And what about the other reports that have been done on the flawed ORIMA evaluations, showing that this has not reduced social harm? In fact, it's caused harm to many people. They have reported that. I'm sure others have had emails, too, about how distressing people are finding this. Let's invest in addressing the social harms—because I acknowledge that we do need to be addressing issues like addiction, intergenerational trauma, entrenched poverty, and disadvantage. But this isn't the way to do it. It hasn't been proved that it has worked. The ANAO report shows that the government can't demonstrate a reduction in social harm; but I can demonstrate the harm, the stigma, and the humiliation that people have felt through this card. Please support this disallowance motion, and let's invest the money we're wasting on this into genuinely helping people.
Labor is greatly concerned about the lack of robust evidence about the outcomes of the Cashless Debit Card trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley. The definition of a 'trial' is to find out if something works. It's a terrible indictment of the policy process of this government that clear, empirical evidence about outcomes simply does not exist. Evaluations to date have been completely inadequate. The government must fix this.
In our consultations in the two original trial areas of Ceduna and East Kimberley, Labor heard mixed views about the success of the Cashless Debit Card. Some participants in the Ceduna and East Kimberley trials reported finding the Cashless Debit Card to be useful, whilst others thought it had not made any improvements to their lives. Labor supported the initiation of trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley, and supports them continuing for a further year to allow more time to reliably determine whether they have been successful.
For this reason, we will not be supporting this disallowance motion today, but Labor will be moving an alternative disallowance motion to prevent the expansion of the Cashless Debit Card Trial to the Goldfields region. But the government is very much on notice. They must fix their evaluation process and heed the very significant warnings of the Auditor-General about the implementation and evaluation of the trials. Labor would require a much more rigorous evaluation of the Cashless Debit Card in the existing trial areas prior to supporting either the continuation of these trials past mid-2019 or any expansion to the trial areas.
I have to say, for a government to say that this is about improving people's lives when in 2014 they took half a billion dollars in the budget from Indigenous social support and they have removed $1.5 billion over four years from remote Indigenous housing—this has got implications for apprentices in these areas. It's got implications for Indigenous businesses because, if you can't get a roof over your head, then you're in some difficulty. If you're in massively overcrowded accommodation, you end up in severe difficulties. It's got implications for health. It's got implications for employment opportunities. Simply having the cashless debit card as some kind of analysis about how to try and make things better demonstrates this government's lack of vision.
We don't support the expansion of the cashless debit card in any location unless the government has an agreed and formal process of consultation and a clear framework for establishing whether the communities consent to the trial. Surely there has to be a process of consultation and consent from the communities. So, on this basis, we don't support this, but we will be moving an alternative proposition on the trial of the cashless welfare arrangements.
I rise to speak on this disallowance motion. Before I start stepping through some information on what the intent of both the bills and the regulations is, I just want to address a couple of issues. First of all, on the government side of this chamber, we don't believe the outcomes of these trials will be magic. We don't believe they'll be magical, Senator Siewert—through you, Deputy President. We believe they're trials—exactly what we say they are. We believe they're a chance, in a very intractable area of public policy, to try something different. I'll get into it in more detail later on, but I would also say to Senator Cameron that, as part of the new bill, we have improved and increased the amount of information we are seeking to gain from these trials and to actually feed that into the process. And I think you're aware of that fact. It is something that the government is committed to, because these are trials. We are trying to see what works and what doesn't.
I arrived in this place just a few days over one year ago. One of the first things I did as chair of a community affairs committee was to take a committee hearing to Kalgoorlie on this very topic, and we heard from a lot of leaders in the community up there. Yes, there were clearly views on both sides of the debate. There were clearly those in favour; there were clearly those against. Some of those who were against have subsequently changed their minds. Perhaps there have been others who have gone the other way. I've certainly only heard from those who were against but who are now in favour. I'm thinking particularly of an Indigenous leader who I talked to about this issue. But the point is that the idea that there hasn't been consultation either in the existing trial sites or in the proposed trial site in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region is simply false. I'll go through some of the consultation that has gone on. Probably the one I know most about is that my good friend Rick Wilson, the member for O'Connor, wrote to all 20,000 households in the Kalgoorlie trial site and asked their opinion, and he got an extraordinarily good response both in terms of numbers and in terms of those supporting the trial—somewhere in the order of 83 per cent. I'm not sure what mechanism Senator Cameron is proposing in order to gauge community views on these trials, but I would have thought that's a pretty good measure of support.
Let me go through what we are actually trying to do. The government is committed to reducing the social harm caused by alcohol, drug abuse and gambling, particularly in areas of high welfare dependency. That's an objective that I think everyone in this place would share. The cashless debit card does operate like an ordinary debit card but aims to reduce the effects of alcohol, drugs and gambling abuse by limiting both the availability of cash and the items that can be purchased. There are three existing trial sites—Ceduna, East Kimberley and the Goldfields, most recently—which, I will point out, were agreed to by this place. The Parliament of Australia agreed to these trial sites. There is now a move to try and somehow undermine them or, as Senator Cameron flagged, to limit the Kalgoorlie trial site. And the Greens, including Senator Siewert, very clearly oppose all the trials. But this parliament has put in place three trial sites, and those three trial sites should continue. We have another bill coming before this place which seeks to establish a fourth trial site in the Bundaberg-Hervey Bay area.
There has been anecdotal evidence that we've seen positive impacts in the community. I agree: that's anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is worthy, but it certainly shouldn't inform future public policy decisions whilst we consider the fourth trial site. The fourth trial site will operate in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay until 30 June 2020. This allows time to roll out the program in the area and for it to operate for a minimum of 12 months. We will need to update the limitation on the number of participants from 10,000 to 15,000, recognising the increase that would come from introducing the fourth trial site. Bundaberg-Hervey Bay will be different from the existing trial sites in terms of its criteria. The trial will target people under 36 years of age who are receiving Newstart, youth allowance (jobseeker), parenting payment (single) or parenting payment (partnered). Around 6,700 people would be transitioned onto the cashless debit card. It does represent a different approach and would be more targeted than the Ceduna trial in South Australia and the East Kimberley and Goldfields trials in WA. If passed, it would be the largest trial site.
The expansion of the cashless debit card, under these criteria, allows testing under a different set of criteria in a different context—in particular, in a much larger urban population and, obviously, involving a very different potential cohort of people. One of the criticisms of the initial trial sites concerned the relatively large Indigenous populations. I will point out that the Kalgoorlie trial had around a fifty-fifty split in terms of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants. In Hervey Bay-Bundaberg, there is a predominantly non-Indigenous population. One of the other differences compared with the existing trial sites is that the selection of trial participants in Bundaberg-Hervey Bay will not allow for volunteers to come onto the cashless debit card. Again, this will allow the government to test the impacts of the cashless debit card trial exclusively for the selected group, as has been asked for by the community. The criteria for trial participants also set out some exceptions where a person would not be transitioned onto the card, drawing on policy parameters used in the existing sites. This includes a provision for the secretary to exempt a person whose inclusion in the trial would impose a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing. These exemptions and discretionary powers will be used to ensure vulnerable people are not adversely affected by the trial.
The selection of the cohort in this area has occurred as a result of significant consultation with the community, as we heard during the Senate committee inquiry into the legislation. This is designed to help address key social problems that local people have identified during meetings—in particular, high youth unemployment, intergenerational welfare dependency and local children whose needs are not being met. According to regional youth unemployment data for March 2018, these communities have a youth unemployment rate of 28.7 per cent, a significant increase over the past year. It compares to a state average of 13.4 per cent. Bundaberg and Hervey Bay have 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 who are under 30 and on Newstart or youth allowance had a parent or guardian who received income support at some point in the past 15 years. 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.
The findings of the ARC indicate that the risk factors such as attitudes to work and welfare, attitudes towards alcohol and drug consumption, and family influences contribute to intergenerational welfare dependency. The council also found evidence that young people from welfare-dependent families are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol or consume illegal drugs, highlighting the relationship that welfare dependence has on a young person's outcomes in life. On average, 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 it is 73 per cent. Additionally, people in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area attending financial counselling for their problem gambling are more likely to have been on their current benefit for longer than five years, compared with other people in Australia attending problem gambling counselling.
The cashless debit card could help 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 educational training. By targeting a younger cohort we can influence positive behavioural change before welfare dependency becomes entrenched in a person's lifestyle. We've seen that a spillover benefit of the card is that it can increase motivation to find work. As part of the final evaluation report there was feedback from some card participants that almost a quarter of the people on the card are spending several hours a week looking for work. This is an increase from 11 per cent in February 2017.
The Department of Social Services has undertaken significant consultation with key stakeholders and community members. Specifically, between May and December of 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 that the cashless debit card is implemented effectively in their community. Additionally, a local shopfront will be established with staff who can link people with existing services. Through the community reference group the department will monitor service demand to ensure that the cashless debit card is complemented by appropriate supports as people adjust to the change.
Complementing the card will be a further investment of $1 million in community services. There is already a significant number of services in place, including 70 federally funded services across the area, including drug and alcohol services, financial capability services, employment services, and family and children's programs. The bill will allow the program to respond to unforeseen circumstances, such as widescale power outages and natural disasters, allowing trial participants in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay to access their full payment as cash. This measure will ensure that participants and their families remain supported in the event of widescale emergencies. The bill will also allow the establishment of a community panel in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area to allow participants in the area to apply to have access to a higher proportion of unrestricted funds. Consultations with community leaders in the area have indicated that a panel will be useful to make the trial flexible to the needs of their community.
As I stated earlier, government has announced a second evaluation of the cashless debit card across all three current trial sites to assess the ongoing effectiveness of the program. My understanding is that the University of South Australia has already begun collecting baseline data for that second evaluation, and it will use research methodologies developed independently by the University of Queensland and drawing on those baseline measurements of social conditions in the Goldfields as developed by the University of Adelaide. Findings from the second evaluations will be published in late 2019.
Obviously in order for us to have a meaningful outcome of that evaluation we'll need to see all three existing trial sites continue to run. Ideally we will see, with the support of this place, the new trial site in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay allowed to proceed through its complete trial. That way we will get a good understanding of what works and what doesn't and what the impacts are.
Other changes that will come will include strengthening of provisions that will enable merchants to block the sale of restricted goods to trial participants at the point of sale. Merchants in trial sites will be more readily 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 future bill will also clarify restrictions on cash-like products such as gift cards, vouchers, money orders or digital currency where these could be used to purchase alcohol or gambling products. These products are included as restricted goods, as has always been the intention of the program. Clarifications and changes such as these allow the trials to be more meaningful moving forward. We need to be able to, as I've said, see what works, see what doesn't work, change what doesn't work and try again.
Consultation in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area demonstrates that people want a way of breaking the cycle of welfare dependency, and this is certainly what I heard in my time in Kalgoorlie. Everybody I spoke to, including the ministers responsible both previously and currently, understands that this is no silver bullet. People in these communities understand it is no silver bullet. What it is is a trial. It's a trial to see whether this approach can have a positive outcome on these communities, not in five minutes but over time. It is vital that all the current sites are allowed to run through to conclusion and that they're not disrupted by this disallowance motion or any future disallowance motion, as flagged by Senator Cameron. We need to allow these trials to operate, we need to evaluate them properly and then we need to make a decision about the way forward. Thank you.
I will just sum up. I'm a bit concerned about the argument that we're somehow trying to overturn a decision of the Senate and that's not the appropriate thing to do. These are disallowable instruments that are tabled so that the Senate can have a voice, and that's what the Senate is doing: it's having a voice. I, for one, am having a voice to say that the evidence is not there to show that these trials work. My take is that the evidence is there that it has caused social harm, because I've been speaking to people about the harm that it has caused them, and you can't say that the harm that people have expressed through their emails is not real, whereas the government can't point to the evidence to show that social harm has been reduced. That's what the ANAO report says.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that the government relies on, but likewise there's a lot of anecdotal evidence, from what people are saying, that they feel the trial has not been successful and of the harm it's caused. When people sit in a meeting in tears because they feel humiliated by having to pull out the Indue card when they go to pay for their shopping in the supermarket, that is real evidence. That is somebody's real evidence of their feeling of humiliation.
As for the card working like any debit card, whenever I've bought anything on the internet, I've never had to turn up at the Indue office to ask them if I can use my card to buy something on the internet, which is what has happened to participants in Kalgoorlie. They were on a disability support pension. They wanted to buy a piece of medical equipment. They could not buy it on the internet. You couldn't purchase it in Kalgoorlie, so they had to turn up and line up at the Indue office, or the agency that's dealing with the Indue card, to ask them to turn on their capacity to use that card. That is not a normal debit card. It's certainly not the normal definition of a debit card that any of my friends or family use. When they go to buy something on the internet, they don't have to get anybody's permission to do that. That is what people have to do when they are living on the card. They talk about being called druggies. They talk about people being stigmatised because they're on the card. That is not normal. I don't feel that when I use my credit card. Most other people don't feel that when they use their credit or debit card.
The opposition raised their concerns about the lack of robust evidence. I wish they were concerned enough about that to actually support this disallowance. They talk about the lack of clear empirical evidence and the evaluation being inadequate. That is what the ANAO report has found. It found that the evidence isn't there to show that there has been a reduction in social harm. They talk about some participants who find it useful. In that case, they can opt in to income management that's voluntary. I'm not going to traverse all of the history of the Northern Territory intervention, other than to say that there was a volunteer system by Tangentyere Council where people could opt in; when the intervention was introduced, they overrode that scheme. We don't think that the evidence is there to justify the further continuation of these trials. We don't think that the people in these trial areas should be subjected to a further 12 months of their lives, or any more time, on the card.
There were claims of consultation. When I was talking to people in Kalgoorlie, they talked about information sessions that told you what the card does, but people weren't asked for their opinions. This was for people who were actually living on income support payments. Their views were not canvassed about whether they would support this. In Wide Bay, which is in Hinkler, people told me the same thing. They came to the public consultation process that I held, and it was the first time they felt that they had been asked, appropriately, about whether they supported the cashless debit card being rolled out in the Wide Bay area of Hinkler. We also heard again that there were information sessions, but people felt like they weren't asked for their opinion about whether the card should be rolled out. That is what happened in Ceduna. It wasn't until after the legislation passed here that they actually held a public meeting in Ceduna—because the government were forced to. There was not a public meeting held in the Kimberley.
I've articulated time and time again in this place the concerns that people hold about this card and the concerns that people hold about compulsory income management and its ineffectiveness. The evidence for it isn't there. I'm asking you again: look at the harm this is causing to people and listen to them. The evidence isn't there to support the government's contention that this is lowering social harm. It is causing harm to people. I urge you to support this disallowance. I urge the opposition to say enough is enough in these trial areas. It is causing community division. The services that were promised aren't being adequately provided.
People are suffering under this card. They are, admittedly, being very creative about the way they are getting around the card, and I'm not about to tell you any of the new ways they do that that I found out about. The amount of stigma and humiliation that this is causing to people does not justify this card. The social harm has not been reduced. It is causing harm. Even people in the flawed evaluation are saying that it's causing harm.
Please support this disallowance. Let's end this and start reinvesting the resources that are being wasted on compulsory income management. Let's say 'enough is enough' to our flawed approach to social justice and ensure that our social safety net is genuinely supporting people in need in this country. We have wasted too much time, money and energy on this approach. It's time to rethink it. It's time to scrap this and to reinvest that money in things that actually work. Please support this disallowance.
The question is that business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2, standing in the name of Senator Siewert, be agreed to.
I move:
That sections 7 to 9 of the Social Security (Administration) (Trial of Cashless Welfare Arrangements) Determination 2018, made under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, be disallowed [F2018L00245].
Today I move to disallow the provisions of this instrument which extend the trial of the cashless debit card to the Goldfields region of Western Australia. Labor's position on the cashless debit card has always been clear: we do not support a national rollout of the cashless debit card; we have never supported a national rollout of the cashless debit card.
When this matter was last before the Senate, we moved a number of amendments to confine the trial of the card to the two original trial sites—that is, Ceduna in South Australia and East Kimberley in Western Australia. Our amendments also sought to clarify the social supports that are available in trial communities, as well as how people in the communities could seek to have the amount of income that is quarantined changed.
There is insufficient evidence at this stage to show that the existing trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley are working. The Senate inquiry into the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 heard that the ORIMA evaluations of the trial are unreliable and that no empirical judgements can be made on the basis of the information collected. The Auditor-General recently issued a report completely undermining the government's claim that there is evidence that the existing trials are working. The report states:
… monitoring and evaluation was inadequate. As a consequence, it is difficult to conclude whether there had been a reduction in social harm and whether the card was a lower cost welfare quarantining approach.
The government must fix this.
The trials are also of a significant cost. Labor understands there is a current accrued cost of around $24 million for the three sites to 15 March 2018. This is an extraordinary amount of money to continue to expand a trial, with no credible evidence that it is being effective. We also know that the government gave $1.6 million to ORIMA research in return for a substandard evaluation. The minister still won't reveal how much it will cost taxpayers to expand the rollout of the card to the Goldfields, Bundaberg and Hervey Bay areas. This is despite the fact that the trial has already begun in the Goldfields. Yet we are expected to blindly accept that these figures are still commercial-in-confidence. Labor must be sure that the cashless debit card can deliver its stated objectives to warrant significant spending.
There has been insufficient government consultation with these communities and there is no clear framework to establish whether the new locations consent to trials being established in their areas. Labor does not support the expansion of the cashless debit card in any location, unless the government has an agreed and formal process of consultation and a clear framework for establishing whether the communities consent to the trial. We are moving to disallow the provisions in this instrument so that the rollout of the card in the Goldfields stops.
I indicate that the Greens will be supporting this disallowance motion for the same reasons that we just tried to disallow the regulations in the other trial sites. Of course, we will be supporting this motion, given that, if it's supported, we have made a little bit of progress and stopped the harm that this trial is having in the Goldfields. But we don't think the people in the East Kimberley or in Ceduna should be subject to these punitive measures either. Why subject people in the East Kimberley and Ceduna to this punitive top-down approach? I recently articulated the harms that people are experiencing because of this card? The same arguments apply to East Kimberley, Ceduna and the Goldfields.
I've visited and spoken to people who are now on the cashless welfare card in Kalgoorlie, and they talked about its impact on their being able to buy things on the internet. They talked about the fact that they can't afford second-hand goods on the 20 per cent cash that they get. They also talked about the late fees, because their bills, which they've asked to be paid with the 80 per cent that's on the Indue card, haven't been paid on time. So they have been charged late fees for the payment of bills that they thought were being paid on time. They talked about the fact that they can't have joint accounts, which I mentioned earlier. They talked about having to have two cards. A carer I spoke to who is looking after somebody on DSP said that the cards require two different types of handling—two different cards. People are having to get permission to buy things on the internet for medical purposes. They can't use PayPal. They can't pay some bills. For example, in Kalgoorlie I was told that you can't pay RAC Life Insurance on the card. In Kalgoorlie, they got the card before they got the letter saying that they were going to be put on the card. I've already shared with the chamber their concern—
Senator Siewert, it is time for the dinner break, so you will be in continuation.
Proceedings suspended from 18 : 30 to 19 : 30
As I was saying before the dinner break, I'm very disappointed that we didn't get broader support for the disallowance motion that I moved earlier, because the exact same reasons for supporting Senator Cameron's disallowance motion, which I indicated prior to the break the Greens would be supporting, apply to the disallowance motion relating to the trials in the East Kimberley and Ceduna—in fact, even more so, because those in the East Kimberley and Ceduna have been subject to the punitive approach of the cashless welfare card for a much longer period and so have suffered the consequences of that card for a much longer period. The Greens will be supporting this disallowance motion for exactly the reasons that I articulated during both my contributions in the debate on the disallowance motion that I moved.
One of the other things that I was talking about prior to the break was the negative impacts of the card that people are already reporting in the Kalgoorlie region. I'll briefly reiterate them. The negative impacts include the humiliation, stigma and despair people feel due to the impact the card has on their lives in trying to manage their resources and their money. Somebody made a really strong point at the public meeting that I held when I was in Kalgoorlie—that is, money is now like gold. You don't spend your cash, because you're so worried that you're going to need it. What people are saying is that they feel like they're short-changing their kids for their lunches and things like that because they don't know when they're going to need that cash to buy emergency provisions, the second-hand clothes that we talked about, and the second-hand furniture.
During the debate earlier on my disallowance motion, a lot of Senator Brockman's comments were directed at the Hinkler trial and the bill that we may get to tonight or tomorrow that will expand the trials in the Hinkler region. When we were at the hearing on the Hinkler trial, people spoke about buying good-quality fruit and vegetables from roadside stalls, which, of course, operate on a cash basis. You don't flip out your card at a roadside fruit stall and try and swipe your card somewhere. People talked about the card having taken away their independence.
The bill that we will be debating shortly would also limit the amount of money that can be spent on gift cards, and people are very concerned about that. In Kalgoorlie, people were very critical of the move by the government to restrict what they can spend out of the 80 per cent of their welfare payment that's on the debit card. They won't be allowed to buy gift cards and other such products. They were extremely critical of that, because they said that's one of the ways they can give their children some resources for when they go away to school, for example. Turning to the school issue, some families from the regions who send their kids to school in the city also complained very strongly about not being able to adequately support their kids when they go away to school.
We have received a lot of complaints in our office about the impact of the cashless welfare card in the three trial sites and in Kalgoorlie, and about people not being able to pay their bills. I've already articulated our concerns that people are unable to buy things over the internet. I asked this question during the inquiry into the proposed new trial in Hinkler, and while I was told that all people have to do is ring up and talk to Indue, and they'll organise it, people in Kalgoorlie had to go into the shopfront, for a start, and wait quite a long time. I'll say this again: that is not the normal operation of a credit or debit card. I don't have to visit anywhere to get permission to use my debit or credit card, which is not the situation in which people on the Indue card find themselves.
The Greens will be supporting this disallowance, because we think the cashless welfare card is an unfair, punitive, sledgehammer approach that assumes anybody on income support can't manage their resources. We support the Labor Party's motion for this disallowance as it applies to the Goldfields and wish that they had supported our broader motion that made sure this didn't apply in the East Kimberley and Ceduna, where we believe exactly the same issues apply.
I assume we're winding up, as there's no-one else here. I welcome the support of the Greens in relation to the disallowance of the expansion of this welfare card. We have on many occasions now in this place indicated that we want a proper analysis done in the existing sites. We have a different view about the trial, Senator Siewert. In our view, while the trial has to be changed and done properly with a proper assessment, the exact same issues don't apply. I don't accept that we should abandon the trial when so many people have told us it's not a bad proposition. Others are opposed, as I've indicated before. We are thankful for your support just now. We take the view that there should be no extension while the problems we identified in our speeches on the last disallowance continue—that is, there has been no proper consultation process and the assessment that has been done is not appropriate. All in all, we need to ensure that what has been happening now doesn't go any further.
No-one disputes the depth of your passion in relation to this issue, Senator Siewert. We have a similar determination to ensure the trials are done properly and are given that extra 12 months. If they're not done properly then it might be a different ball game. The way things are going, there will probably be a different government in 12 months time, and then we can assess this from our own perspective in government and make sure the trials are done properly with a proper analysis of the issues you've continually raised here. As I said, no-one would dispute your passion and your commitment to this issue, but we have a slightly different point of view as to the existing process. We don't believe the existing process is good, but we want to give it that 12-month period to make sure that we, in government, can deal with this in a properly analysed way and make sure that we've got a process in place.
I just don't get the argument that the coalition puts up time and time again that, 'The best form of welfare is a job.' This is a nonsense argument. This argument that you have to get a job is part of the process, in my view, to push people off social security payments. For many of these areas, there are no jobs available: that's the reality. And, when this government, in its 2014 budget, cut funding for Indigenous support and a whole raft of areas, all that did was make this problem worse.
This government is not renowned for its capacity to act strategically, and this is another example where the strategy is not in place to deal with this properly because they are an incompetent government. They're a government on their last legs. They're a government that is so totally consumed by their own internal problems and the ideology and the personal hatred that flow from one group to another that trying to deal with this issue under this government will never be a satisfactory option because they've got their eye off the ball in not just this area but a whole range of areas right across government. That's why I continually say that they are nothing but a rabble of a government. The sooner they actually go to an election and deal with the issues of importance to Australians the better.
I take the view that denying this incompetent government access to impose their ideological views and their flawed processes on another group of citizens is the proper thing to do. We have consulted with the existing areas in relation to their acceptance or denial. As I've said on a number of occasions, there is a mixed view. We want the extra 12-month trial, but we don't want it to go anywhere else because you cannot trust this government. Even their own backbenchers don't trust the cabinet. The ministry don't trust the cabinet. The cabinet don't trust the ministry. The cabinet don't trust the backbench. They are in all sorts of trouble, and the quicker we get to an election where we can deal with this in a proper, analytical way with a proper strategy in place the better.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Cameron be agreed to.
In March, I went on Sky News and offered a compromise. I told Samantha Maiden I would vote for company tax cuts to 27.5 per cent and eventually to 25 per cent for Australian companies with a turnover of up to $500 million. I would not, and could not, include the banks. That offer has been on the table for the evangelical tax cuts spokesman, Senator Cormann, for months and months. In those months, we've seen day after day of disgusting evidence proving why the major banks should not be rewarded. We've seen proof of how they have cynically, deliberately defrauded their own customers, even taking money from deceased estates—stealing pennies from dead men's eyes, as Mick Young would say.
I've said before that when I arrived here, two years ago as of next week, some learned, earnest and respected people—like the Treasurer, Mr Morrison, and the finance minister, Senator Cormann—told me about a key word in Canberra. That word was 'compromise'. As the Prime Minister found out again over the NEG and emission targets over the weekend and again today, 70 per cent of something is better than 100 per cent of nothing—that's what they told me. As I said, my $500 million compromise has been on the table for months. I'm offering an amendment to that effect later tonight. It could bring tax relief to more than 4,000 Australian companies. I've even told the government that I would vote with them if they bring on an amendment to bring forward the deadline for the cuts to kick in for companies with turnovers of up to $50 million.
I'm trying to help them find a way through a hostile Senate crossbench. I'm not a Luddite, I'm not an isolationist and I'm not xenophobic. I believe we must have lower company tax. They have dropped to 20 per cent in some of our trading partners and even lower than that in others. They are down to 17 per cent or 19 per cent in Singapore. Those cuts have also been reflected across the EU. The most publicised drop, which has prompted the government's moves, has been in the United States. Sadly, that has not led to huge pay rises for workers. Much of that bonanza has gone to share buybacks and increased dividends. I fear the same could happen here.
The Prime Minister was the one who infused the company tax issue into the Super Saturday by-elections. I believe he made two political mistakes. Sitting governments virtually never win seats back from the opposition in a by-election—not once in almost 100 years. By-elections are always seen as a way to punish the government at the time. The usual excitement is to see by how much. On Super Saturday, the Prime Minister, as I said, made two mistakes. First, he said the by-elections were virtually a popularity contest between him and Bill Shorten. He also said it would be virtually a plebiscite on company tax cuts. That went down well, didn't it?
I've told the government that they should support my compromise. They should support the cuts for companies with turnovers of up to $500 million. Take the proposed cuts from banks and other big Australian companies to the general election next year if you're so proud of them. If you are re-elected on that platform, obviously we on the crossbench will have to have another look at it. Also, don't feed me the two-tier bulldust argument. You voted in favour of a two-tier system when you voted for the $50 million cut-off. A company turning over $51 million misses out now. That's called a tiered system.
It's the same with personal taxes. If you're earning $100,000 you may pay one tax rate while somebody on $101,000 pays a different tax rate, or something to that effect. And I should say, if you think my resistance to company tax cuts is because of some antipathy towards company tax cuts or towards all tax cuts, then think again. I think I was the first crossbencher to back the revolutionary personal tax cuts announced by the government in the last budget. The truth is that out there in the real world the voters do not believe that more tax cuts should be given to the robber banks. They also don't believe that those multinationals who are not paying their fair share of tax in this country should get a tax cut.
In conclusion, if the evangelical Senator Cormann really believes all of this, then take it to the ballot box. I dare you. Meanwhile, remember my argument: 70 per cent of something is better than 100 per cent of nothing. Grab it while you can and get yourself out of the smelly cage you have built for yourselves.
I rise to make my contribution to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. We bring this piece of legislation forward because we believe that Australia, as a nation, needs a competitive tax regime for all business. Senator Hinch just talked about a graduated scheme that we have in place at the moment. I wasn't here when all of that legislative framework passed the parliament, but it has been a process of 'achieve what you can while you can'. I acknowledge that the parliament has progressively passed tax cuts, first for companies with a turnover of up to $10 million and then for companies with a turnover of up to $50 million. But fundamentally the government believes that putting in place a Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan gives companies certainty for the future. It allows them to attract, in a global market, the investment capital that they need to grow their businesses and to grow the Australian economy, which will then result in increased tax revenues into the Australian Treasury, which will allow us to guarantee the funding for health services, education services and disability services—all those essential services the government needs.
Senator Hinch talks about not wanting to give the banks a tax cut, but what Senator Hinch is talking about is having a punitive company tax system, which we don't have in this country. Now, I agree with Senator Hinch that the banks have done some completely heinous things, but we shouldn't be punishing them for those things through the tax system. We should punish them through the regulatory framework, and we've done that. This government has passed a number of pieces of legislation and continues to regulate to manage the behaviour of the banks. That's demonstrated by the recent $700 million fine that was laid against the Commonwealth Bank for their behaviour. That is the way you deal with the bad behaviour of any corporate enterprise, not via the tax system. The tax system is not about regulating behaviour. It is not designed to be a punitive system based on whether we think you're good or not. It is about having a competitive global taxation framework, given that—regardless of whether we like it or not—we live in a global economy. Therefore, to attract investment capital into the Australian economy, we need to have a globally competitive tax framework that puts any business or sector that wants to invest in the Australian economy in a situation in which their returns will be competitive.
Senator Hinch quite rightly said a few moments ago that there have been changes to tax regimes all around the world to reduce the rate of tax that companies will pay. As we stand right now, we are not competitive in that global sense. The point of a Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan is to progressively bring the Australian company taxation regime into a competitive framework with the rest of the world. It's not as if, under that framework, the big banks are getting a tax cut tomorrow. It takes time for those tax cuts to be phased in as the economy grows and as the health of the budget returns.
From the rhetoric that we've been hearing over recent weeks you'd think it was all going to happen tomorrow and that there was some sort of huge handout. In fact, during the Braddon by-election, all we heard from the Labor Party was about giving $17 billion to the big banks. We're not giving anyone anything. We're allowing people to keep more of the money that they earn in the sense of the profits that they make. That's what we're doing. We're allowing businesses of any size to have more of the money that they earn as profits, so that they can reinvest that back into their businesses, and, yes, some of it will go to the shareholders.
In the context of the banks, I think something like 80 per cent of that will go back to shareholders, which will go to mum and dad investors. It will go back into superannuation schemes that will benefit all Australians all around the country, because all of the major superfunds, whether they be private or even the industry funds, are all invested in these major companies. That money will go back to the benefit of Australians in their superannuation retirement funds. There is a benefit of this process to the broader Australian community and that's what it's designed do. It's designed to make Australia globally competitive over the next decade, so that Australian business can attract the investment capital that they need to continue to grow.
We've already seen and heard from small businesses, and I visited quite a few of those during the recent Braddon by-election. They were telling us the benefit of having more of their money, so that they could reinvest it back into their businesses. They were very, very keen to be able to make those investments, so that they could grow their businesses more quickly. They were very keen to be able to employ more locals into their businesses, as the other policies that this government has in place started to generate new opportunities for them.
One of the businesses that's become quite prominent in the conversations in this place over recent months is Penguin Composites. We've heard from John van der Woude, who is looking to employ more locals, who wants to be able to reinvest back into his business and who was misled by the member for Braddon as to the tax rate that he might pay being a business that has a turnover of up to $10 million.
During the campaign, the member for Braddon came out and said that there would be no rollback of legislated tax cuts. She said that a number of times in an attempt to make small businesses in Tasmania think, and particularly small businesses in Braddon, that they would be on the same tax rate under Labor as they would be under the government. The problem with what she was saying was, she either didn't understand Labor's tax policy or she wasn't telling the truth, because the Labor Party's tax plan is to increase the legislated tax rate that currently exists from 25 per cent to 27.5 per cent. So every small business with a turnover of up to $10 million in Braddon, in Tasmania and across the country, is going to pay a higher tax rate under the plans of the Labor Party than they will under the coalition. We have already legislated tax cuts down to 25 per cent.
The Labor Party use this tricky language of saying, 'We will accept the tax cut that's enforced at the time of the election', in an attempt to dupe small business into believing that they will pay the same tax rate but they won't. The Labor Party will legislate to increase taxes for small business, and it is dishonest of the member for Braddon to try and portray the fact that that's not the case. She tried very hard to do that. In a very deliberate speech that she made at the chamber of commerce function in Ulverstone, in a prepared statement, she quite clearly tried to suggest to the audience that there would be no rollback of legislated tax cuts. She was wrong. Fortunately, the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce, the Burnie Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Devonport Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Central Coast Chamber of Commerce and Industry saw through her misleading statements and they marked against her for that, as they should have. Quite clearly, the Labor Party policy is to roll back the legislated tax cut that has already been passed by the government. Ms Keay said: 'There will be no repeal of legislated tax cuts for small business. I get that you need certainty, and you'll get it.' These were prepared remarks in a prepared speech—but it was a lie. It simply was not the truth. The Labor Party are going to roll back the legislated tax cut that already exists for small businesses with a turnover up to $10 million, increasing the rate from 25 per cent to 27½ per cent. Ms Keay needs to do better. She needs to be honest with the businesses in Braddon, as do all the Labor members in Tasmania, when they try to use this tricky language to mislead businesses. Fortunately, business in Tasmania is onto them and understands that there will be an increase in tax.
One of the other things Ms Keay said at that particular event was that she'd enjoyed the last two years getting to know a bit about business. It's good that she admitted that she didn't know much about business. It's actually refreshing that she's made that admission. But what really demonstrated her complete lack of understanding of business, particularly in the seat of Braddon, were some comments that she made that only 10 businesses on the north-west coast would benefit from tax relief.
Ms Keay doesn't understand that larger businesses also employ people in Tasmania. For example, Wesfarmers are a major business that operate across Australia, and in Tasmania they employ 3,817 people. But, because their registered office is in Western Australia, Ms Keay doesn't believe that the tax cuts for business will have any impact in her electorate. Of course, Wesfarmers operate Coles stores, which are in almost all the major communities in Tasmania. When Wesfarmers are making a profit, they can reinvest back into their supermarkets and their stores, doing upgrades, which provides a capital return and opportunities for tenders for local small businesses. MMG in Rosebery has its registered office in Melbourne, but it employs 411 people in Tasmania. It is the lifeblood of the town of Rosebery. And, of course, those big mining companies reinvest back into exploration to continue their businesses and to grow their businesses and to extend the life of the mine, which they do very successfully and have done for decades. Ms Keay doesn't understand that them having more of their profits to reinvest back into the business makes a difference. She doesn't get it.
Even with our local newspaper—which, up until recently, was owned by Fairfax and has its registered office in Sydney—she doesn't believe that that business and the employees that work for it can gain any benefit. Of course, the more profitable that business is nationally, the more sustainable it is locally, so there are more opportunities for local cadet journalists and for a strong communication of news and events through the local community. Ms Keay has admitted she's spent two years learning something about business, but she clearly doesn't understand what it actually means.
As I've said a number of times, even though Labor in government profess to understand what is good for business, the problem is that, for purely political purposes—for purely crass, political purposes—they're seeking to oppose this legislation. In government, Mr Shorten said:
Cutting the company income tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. More capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages.
He said that in the House of Representatives in August 2011. In March 2011, Mr Shorten said:
… lowering the corporate rate for smaller businesses only—
as the Greens were then proposing—
creates an artificial incentive for Australian businesses to downsize—
which goes to the point that we were making with respect to Senator Hinch's comments earlier. He said:
In worse case scenarios some businesses might actually lay people off to get smaller—and the size based different tax treatment would create a glass ceiling on business workforce growth. Instead we want a level playing field regardless of the size of the company.
These are things that the Labor Party used to believe, and now, for political expediency, they're not prepared to even say that. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard said:
If you are against cutting company tax, you are against economic growth.
So I guess Labor are against economic growth. That's not what's the government's about. We're looking to grow the economy. We're looking to grow tax receipts so that we can secure those essential services like health and education. She went on:
If you are against economic growth, then you are against jobs. And, if you are against economic growth and jobs, then you are also against increasing wages …
So all of the things that Labor said in government, the things that they said they believed in, they're prepared to walk away from now purely for crass political expediency. They're not prepared—as the government is—to consider a responsible, 10-year economic tax plan that brings in these measures progressively and allows industry and business to plan, as the economy grows and as the budget is brought back to surplus successfully by this government. They now just want to descend into simple, crass political rhetoric. And I saw it in the polling booths in Braddon, where they tried to play off people's concerns about the behaviour of the banks against funding for health and education.
They lied to the Tasmanian people about cuts to health, when the health funding has actually increased in Tasmania by 42 per cent over what it was under the Labor Party. They lied to the Tasmanian people. The good thing, though, is that people actually saw through it. I had people ringing me up saying, 'We're sick of seeing Labor's lies on TV.' In fact, some people even rang me and said: 'We've got to watch the ABC, because we can't put up with the ads on Channel Seven. We just need to turn off the Labor lies.' That's what they said to me.
We have put in place, and we would like to put in place, a strong economic plan for this country—having brought the budget back to surplus a year earlier—that allows businesses to keep more of their money, to invest in their businesses and to grow their businesses, which will grow the economy, grow jobs, and place upward pressure on employment. I saw and heard that during the Braddon by-election. I was talking to an employee in a business and we were talking about the skills shortage in his particular trade. And he said to me: 'We know; we understand. If company A needs somebody in my trade at the moment, they're going to effectively steal them from company B. So we need to train more people, and our bosses know that, but they also know that we can actually ask for more money.' That price pressure in the employment market is already starting to occur. It is starting to occur in Braddon. The employees know it, and they're talking about it.
But, of course, Labor don't want to know. All they want to do is talk the economy down. They want to oppose any measure that might grow the economy, and they want to continue to put down those key businesses that are going to be an important part of the growth of the economy, making it stronger, employing more Australians and putting upward pressure on wages for the benefit of the broader community. I commend the bill to the Senate.
I, of course, along with the rest of the Greens, will be opposing this legislation. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017 sacrifices massive amounts of taxpayer revenue and gives it to some of the largest corporations in the country. We've heard continual repetition by various speakers from the government of the assertion that providing these tax cuts to big corporations would somehow lead to wage growth and employment growth. The simple fact is that there is almost no evidence of that. There is, instead, a very large body of evidence to the contrary, most notably and most recently in the United States, where very large tax cuts have not led to wage growth and employment growth at all. What they have led to, as always happens, is growing calls to make up the cost by cutting back services to those in the community who are least well off.
This is a measure that, quite rightly, many government MPs are keen on seeing dropped and not proceeded with by their own party because they know that it is not supported by the majority of the electorate, and the electorate is right not to support it. Many government speakers have also, understandably, pointed to past comments by Labor Party leaders and ministers in support of doing just what this legislation does. And it's reasonable for the government, when it's trying to make its case, to point to the Labor Party and say, 'Well, they've said the same thing previously.' That merely points out that the Labor Party, at least at the time, also bought into this myth that giving big tax cuts to the big end of town would somehow create jobs and increase wages for those who are least well off rather than just give money to those who are more well off.
Whether the Labor Party's shift is because of short-term political opportunism now that they're in opposition or whether it's a sign of a genuine philosophical shift within the party, I don't really know. Certainly, you don't need to be as old as I am to be very cynical about either Labor or the Liberals saying one thing in opposition and then doing the opposite when they get into government. That is all the more reason why the Australian public is looking more and more to choices other than the two traditional parties of the political establishment. There is a growing amount of public support for candidates and parties outside of those two established political power blocs that have been basically trading power between themselves for over a century now in Australia.
The simple fact is that this legislation will deprive the Australian public of tens of billions of dollars that could otherwise be invested in better funding for schools—funding increases that have already been removed or reversed by this government. That money could be used to provide better health care, particularly in regional areas. It could expand the resourcing of the public health sector. It could be put into dramatically expanding public and community housing to deal with the significant number of homeless people and the significant number of people under extreme housing stress due to insecure housing in our community. It could, of course, go towards increasing the rate of Newstart, which has not shifted in real terms in nearly a quarter of a century—leaving more and more people in absolute poverty. It could also support people on pensions and other sorts of allowances.
We all know—and, hopefully, the economics of this is not disputed at all—that, if you put significant amounts of money, such as the tens of billions of dollars we're talking about here, into increasing the payments for people on social security and increasing the income of people on low incomes who really don't have discretionary income, then that money would flow straight into the economy. There is no better way to more directly stimulate the economy and to more directly generate jobs and economic activity than to ensure that poverty is addressed. What the Greens would like to see is a genuine commitment from either Labor or Liberal to tackle poverty. That is not just an ethical issue and a social justice issue; it is a clear economic imperative. Reducing economic inequality not only strengthens your social fabric but also enhances employment and adequate wages for people on lower paying jobs. That's the direction in which we need to be taking our economy.
In a separate debate earlier today, I spoke about how both Labor and Liberal have basically been driven to swallow the Kool-Aid when it comes to the false promises of neoliberal economics. Whether Labor's shift on this issue is a sign that they're shifting away from their previous commitment to a fundamentalist free trade, 'let the market rip' type of approach which has been shown not to deliver, or whether it's just political short-termism whilst they're in opposition, we'll just have to wait and see. But it's all the more reason why you need other voices in the House of Representatives—to ensure that, if we do get a change of government, there are people there to keep that new government honest, keep them to their promises and make sure they don't switch back, in the way that they've done so many times before, when they finally do win power, should that happen.
The vote coming up fairly soon about whether or not to finally pass this legislation is important. I'm sure various people and the commentators up in the press gallery will be unpicking the political ramifications of it. Don't worry. There isn't actually anybody up there; they're all somewhere else. I'll just gesture up in the direction of the press gallery. It would be a rare day that someone from the press galley actually turned up in the press gallery to watch the Senate. Nonetheless, the press gallery will no doubt go over the political meaning of this legislation and what it means for various people in the government and their opportunities for promotion or demotion. I don't care about that and, to that extent, I can certainly assure the government that the Greens' position on this has nothing to do with the short-term politics of this situation and has everything to do with our consistent approach to significantly changing the economic direction of this country.
We need to transform our approach to one where an economy delivers for all of us—not just for the big end of town, with the rest of us hoping that somehow some of it might magically trickle down. That is now a massively discredited approach. The Australian public knows it. I think more and more people in this parliament know it, but either they're so beholden to the big end of town and the big donors that they can't shift away from it or they don't—or perhaps that and they don't—have any clear ideas about where they need to shift to.
The Greens do have clear ideas. We put them forward in great detail at the last election. We'll be doing an even more comprehensive economic package leading into this election, because the Australian public are in desperate need of change. They need clear alternatives to the two parties of the parliamentary establishment that have failed to deliver for them over and over so many times. That is all the more reason why this bill should be voted down, and, to put everybody out of their misery, it should be voted down at the second reading stage so we don't have to go through any committee stage and look at amendments toing and froing and we don't have to continue any of the speculation about political ramifications.
The public need certainty on this. They need it out of the way. They need to know that at least some of the revenue coming from big business is actually available to be spent on services. And let's not forget that, when we're talking about corporate tax, one of the big aspects of this that really hasn't got the attention it deserves in this debate is: how many of those corporations are not paying the amount of tax they should be at the moment? Let's focus on making them actually pay their fair share now. That is where we have the real opportunity for economic gains, for revenue gains and for a fairer economy that will deliver for all of us.
I thank Senator Bartlett for his contribution, because it is important that senators and, indeed, the Australian public get a view of economic policy from the bottom of the garden. There's no starker contrast than the irresponsible economic views and attitudes of the Australian Greens on the future success and progress of this country than through this bill and through the lens of this bill.
I'll keep my comments relatively brief because many, many people have spoken on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. But there are two points I want to make. The first is the very real economic reality that we face as a nation with regard to the critical need of having an internationally competitive corporate tax rate. That's the first point. The second point is—and this is a bold prediction—heaven forbid, if Bill Shorten and Labor become the government in this country, my bold prediction is that Bill Shorten and Labor will quickly embrace corporate tax cuts for two reasons. First, it's in their DNA—and I'll come to that shortly—and, second, because Bill Shorten cannot escape the economic reality of the internationally competitive corporate tax environment that we face.
So let me just talk briefly about the need for Australia to maintain its internationally competitive tax rates. The reality is that the rest of the world is moving to reduce corporate tax rates, not by a little bit but by a significant amount, including the Canadians and the Singaporeans. In the United Kingdom they've reduced it to 17 per cent. New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Japan and, indeed, France have shifted their corporate tax rates from 33 per cent to 25 per cent. The most critical issue of course is what action has been taken in the United States to keep their corporate tax rates at a competitive level. It's been well talked about—that the shift from 35 per cent to 21 per cent has probably been the single-most important factor that has motivated us to respond here in Australia.
No action by Australia means that we will have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the OECD. What does that mean? That means there will be a flight of investment out of this country and yet another significant barrier to investment coming into our country. And that will have, that must have, an impact on the availability of employment opportunities for Australians now and also into the future. This particular economic initiative can't be seen and should not be seen in isolation. By not proceeding with this particular economic initiative, what we seek to do is undermine that very real and demonstrated success that the Australian economy has been enjoying in recent years.
Let me talk briefly about what that economic success has been. That's not to say that there aren't tensions. That's not to say that there aren't unrealised opportunities in the Australian economy, but we must constantly be moving forward with reform and not moving backwards, and certainly not stalling. What we know is that at the last election the coalition took a very strong and clear plan to deliver jobs and growth, and that's exactly what has been delivered across the Australian economy over the last few years. According to the ABS, our economy has grown by one per cent in the March quarter to be 3.1 per cent higher than it was a year ago. This is the strongest annual growth rate in around two years and is above the long-term average. Australia is again leading the major advanced economies of the world, bettering the average growth of the OECD and all G7 nations. Importantly, the March quarter national accounts validated the budget's forecasts and confirmed the economy was strengthening as a result of those initiatives contained in the budget. The figures show growth was broad based with all components contributing to growth in the quarter, including household consumption, new public final demand, and net exports. So, this plank of economic reform is as critical as the previous initiatives that have been embraced by this particular government—this coalition government.
Taking no action has consequences. It has been predicted both by the IMF and by the Australian Treasury itself that a lack of action on corporate tax cuts will reduce Australia's GDP by one per cent. Opposition to this initiative is putting a handbrake on economic growth, will make the economy smaller and, in doing so, will deprive Australian businesses and Australian families of much-needed employment and economic growth opportunities. Taking no action has consequences. My bold prediction is that even if Bill Shorten is elected—and that doesn't have to be the case—he cannot escape the very real economic reality that is facing this country in terms of the need to have internationally competitive tax rates.
Briefly, I just want to turn to my second point. That is why this initiative is as much in the DNA of Labor senators as it is in the DNA of coalition senators. Before I do that, let me just make this important point: when you look back through Australian history, and particularly through its economic history, it has been the persistent maintenance of convictions around economic policies—whether it was floating the dollar or the independence of the Reserve Bank—with governments standing steadfast in their desire and their ideas for economic reform, that have led to such prosperity in this country. The coalition's decision to stand by this issue is a triumph of values and principles over expediency. The expedient reaction would have been to abandon this initiative because there's a perception in the community that it's not popular. Well, sometimes the community will reward you for being clear about your values and clear about your principles. On this issue, I'm absolutely convinced that Senator Cormann and the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, will be vindicated on this.
Why is it in the DNA of Labor? Because Labor has said so, Bill Shorten has said so and Chris Bowen has said so. You have heard it many, many times. But I do think, at this final stage of the debate— (Quorum formed) I thank Senator Cameron for his generosity in wanting to give me a bigger audience for my contribution this afternoon. Briefly, let me just end with these few quotes. They're important because you can't escape the truth. Labor are as committed as the coalition to this issue, but they don't have the courage of their convictions. That is the point of difference. The coalition has the courage of its convictions in regard to pursuing economic reform for the long-term benefit of the Australian economy; the Labor Party lacks conviction. What did Bill Shorten say to the House of Representatives on 23 August 2011? He said:
Cutting the company income tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. More capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages.
It is in Labor's DNA. He also said on 30 March 2011, this time to the Australian Council of Social Service:
Reducing the corporate tax rate … sees more capital flowing into our domestic economy, which will then flow on to workers in the form of higher wages—thereby improving standards of living … reducing the company rate is an economic growth instrument, reducing the corporate tax rate … is also an investment in the Australian people—including people who might now be on welfare …
Those are the words of a man who would like to be Prime Minister. Labor can play the politics, but they can't hide from their previous statements. Finally, before I end my brief contribution, what has the alternative Treasurer said? Chris Bowen, the man who would like to be Treasurer, said in 2014:
As the alternative Treasurer, I'm telling you that I think it would be a better thing if Australia's corporate tax rate was more competitive …
He also said:
I'd like to see it lower over time. I think we've had 14 years of having the corporate tax rate stable. That's too long. Over time, I'd like to see it lowered.
I think the time is now. He also said in his publication Hearts & Minds in 2013:
… it's a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax, because it promotes investment, creates jobs and drives growth.
He also said in his book:
We do, however, need to be concerned if our company tax rate is on the higher side of the world's advanced economies. At 30 per cent, our company tax rate is now above the OECD average … it is how the rate compares to that of our competitors that counts.
In case it has been lost on Bill Shorten, Chris Bowen and Labor senators, the corporate tax rates of our OECD competitors are now lower. That should be cause for action, because they have said that that would be the reason to act. There's only one point of difference in this chamber tonight. The coalition party is prepared to stand on its principles and convictions when it comes to economic reform, and Labor senators are prepared to abandon their previously held convictions, and undermine economic growth and, in the process, wages growth for ordinary Australian workers and families.
I was listening closely, as I often do, to Senator Smith's contribution. It is true that Senator Smith is a person who acts on his convictions. But I ask the coalition to consider this: it may be that your convictions are, on this occasion, wrong—that the economic ideas that were important to you in the 1980s, the 1990s and maybe the first decade of the 2000s have in fact been superseded by new, additional information.
One of the things that we do know about economies now, that we didn't know then, is that the distribution of wealth within an economy matters. It matters a great deal in terms of the ability of that economy to sustain ongoing levels of growth. It hinges on the distribution of prosperity within the community. It's this overall failure on the part of the coalition to understand this critical piece of information that leads them to bring a position before the Australian public again and again that isn't supported by the evidence and, indeed, isn't supported by the public.
Senator Smith is part of a government that recently went to a by-election in Braddon, went to a by-election in Longman, went to a by-election in Fremantle and went to a by-election in South Australia and was unable to prevail in any of these contests, many of them being contests that pundits thought they ought to be able to win. In fact, based on the experience in Longman it should have been very difficult for Susan Lamb to retain that seat. But instead, by proceeding in a methodical way to set out the differences between the Labor approach to taxation, and to corporate tax in particular, and the Liberal approach Susan Lamb was able to obtain support. The same thing happened in Braddon.
I heard Senator Colbeck in the chamber earlier this evening complaining about the fact that Labor supporters were on the booths talking to people about the choice that they were facing, because it was clear that on the booths in Braddon when faced with a choice between providing tax cuts to corporations, big banks and big multinationals and providing services—education services, health services and support for people in hard times—people were very clear about what they preferred. I was there on the booths in Braddon. I didn't call out when Senator Colbeck was talking about that, but I spent a day on the booths in Braddon, and it was obvious to me that this is not a community of people who could automatically expect to do well from the global economy. They rely on us to manage the economy and to steward the economy on their behalf, so that they get their fair share—
They want to do well.
People do want to do well. Thank you, Senator Duniam, for pointing that out. People do want to do well. But they understand that we do best when we provide support to all of our community to stand up for one another. We do best when we don't leave people to fail, when we don't leave them alone when things get tough. All of that is dependent on having a government that has the resources to do the things that the community needs it to do. The problem with the bill before us this evening is that it strips resources from government in the most egregious way. To date, no-one on the government side has explained how that stripping away of resources is going to be managed from a budget perspective.
We have a very, very narrow surplus that will be achieved in the first part of the next decade, according to the budget projections. It would only take a tiny shiver to run through the global economy to knock those projections out of the water. Indeed, many reputable economists have looked at the budget projections and drawn the conclusion that the wages growth that they are predicated upon, the commodities prices that they are predicated upon and the tax revenue that they are subsequently predicated upon mean that they are wildly unrealistic. There is already a cloud over the surplus projected by this government. The idea that you can strip away billions upon billions of tax revenue from the government budget, handing it back to multinationals, is barely credible. It is barely credible. It has yet to be explained.
We are very concerned about the impact of this bill on the budget over the medium term. The government has gone on and on and on about the need for budget repair. You will recall that this is the government that made debt and deficit its major election campaign issue. We don't hear so much about debt and deficit anymore, and we certainly do not hear about the budget emergency.
Let's have a look at what is actually going on in terms of the numbers, because they are genuinely worrying. The deficit for this financial year has blown out by more than six times. It was $2.8 billion in their first budget; it is now $18.2 billion. These are numbers that most people can barely compute. Most normal people look at a number like a billion and don't understand it. But what they do understand when we talk about billions and billions of dollars is that it means that, when you turn up at the emergency department, there just might not be someone there to treat your child if your child is sick; or that, if you need elective surgery and you're not in a position to fund it privately, personally, it might be 18 months, 24 months, until you receive a service. These are actual problems. They are abstract numbers in the billions, but they impact on people in very real ways.
Why is it that the government, which carried on so much about debt and deficit and about a budget emergency before the last election, wishes to place even further pressure on the budget?
Where is the emergency?
Where is the emergency? It's not here this evening, because apparently this government believes that it's reasonable to put through legislation which will return billions upon billions to multinational corporations. There has been a lot of discussion about how returning billions to multinational corporations will allow them to generate greater levels of profit, and, in turn, these profits will be returned to the community in the form of investment. That investment will apparently then produce jobs, and apparently these jobs will be high-wage jobs rather than low-wage jobs. There are a lot of assumptions in that chain of logic. I've heard coalition senators stand up in this place and speak again and again about the consequences for wages that will flow from cuts to corporate tax. There is no evidence base for this. You only need to examine the logic that underpins this argument to see how ridiculous it is. If you really think that every extra dollar of profit will be put aside and ring-fenced for investment in Australia then you're absolutely mad. There is no evidence that that is so, and it is particularly the case for the multinational corporations that would be the beneficiaries of this tax cut.
In the United States, they've actually got direct experience of this. Tax cuts have gone through. There is no evidence that wages are increasing. What there is evidence of is massive share buybacks. I put on my phone a Google search for share buybacks because every single week there is another major US corporation pursuing share buybacks on the strength of the corporate tax cuts that have been offered. These things don't do anything to create new jobs. They don't create any new jobs whatsoever. Again, some people have offered some tortuous, circuitous argument about how at some future point the additional capital may produce some additional investment that may produce some additional jobs that may drive the demand for labour that may drive wages up. Does anyone believe that this is actually happening? It's certainly not happening in the United States.
The most significant thing that has happened in the United States is that the tax cuts that were offered in the form of depreciation for investment have been effective in driving additional investment. It's that logic which underpins the alternative approach that is being offered by Labor. We have offered incentives for businesses that wish to invest—not a broadscale tax cut smeared across every single industry and every single business in the country, but a specific tax cut offered to those businesses that choose to invest, that choose to invest in ways that will produce new opportunities for Australian workers. That is a rational use of our fiscal capacity. If we've got some headroom, that is a good use to which to put it—stimulating investment that will actually support Australian jobs. But the plan before us this evening doesn't do that. It provides a benefit unilaterally. It doesn't matter whether you're a big multinational, it doesn't matter whether you're a bank and it doesn't matter whether you're a small business—this government wants to bring taxes down to deliver billions and billions in tax cuts, and it's just not something that the economy can afford. It says a great deal about the economic priorities of the government, because they've spent a great deal of blood and treasure pursuing this particular initiative. They've gone to by-elections in the last month where they've persisted with this proposition, which is manifestly unpopular with voters. And it's unpopular, as I said before, because people understand that it won't do very much for them. But it's also unpopular because it says a great deal about their priorities.
Wage growth is at record lows. There've been many opportunities over the last 12 months in this chamber for the government to intervene and support wages. They could have intervened on a number of occasions with the Fair Work Commission. They could have supported Labor propositions to restore penalty rates after the shocking decision to strip away penalty rates and the level of penalty rates on Sundays. But they've chosen not to do that, and it's remarkable that they have, because the circumstances faced by Australian families are very, very severe indeed. Australian families face rising costs, rising electricity prices, rising rent in many instances and record high underemployment. But the government has had absolutely nothing to offer.
We've got a longstanding concern about wages growth. We've brought that concern to this chamber on many occasions. Economists like Andy Haldane in the Bank of England have on numerous occasions raised their analysis about the dwindling bargaining power of workers and their representatives. It's not an accident that wages growth here and in other places is stalling. It is a product of the structure of work and the laws around work itself. And this government, rather than facing up to that reality, rather than doing something to assist workers, has instead sought to intensify the pressures on working people and to limit the ability of working people's representatives to bargain on their behalf.
The thing is, budgets are always about priorities. Budgets are about choices. This government has had it wrong every time. They've pursued big-business tax cuts. They've pursued tax cuts for high-income earners. They've ensured that low-income workers—people in that very modest income bracket just above $21,000—get increased taxes. And they've allowed penalty rates to be cut without lifting a finger. But I don't think that they are the priorities that the Australian people expect from their government.
We've got our own priorities on the Labor side, and we've prosecuted them consistently over the last five years. I might add, given the turmoil of this week, that we've done so with a great deal more consistency than the coalition has been able to summon to pursue most of their interests. We have sought to fund our schools, we have argued for proper investment in infrastructure and we have argued that, to do these things, we will require a fair tax system. We have made the case, people will recall, for reform to superannuation. We have made the case to level the playing field for homeownership. We knew that there were revenue issues there, but we also knew that it was not fair that first home buyers would walk into a room facing a substantial disadvantage compared to those people walking in with a plan to make an investment. We have sought to cap the deductions people could obtain from managing their tax affairs to just $3,000. If you've got $3,000 to chuck at your accountant, that's quite enough. People ought not to obtain an advantage merely because they can afford to pay for very high-quality tax advice. We should all be on a level playing field when it comes to dealing with the ATO, and the fact that people paying for their tax were also able to obtain a deduction for it was simply unfair.
We've boldly pursued reforms to discretionary trusts to deal with the issue of income splitting. That was something people told us not to touch. They said it was too hard, and we pursued it anyway. Yes, there was a scare campaign. But, if people on the other side want to talk about conviction, I'd point you to the Labor shadow Treasurer and I'd point you to the shadow economics team, because we on this side of the chamber—and in the other place—have consistently brought forward bold ideas, well prior to an election, so that people understood what it was that we would take to them, and so that people understood how it was we would fund our promises. It's a great deal more than what's been offered by those on the other side, who've persisted with this particular bill before us this evening, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017, without in any way, at any time, explaining to the Australian public the costs that they would incur as a consequence of the tax cuts that are proposed.
This is not just about Australians living now This is about fairness between people now and people in the future. We have to get the policies right for future generations of Australians. If we don't have the revenue to pay for essential services like Medicare, people will lose out. If we don't deal with issues for first home buyers, we will see a generation of young people locked out of homeownership forever. If we aren't able to properly fund schools or TAFEs or universities, we will deprive young people of the resources they need to successfully participate in the economy and contribute to the economy. If we don't fund important infrastructure, we will deprive economic actors of the infrastructure that they need to do business well, to succeed here and globally. And, frankly, if we don't deal with climate change, we'll all be sorry. We've seen the most extraordinary scenes over the last 10 days in particular, but really over the last five years—a kind of denial about one of the most pressing economic concerns, no concern or interest in addressing this, and, in fact, a reckless inability to see the risks that are before us.
This government has its priorities all wrong. It's here tonight asking us to pass a corporate tax cut, when issues around infrastructure, skills, hospitals and schools all require urgent attention. But they haven't been on the agenda for the government tonight, and they haven't been on the agenda for the government for the last five years—and it's really getting quite embarrassing.
I rise tonight to contribute to this debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. Let's firstly look at what this bill intends to do. This is the coalition's vehicle to implement the next stage of its proposed corporate tax cut package: a package that will cost taxpayers around $15 billion each and every year from its full implementation. The government continues to say that this is baked into the budget and that it's accounted for. But I can tell you from our experience in the inquiries in relation to this matter that credible economic experts out there are concerned about the cost to taxpayers of this particular package, particularly given that if we do have a significant economic shock to the system at some point in time—and let's face it, we live in uncertain times with uncertain global players—then we are going to be in a perilous situation in terms of our fiscal position.
We know that in terms of cost this package blows out beyond the forward estimates. In our view, it's an unfunded budget wrecking ball, as I've indicated. At the same time that the Liberal-Nationals are fighting for more tax cuts for the top end of town and $17 billion for the big banks, we've got wage growth at historically low levels. Even the Treasurer has accepted that stagnant wage growth is one of the greatest threats to our economy into the future, but he has refused to do anything about it. They stand idly by while penalty rates are cut for hundreds of thousands of already-low-paid, often disadvantaged workers. The workforce is becoming more and more casualised, and the gig economy is growing, affecting job security for individuals and families. The cost of living is going up—medical expenses, private health insurance, energy bills, grocery bills and education. And, under the coalition's watch, the budget has already blown out, crashing through the half-trillion-dollar mark for the first time in history.
Despite this, the No. 1 priority of this government's agenda is still giving their big business mates a tax cut. That's on top of the personal income tax plan that they rammed through the parliament in June—a plan that gives 80 per cent of tax cuts to the top 20 per cent of income earners over the next seven years. The government rammed that legislation through by guillotining debate in the Senate, by confusing the crossbench and by silencing Labor. And let the record show that One Nation helped them to do it, just as One Nation might still vote for this bill—who knows?—a bill that gives $17 billion to the banks. That is the same amount that the government is ripping out of schools across the country—$17 billion. History shows us very clearly that Senator Pauline Hanson often says one thing in this place and then proceeds to do another, often to the detriment of Queenslanders—the people in the very state that she purports to represent.
So, whilst the top end of town gets a tax cut with the blessing of One Nation, all taxpayers have to pick up the bill for the Liberal-Nationals' burgeoning debt. Analysis shows that the Personal Income Tax Plan could cost Australians more than $10 billion in interest, or around $415 per person. To add insult to injury, workers on low and middle incomes will be expected to pay the interest on billions of dollars of tax cuts going to those people who need them the least.
It's increasingly apparent that the Liberal-Nationals have given up on trying to fix their abysmal record of fiscal management. Let's just recap, for the record. They've abolished the budget repair levy. They've ignored Labor's calls for tax transparency and for closing debt deduction loopholes—something that I have talked about in this place before. The Liberal-Nationals have ruled out negative gearing and capital gains tax reform—both policies that predominantly benefit the wealthy. They passed bigger tax cuts for the top end of town and ran a protection racket for the big banks while they ripped off everyday Australians.
Since the Liberal-Nationals came to power, net debt has doubled and gross debt has crashed through the half-trillion-dollar figure, as I have said. Both these debts are growing faster under the Liberal-Nationals than they did under Labor. Modelling tells us that gross debt will remain above the half-trillion-dollar mark every year for the next decade. This is despite Australia currently experiencing the best financial climate since the GFC—26 years of continuous economic growth. Let's not forget that it was the previous Labor government that had the responsibility of dealing with the GFC and that, in those toughest of economic times, it was the Labor government that got the big calls right and set us up for the recovery path that we are now on.
I know that the Liberal-Nationals like to make people think that Labor would be a higher taxing government. I've spoken on this issue in the past and I think it's relevant to talk about it tonight as well. That, in fact, is far from the case. I want to take a minute, once again, to talk about this, because I know there are people listening tonight to this debate—it's an important debate—who think that the coalition has a record of being low taxing when in government, when, in fact, the opposite is the case. I'm indebted, as always, to the research done by Stephen Koukoulas, the well-known economist, who first drew my attention to this issue. Let's take a look at the 10 highest taxing federal governments since 1980. If you look at the top 10 years since 1980 that we had the highest tax to GDP ratios, and if you look at the governments that were in power at the time, you will find that during eight out of the 10 years in question we had Liberal governments in place.
Yes, that's right.
That's exactly right. In 2004-05, the ratio of tax to GDP was 24.3 per cent; in 2005-06 it was 24.3 per cent; in 2000-01, 24.2 per cent. In fact, the top seven years out of the top 10 were all Liberal administrations. You have to go to the eighth year to find a Labor government down at 23.3 per cent. That was back in 1986-87. Then you go to the Liberals again. They are the ninth on the list. The No. 10 on the list of 10 top years of tax to GDP ratio was a Labor administration, 1987-88, at 23.2 per cent. Interestingly, if you were to look at the next highest, you'll find it in this year's budget—the 2018-19 budget—where we see that the ratio of tax to GDP is 23.1 per cent. So they're back on their form.
What's most extraordinary when you look at this particular research—and what a lot of people would probably do a double-take on—is, if you were to flip the analysis and look at the 10 lowest tax to GDP ratio years since 1980, 10 out of the 10 years where we had the lowest level of tax as a proportion of GDP were under federal Labor governments. That's right: the lowest tax to GDP ratio years since 1980 all took place under Labor governments. The Liberal-Nationals talk the talk, but it's not borne out by the facts.
Despite their old debt and deficit rhetoric, the Liberal-Nationals are making things worse for this country, not better. While Australia's financial outlook is already improving, thanks to more favourable global conditions, one might wonder if a reduction in the headline rate of company tax is the best way to go, given the IMF, in its World economic outlook, January 2018 update, says, in relation to what's happening in the US, that, despite an initial sugar hit to the economy:
Due to the temporary nature of some of its provisions, the tax policy package is projected to lower growth for a few years from 2022 onwards.
So, when it comes to Australia's modelling, the Treasury's modelling indicates that the tax cut will boost GDP by just one per cent in 20 years time, an average increase of just 0.05 per cent a year. It's always somewhat misleading to compare Australia's situation to the US when it comes to corporate tax, because we have a rather unique system of dividend imputation and we don't have state corporate taxes, so it's something of an invalid comparison.
At the same time, we're seeing CEO pay rates approaching the pre-GFC levels. A report that was released in March by the Australia Institute revealed that the CEOs of the top 100 companies in Australia were paid an average of $5.2 million in 2017. Bank CEOs took home around 100 times more than the average Australian. This prompted Australia's Treasurer during the global financial crisis, Wayne Swan, to say:
The gross distortions in CEO pay relative to average worker earnings strike at the heart of economic inequality in Australia.
My colleague Dr Chalmers in the other place has talked about this issue, particularly in relation to Goldman Sachs. I'd like to say here that there's little to no evidence to suggest that corporate tax cuts will lead to more jobs or higher wages. I will return to this point later with regard to what big businesses in Australia are promising.
We do have some evidence that business investment in Australia is at high levels, despite the fact that we have a comparatively high headline corporate tax rate. I think it's important to note here that looking at the headline tax rate is somewhat misleading, and I've made that point on a number of occasions. When multinational companies are looking at whether or not they're going to invest in Australia, they don't just look at the headline rate of tax. They look at a whole range of factors to determine whether or not they're going to make a decision to invest in our country. They look at the stability of our economic system, they look at the level of infrastructure that we have in this country, and they'll have a much more detailed examination of our taxation system to see how it all fits together. The headline rate has its place, but it doesn't tell the whole story as to whether or not a particular country is going to be suitable for investment by foreign companies.
We say that there are better ways to deliver benefits to businesses, and that's why we announced our plans for an Australian investment guarantee. This is a plan to deliver more targeted relief. Under our proposition, businesses can immediately expense 20 per cent of new assets up-front. So, rather than having a nebulous change to the company tax rate—a very blunt instrument—let's look at ways that we can provide immediate relief to businesses to assist them to invest in their businesses, which has a more direct impact on the creation of jobs. Our plan also goes to delivering balance depreciated in line with normal schedules from the first year and rewards businesses for investing in Australia versus tax breaks for multinational foreign investors. And it costs about an eighth of the Liberal-National plan, so it delivers more bang for the buck.
It's not just Labor that has come out with some new positions and been talking about good policy. It's interesting to note that some other parties have endorsed the Australian investment guarantee. Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO James Pearson said:
Business welcomes this commitment from the Opposition—it's good policy …
What's particularly positive is the proposal to make this a permanent feature.
This is important as policy certainty and policy consistency is critical for business.
The Energy Efficiency Council said:
A new Federal Labor policy that gives an immediate tax deduction to businesses that invest in energy saving equipment would help slash energy bills …
That's something every Australian would be interested in knowing about. This is very sound policy. It's had endorsements from other interested parties and business representatives. I also note that Mr Peter Strong of COSBOA has welcomed the Labor policy. He said:
… it would make it easier for Australian businesses to invest and grow. The fact that this measure is available to all businesses, big and small, is also very positive as it will help small businesses directly as well as encouraging larger businesses to invest in the products sold by small business.
This is a ringing endorsement of the approach that we've adopted, in comparison to the fiscally reckless approach adopted by those opposite. It's important in this debate to outline that there are better ways to deliver benefits to taxpayers, but we know that those opposite have been asleep at the wheel. The Liberal-National party's ambivalence on this issue is hurting workers.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit the union picket line at Longford in Victoria in relation to the ExxonMobil dispute, and I heard firsthand from workers who couldn't get a fair deal on wages from a company that hadn't paid tax in Australia in years. In fact, the next day, under questioning in our corporate tax avoidance inquiry, ExxonMobil revealed it wouldn't be paying tax in Australia until 2021, making a total of eight financial years that this company will have paid no tax in this country. It might be legal, but it certainly doesn't pass the pub test, and I know that many average Australians who pay their fair share of tax are outraged by that. This evidence and the Labor-led report on corporate tax avoidance back up Labor's point that we need more transparency in Australia's taxation system. When companies dodge their tax obligations, it impacts on the government's ability to fund crucial infrastructure and services such as roads, rail, hospitals and schools. We know that this government looks after the top end of town and turns a blind eye to corporate tax collection loopholes.
In conclusion, I want to once again take the opportunity to thank Susan Lamb and congratulate her on her re-election to the seat of Longman. During the course of my doorknocking with Ms Lamb, we heard lots of concerns about these tax cuts for the top end of town. The Australia Institute's research shows that Queensland will receive very little benefit from the Liberal-National plan. Only eight per cent of companies set to benefit are based in my home state of Queensland. The majority of companies that benefit from this tax plan are in New South Wales and Victoria. We need a Labor government to restore the balance between rich and poor across the country.
What a time to be debating the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017—a proposal by government to award corporations in Australia $80 billion worth of tax breaks over 10 years. What a time to be standing up and debating that proposal when the world and this country are facing massive challenges. The two great challenges that are facing Australia and, as a matter of fact, the world are accelerating environmental degradation and the decline of the capacity of the ecology of our planet to sustain life, including human life, and rampant wealth inequality. The decline in the capacity of our ecology to sustain life is embodied, most notably and seriously, in the massive disruption to the planet's climate that we are currently seeing because governments and parliaments are allowing corporations to use the atmosphere as a giant dumping ground for CO2. And we are seeing rampant wealth inequality because governments and parliaments are too interested in lining the pockets of people who are at the higher levels of big corporations in this world and are not interested enough in providing high-quality public services to the people who really need them.
Now, if you look at human history and at the crumble of civilisations that we know of throughout human history—and I don't use the word 'collapse', because civilisations crumble slowly rather than collapse overnight—they all, and I do mean all, have two defining factors in common. Those two factors are environmental degradation and wealth inequality. Those are the two factors that cause civilisations to crumble. We shouldn't be so arrogant as to think that we are somehow immune from that today just because we've got a civilisation that is high in technology in many parts. Just because it's a civilisation that has led to an explosion of human population around the planet, just because it's a civilisation that gives all of us in this place the most comfortable of lives, don't think we're immune to the forces of history and don't think that we're not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. That's why debates like this are so important. What we're seeing is the theft of the commons. What we're seeing is a massive transfer of wealth from people to corporations and to those people who make the highest levels of profit and generate the highest levels of wealth from increasing corporate power.
As I said, those two sides of the same coin—ecological degradation and rampant wealth inequality—are caused by the same thing. They are caused by parliaments giving up too much power to corporate boardrooms. That's what they're caused by. If we want to address those two great challenges of our time, we have to act to rein in the power of the corporates. We have to stop the theft of the commons—that wealth that actually belongs to all of the people of the world and all of the people of Australia. We need to make sure that it delivers for the people of the world and the people of Australia, and it's just not delivering at the moment.
So here we are, debating $80 billion of tax cuts to the big corporates in 10 years, engaged in a global race to the bottom. Let's just play this out for a minute. What happens here is that the corporates run around the world and say, 'Look over there. Their tax rate's lower.' So certain countries drop their tax rates. Then they run around to the next bloc of countries with the highest tax rates and they say, 'Look over there. You've got the highest tax rates. Everyone else has got lower tax rates.' Well, game it out; it's not hard. We all end up with very lower or no tax rates on corporations. And I've heard the argument that has been put by the government here; Donald Trump has just lowered the US corporate tax rate. Well, so he has, stupidly, lowered the US corporate tax rate. That's no argument for us to do the same in this country.
What we're debating here is trickle-down economics. I'm telling you now that, since Ronald Reagan coined that term back in the 1980s in the US, there have been people in that country and around the world—the people doing it the toughest—who are still waiting with their hands outstretched, waiting for the first drops. And do you know what? They're never going to feel them, because all these corporate tax cuts are sucked up by the top end of town. The people who are going to make the most out of these corporate tax cuts are the shareholders, the institutions that own the shares in our big corporations, the CEOs and the top-level employees of the big transnational corporations. Yes, that's right—the same transnational corporations that are not paying enough tax as we stand here today in Australia, because they're rorting the petroleum resource rent tax. We've heard about ExxonMobil not planning to pay any tax until 2021. I will confidently stand here today and say they're not going to pay any tax in 2021 or 2022 or 2023 or into the future, because they will run rings around governments of the future from corporatist parties who think that the answer to everything is to look after the corporations.
The answer to everything is not to look after the corporates. In fact, the answer to everything is to reverse some of the power transfer and the wealth transfer that has taken place in this country and through liberal democracies around the world over the last 50 years and get some of the power back for the people. Get some of the power back for the parliaments. That's what we need to see, not lying down with your legs in the air, asking the big corporates to tickle your tummies, which is, of course, what the LNP are doing here—and of all the weeks! It is the week where leadership speculation is rife. We could be looking at Peter Dutton PM by the end of the week, if you believe some of the stuff that has been going on in this building this week inside LNP caucuses and the LNP party room.
Of course, here we have the Prime Minister, the merchant banker Prime Minister, who wants to look after his corporate mates, who wants to show them that he can deliver for them. So he is pushing ahead with this legislation when he knows that he doesn't have the numbers to get it through. So you have got to ask yourself: are we debating this tonight as part of an internal play inside the Liberal Party to allow Malcolm Turnbull to hang onto the job that he has wasted since he took it over a couple of years ago?
What Australia needs is quality public services. What the Australian people want is quality public services. And do you know what? If you want to pay for quality public services, you've got to get the money from somewhere. I remember when we had a budget emergency back in the day. I remember Mr Abbott viciously prosecuting the argument that we had a budget emergency. You don't hear so much about the budget emergency now, when the government wants to give away $80 billion over the next 10 years to its corporate friends, its mates in big business and, more importantly, its major political donors. Make no mistake: this is a quid pro quo. This tax cut is saying to the big corporates, 'Donate politically to the LNP so that the LNP have got a fighting chance to win the next election, so the LNP can outspend everyone else on the upcoming election campaign.' The LNP want those donations. It's the big corporates that are the reservoir for those donations for the LNP. But you've got to give a quid pro quo in the corporate world, in the world of big business and big politics—that nexus where big business, big money and big politics come together. And the quid pro quo is $80 billion worth of corporate tax cuts in exchange for political donations from the big corporates to give the LNP a crack at winning the next election.
As I said earlier, at the end of the day this is about whether or not you believe in trickle-down economics, and I use the word 'believe' advisedly, because trickle-down economics is nothing more than an ideology. Trickle-down economics is nothing more than blind faith, because there's no substance to it at all. Let us look at who the losers are in this massive transfer of power and wealth that we've seen over the last half a century—this transfer from the parliaments, which are here to represent all people, into the pockets and the boardrooms of the big corporates, which are here to represent the profit motive and those people who already have wealth enough to own shares or work for those corporations. The two big losers are the people doing it toughest and the environment that sustains all of our lives on this little bit of rock orbiting the sun.
If we don't get this right, the ramifications are absolutely horrendous. I mean, wake up! We've got the National Energy Guarantee being watered down day by day in front of our very eyes. There are 80 bushfires burning in Australia in the middle of winter. It's cold across most of the country, but the bushfires are burning. This is the climate disruption that the Greens have been warning about. This is the climate disruption that millions of people in Australia have been warning about. This will cost everyone. If we don't address it, it could cost us everything. We are going to see mass displacement of humanity around the world. We are going to see sea level rises that dislocate hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people by the end of the century. We are going to see giant swathes of this planet rendered uninhabitable. When the people start moving in their hundreds of millions, their billions, where are we going to put them? What are we going to do with them? Are we just going to leave them to die?
This is a direct result of parliaments handing over power to corporations and not reining in corporations, allowing them to continue with what, in corporate speak, are called externalities, where they can continue to plunder fossil fuel resources as if they were infinite when in fact they are finite, and where they are allowed—in fact, encouraged—by parliaments to continue to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as if the atmosphere were infinite when fact it is finite. There's going to come a reckoning, senators, colleagues. Whether it be in our political careers or not, I can't tell you, but there will come a reckoning, and, when the history of these times is written, those that stayed in the pockets of the big corporates are going to be outed for what they are—cowards, friends of the rent-seekers and participants in the theft of the commons that is going on.
So, when you think about this legislation, when you think about the need to run quality public services, when you think about the need to build quality intergenerational public infrastructure, when you think about the need to revolutionise our transport systems, when you think about the need to transition out of fossil fuel extraction and into renewable energies, when you think about the need to provide quality education for all, with universal access, and when you think about the pressures on our health system and the need, expressed by so many people so often, to run a quality public health system—when you think about all these things—you need to make choices. You need to make choices about how you are going to raise the tax revenue that allows you to do those things and the many other things that need to be done to ensure a fair future for our kids and our grandkids. What we're engaged in now, in handing over this power and wealth to the big corporates, is not only a theft of the commons but an intergenerational theft.
When I talk to my kids at home and their friends, they just shake their heads. They are actually despondent or depressed about their future. They can't see a way they're going to be able to own a home. They can't see a future that's not massively disrupted because of the climate crisis. I genuinely believe that we are at risk of inflicting a condition called solastalgia on an entire generation. Solastalgia, a diagnosable psychological condition, in lay terms is anxiety brought about by environmental change. We're infecting a whole generation and setting the preconditions for a generation that, believe me, is not going to look kindly on the things we're doing today—like this proposal to give the big corporates tax cuts of $80 billion, which young people know should be used to provide better quality public services, to engage in the correction of the housing market so that young people actually have a reasonable crack at owning a home in the future, to create a framework that puts a price on carbon so that the big corporates can't continue to pollute relentlessly and emit ever more greenhouse gases, and to require corporations to act in an environmentally sustainable way. They look at what this parliament does—at proposals like this, to give $80 billion over 10 years to the big corporates, many of whom are not even paying their fair share of tax at the moment—and they despair. They are looking for leadership. They're looking for someone to do something about it.
I genuinely hope on behalf of our fragile ecology, which supports the life of every single person on this planet. I hope in the interests of fairness and equality, not just today but on an intergenerational basis, particularly for those young people who are looking at the body politic today and despairing that we simply don't understand what we are doing and that we are driven by greed far more than we are driven by a desire to do the right thing. We need to give those young people some hope because, I'm telling you now, they are rapidly losing it.
I rise, like my Labor colleagues, to oppose outright the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. I think it has been very clear for some time now that federal Labor is absolutely opposed to these big business tax cuts going through. We've fought them from the very beginning, when the government first introduced this bill and talked about these tax cuts, and we will fight them to the bitter end.
There are a number of reasons that collectively we will be opposing this bill. Principally it's on economic grounds but it's also on the basis of the social impacts that this bill would have on Australians. I do want to talk about those impacts in this contribution but I also want to speak about one of the other reasons that, as a Labor senator for Queensland, I will be opposing this bill, which is the very limited benefits that this bill and the big business tax cuts it seeks to usher in will have for my home state of Queensland.
Beginning with that, today an article in the Brisbane Courier-Mail highlighted exactly why this bill has so little to offer my home state of Queensland. Based on research by the Australia Institute, which was built on figures from the Taxation Office and the Department of Finance, the article in today's Courier-Mail said that only eight per cent of the companies that stand to benefit from this bill and the tax cuts that it ushers in are based in Queensland—eight per cent of the businesses. And that's assuming that we believe the government's arguments that anyone will benefit from these tax cuts. As I will say later in this contribution, I think it's highly dubious to say that there will be any benefit whatsoever arising from these tax cuts, either to businesses themselves or to the broader economy and Australians in general. But, even if we allow the government the indulgence of saying that this bill and the tax cuts that it ushers in will have some economic benefit, only eight per cent of the companies that stand to benefit from these tax cuts are based in Queensland.
As I have often said in this chamber, on this issue and on other issues, whether it be labour hire, poor regional communications, poor regional infrastructure, or cuts to hospitals, schools and training in the regions, you really do have to wonder why it is that the LNP—being the party that holds by far the majority of Queensland's federal lower house seats and that is the dominant force in the Senate coming from Queensland—continues to support policies like this which have such limited benefit to our home state of Queensland. Surely, if our LNP senators and our LNP members of parliament from Queensland were actually doing their job in standing up for residents and businesses right across Queensland, they would be joining with Labor, opposing this bill and opposing the tax cuts that will overwhelmingly go to big businesses headquartered in Sydney and Melbourne and the states that those cities fall in.
It actually gets even worse when you break down these figures by federal electorate. This is something that I undertook some time ago, and I commissioned some research from the Parliamentary Library, based on statistics from the Taxation Office and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It was very revealing to see how many businesses, based in various electorates across Queensland, will actually stand to benefit from these tax cuts. Mr Acting Deputy President, if only eight per cent of the companies that will benefit are based anywhere in Queensland, it won't surprise you that so few companies based in regional Queensland stand to gain anything whatsoever from these tax cuts.
For starters, I will just focus on the most marginal federal electorates in Queensland. Again, even if the LNP members that hold these seats don't actually agree with the economics which show that this is not something worth doing, or even if they don't agree that it's a bad thing for society to keep heaping money towards big businesses at the expense of ordinary people—even if they don't accept those arguments—the sheer politics of this proposal from the government should tell them that voting against it is the right thing to do. The electorate of Herbert is based on Townsville and is a marginal seat, held and represented very strongly by Cathy O'Toole. There are only 11 businesses headquartered in that electorate which would gain anything from these tax cuts, if they do go through. In the electorate of Forde, which covers parts of Logan and the northern end of the Gold Coast—where my electorate office is based—there are only 10 companies which would gain anything from these tax cuts. In the electorate of Capricornia, centred on Rockhampton and across Central Queensland, only eight businesses would gain from this tax cut. In the electorate of Leichhardt, which takes in Cairns and Cape York, seven companies would benefit from these company tax cuts. In the electorates of Dawson, based in Mackay and the area between Mackay and Townsville, and Petrie, the electorate on the north side of Brisbane, six businesses in each electorate would gain anything from these tax cuts.
I might just pick up something there. The fact that there is such a limited benefit to those two electorates may be why we've seen very vocal comments opposing these company tax cuts from the LNP members representing these electorates. Some time ago, when this bill was listed for debate, the member for Dawson, George Christensen, as is his wont, was out there in the media, and reports were surfacing about things that he'd said in the National party room querying whether the government should continue to support these tax cuts. To me, it was coincidental that he made these comments only days after I'd been in his electorate, advertising to all and sundry that only six businesses based in his electorate would actually gain any benefit from these tax cuts. We know old George Christensen, the member for Dawson, is nothing if not weak willed; a little bit of pressure forces him to come down to Canberra and have the wobblies. But we always know that he'll actually back the government when it comes to the crunch anyway.
More recently, the member for Petrie, Luke Howarth, was in the media. In fact, I was doing an interview with him on Sky News, that high-rating program where we sometimes get together and talk about politics. After the Longman by-election train wreck, Luke Howarth was one of the very first members of this government to query whether the government should be persisting with these company tax cuts. He was saying that they should bring them back into this house, get them knocked over and then move on. I suspect that both Luke Howarth and George Christensen have made comments against these company tax cuts because they know that so few businesses based in their electorates actually stand to gain anything.
Longman is a seat that has been talked about a lot lately, because of the by-election that was held there, and we, on the Labor side, make no apologies for having made the company tax cuts absolutely pivotal to that campaign. We were out there telling every single resident and business in Longman that the company tax cuts would have very little benefit there and that they would be paid for by more and more cuts to local services. The reason we were confident in doing so is that the figures from the Parliamentary Library showed that only three businesses based in the electorate of Longman would gain anything from these company tax cuts.
But, of all of these statistics about Queensland electorates, my favourites are the statistics about the electorate of Dickson. We've been hearing a lot about the electorate of Dickson in recent days, and I suspect we'll continue to do so, because we all know that the member for Dickson, Mr Dutton, is sharpening up the knife ready for a change of jobs. He's ready to take on the leadership because he knows that, under Mr Turnbull, this government is stuffed. He knows that, under Mr Turnbull, he's going to lose his seat. Guess how many of the businesses based in the electorate of Dickson will gain anything from these company tax cuts? It's a big, fat zero. Not one business based in the electorate of Dickson, held by Mr Dutton, will actually gain anything from these company tax cuts. Not one business based in the electorate of Dickson will have its taxes cut as a result of these tax cuts going through.
Whether we're talking about Dickson, with no local businesses gaining anything, or Capricornia in Central Queensland, where the huge number of eight businesses will gain something—and that's if you accept the government's argument that anyone will actually gain anything—there is so little benefit for anywhere in Queensland that you have to wonder why it is that LNP senators like Senator McGrath and others keep coming down here—Senator Smith, you're not from Queensland, but we'd think about taking you, maybe! You have to wonder why LNP senators keep coming down here and rolling over for members, like the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, based in Sydney. Those electorates may gain something from this, but there's nothing in this for Queensland.
Yet again, it's another instance of the LNP selling out Queensland, just as they have on many other issues, whether it be failing to do anything about labour hire and casualisation of the work force, particularly in regional Queensland, whether it be failing to do anything about regional infrastructure and regional communications in Queensland or whether it be the cuts to hospitals, schools, TAFEs and pensions that they're agreeing to to pay for these company tax cuts. Why does Queensland have such weak members of parliament from the LNP? They just consistently turn up in Canberra, take their instructions from the Prime Minister and other Liberals from Sydney and Melbourne, and then, in the process, completely shaft the people of Queensland. Unless they start waking up to themselves, there's no doubt that a lot of them are going to face exactly what the LNP copped in Longman, and that is a massive rebuff and a massive plunge in their primary vote, and many of them are going to be looking for new jobs after the next election.
The research that I cited from the Australia Institute, which came out in TheCourier-Mail today, also showed that, of the eight per cent only of businesses based in Queensland who would stand to gain anything here, nearly half of them are in the finance, insurance and super sectors—
Debate interrupted.
I table the response to an order for the production of documents relating to the Community Development Program.
It is an honour indeed to reflect this evening in this chamber on one of the most momentous events in the political history of our nation, for 75 years ago, on 21 August 1943, the Tasmanian electorate of Darwin elected to parliament Dame Enid Lyons, and the people of Western Australia elected Mrs Dorothy Tangney to the Senate. I'm certain that other speakers from Dame Dorothy's party are better placed to honour her legacy in greater detail than I am, and so I devote my attention this evening to Dame Enid and the challenges and triumphs that characterise her place in Australia's history.
While Dame Enid is best known as Australia's first female parliamentarian, she certainly was not new to the demands of political life. As the wife of former Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, and a dame in her own right, Enid Lyons undertook gruelling public speaking schedules in order to support her husband both while he was Premier of Tasmania and during his seven years as Australia's prewar Prime Minister. Dame Enid once reflected that the hardest thing she did in her life was to assume the role of the Prime Minister's wife. She would never have anticipated nor wanted her apprenticeship to be so unexpectedly valuable, for her husband died very suddenly in 1939 and left Dame Enid a widow at the tender age of only 41.
As she retreated into grief, World War II was profoundly changing Australian politics and society, particularly in regard to women's abilities, roles and contributions. Before that time, only a handful of women had been elected to Australian state parliaments—indeed, the mere suggestion of female parliamentarians was still considered something of an experiment with an uncertain outcome—but attitudes were changing, and the total number of women employed rose by over a third in the course of the war, between 1939 and 1944. It was also at this time that the Women for Canberra movement emerged, inspired by the Women for Westminster movement in the UK.
In 1943, in the midst of this social change, a vacancy arose in the seat of Darwin, and it was Dame Enid's daughter, in fact that talked her into running. Dame Enid Lyons, local, widow, and mother of—wait for it—12 children, won the seat by 800 votes. On entering parliament, Dame Enid already had both the political toughness and a folksy charm that characterised her very unique style and personal appeal. Her speeches were known for both their humour and their sentimental nature. Sir Robert Menzies said of her speeches, 'She could reduce me to tears about the state of a railway track.'
Dame Enid Lyons is known as being a trailblazer simply for being here, so it's easy to forget to reflect appropriately on her extraordinary achievements while in office, both for her country and specifically for Australian women and children. She passionately lobbied for improvements to maternal health care, increases to the widows' pension, the elimination of employment discrimination and—her hallmark achievement—the extension of child endowment to first children. She also fought to see legislation passed which secured citizenship rights for women after their marriage to foreigners, and raised allowances to servicewomen so that they matched those of returned servicemen.
Her electoral successes were also enviable. In fact, she tripled her primary vote in 1946 and quadrupled it in the 1949 election. In the same year, Prime Minister Robert Menzies promoted her to vice-president of the Executive Council, making her the first woman to hold a cabinet position. She was indeed a force to be reckoned with. It was only ill health, an undiagnosed broken pelvis and a car accident just prior to the 1951 election that caused her retirement. Her insights, her policy legacy, her wit and her wisdom endure, and much of it is timeless. Dame Enid Lyons once reflected that our nation was:
"… a land of promise." We cannot afford to neglect some recognition of our past, even though we gaze into the future.
In a great nation such as ours, which values equality and where women continue to go from strength to strength, people often question why it remains so important to recognise the achievements of women specifically. There are two reasons why I believe it is so important to recognise those who went before us in this place. Firstly, trailblazers such as Dame Enid Lyons defy the misconception that women's presence in the highest offices in our land is a form of tokenism, a convenient genuflection to feminist movements to ensure political appeal. It's quite the contrary. Women like her and those who have come after have demonstrated that they have changed the discourse, changed the direction and set a course for a modern, forward-looking Liberal Party, where all voices are heard and valued.
Women bring to the political fray unique experiences and perspectives but also an empathy, a shared lived experience, a toughness and a resilience that few men can understand, although I cannot in good faith point the finger of inadequacy here only at men. On this Dame Enid sets the bar way too high. I don't think anyone here before or since has given birth to 12 children and subsequently sat in parliament for eight years with a broken pelvis.
This leads me to the second reason why it's so important to recognise and celebrate the women who have blazed the trail. If we acknowledge and accept that the contribution of these women has made our country better, it logically follows that we now have a responsibility—indeed, a patriotic duty—to ensure that that tradition continues. By being vocal about the impressive achievements of women past and present, we send a strong message to society and to the next generation that women have so much to offer and that their contributions are not just valued but needed, and not just in areas of the traditional feminine domain. In my own party, I need only look to the frontbench, where we have women in leading portfolios such as Foreign Affairs, Finance and Revenue, Defence, and Jobs and Innovation. Indeed, the former Prime Minister and founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, stated shortly before Enid Lyons's election:
Wherever a woman is willing and able to do some job, however "unwomanly" that job might have seemed to the eye of convention … then there should be no barrier against the woman doing it.
On the contrary, there should be active encouragement and direction.
… … …
There is no equality so ennobling as an equality in service.
So, in a political climate where many voters remain distrustful and removed from their representatives, it falls to the heirs of Dame Enid Lyons to continue to beat the path on the trail that she blazed for the next generation of Liberal women and also to lay paving stones of our own along that journey to a better nation.
In her maiden speech, Dame Enid Lyons said:
I believe, very sincerely, that any woman entering the public arena must be prepared to work as men work; she must justify herself not as a woman but as a citizen; she must attack the same problems, and be prepared to shoulder the same burdens.
These powerful words ring as true now as they did then. So, to the women in this chamber and to the women who aspire to be in this chamber or in the other place, I say we are equal, we are powerful and we serve this nation well. There is so much that we can take from the contribution to public life that Dame Enid made, and it has been a privilege to reflect on that this evening in this place.
I rise tonight to talk about the importance of the union movement in Australia. I want to start by declaring myself to be a proud supporter of the trade union movement. I've enjoyed a long association with the unions. Whilst the battles we are fighting today differ from those which I fought back in the 1980s, when I first became an industrial officer, there is a common theme through these battles. That is that we need unions to stand up for workers when it comes to attacks on their entitlements by businesses who take advantage of workers, employer groups that help them to do it and by those opposite who aid and abet the process. Tonight, I want to touch on these issues, with particular reference to superannuation, penalty rates and labour hire sham contracting, both in the context of our current daily battles on industrial relations matters and in reflecting on my work with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Union.
Firstly, on the issue of superannuation we've seen the revelations of the royal commission about the abysmal conduct of AMP and the contempt that they have shown for their clients and for regulators. But I can tell you that AMP wasn't squeaky clean some decades ago either, and I've been fighting for this to be made known. Back in the 1980s when we were involved in getting superannuation as an award entitlement through the state award system—and I was arguing the case with the ACTU—AMP was right there with a lot of small employers using a legal loophole to trap workers in Queensland into poorer performing retail superfunds. This wasn't unique to AMP and it wasn't unique to the 1980s. I hold serious concerns over the way that retail super funds use enticements to convince businesses to sign up workers to poorer performing funds, duding them of, potentially, hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement.
In my very first speech to this parliament, I pointed to our world-class occupational superannuation system as a crowning achievement of Labor's industrial and political wins. Australians deserve to retire with dignity and with financial security. Making sure our system of government protects and enhances this fundamental workers' right is one of my key drivers. It is unacceptable that this government uses workers' entitlements, like super, as bargaining chips with their big business mates. It is unacceptable that this government has thrown bucket loads of mud at industry super funds hoping that some of it will stick—though we now see the royal commission having put paid to most of the outrageous, unfounded accusations of board misconduct and member-funded misuse. It's unacceptable that this government uses superannuation bills to wage its ideological warfare on the union movement and workers—like we've seen in relation to the bills that have had to be withdrawn from debate in this term of parliament when Labor called out the hidden agendas involved.
It is absolutely unacceptable that this government is aiding and abetting the theft of worker entitlements through their so-called superannuation amnesty for business. This amnesty proposes that businesses that probably haven't paid superannuation for two and half decades be let off without penalty, providing they declare their misdeeds up-front. Worse, if they do pay the Liberal-National government is going to give them a tax break. Can you imagine the outrage that would follow if there were a proposal to excuse businesses that didn't pay wages to their workers? Unpaid super is no different. It simply moves the impact on the worker into the retirement years instead of the next payday. Businesses who break the law by not paying super should be held to account and punished. The government should take all steps necessary to recoup unpaid superannuation from these businesses. That's why I'm standing up in the Senate about superannuation for workers.
On the issue of penalty rates, I want to turn to the fact that during the winter break, on 1 July, penalty rates were cut again for some of our most disadvantaged workers across the country—workers in the retail and hospitality sectors, workers who I've fought for my entire career. Workers have been sold down the river by this coalition government. Let's have a look at the impact on workers under this coalition government. It's been estimated that pharmacy workers will lose $3,273.73 over the course of a year; other retail workers, $2,450.81; hospitality workers, $1,884.37; and fast food workers, $1,628.85. We're expecting even further cuts to Sunday penalty rates next July and the July after that.
Labor and the union movement have always worked closely together to ensure workers are fairly compensated for time spent away from their families for work. That's why penalty rates were introduced. Since the 1980s, the SDA has been fighting to protect penalty rates in awards. In fact, it's true that the rates of pay for retail employees in Australia are amongst the highest in the world. That hasn't happened by accident. That's happened because of the union's long-term advocacy in industrial tribunals around the country to protect the rates of pay and penalty rates of shop assistants.
The orderly fixation of rates of pay and penalty rates was disrupted back in March 1993 by the Kennett government, a Liberal government, which basically scrapped the award system. That led to the SDA branch in Victoria having to rope tens of thousands of businesses in Victoria into a federal award. That was an incredible amount of work and, once again, I pay tribute to the Victorian branch for basically restoring the rights of work of many retail employees in Victoria as a result. In 1993 we saw the Western Australian Court Liberal government basically scrap the award system by virtue of the introduction of Western Australian workplace agreements. The award was basically sidelined. There were a minimum number of conditions—five or six minimum conditions—and a rate of pay which could be set by the minister. In the case of the retail rate, the minimum rate was about $110 below what the award set.
In 1996, we saw the action in the federal system, where John Howard introduced Australian workplace agreements. These were the secret individual contracts. Probably the low point was in 2005, when we saw Prime Minister Howard introduce the removal of the no-disadvantage test. We saw incredible abuse of workers across the country. In fact, in the retail industry we saw retailers being amongst the first to dive into AWAs, which took away many conditions and most penalty rates for workers.
Then we moved to 2008, with the restoration of a Labor government, and we started to work through the award modernisation process, bringing all of the state awards together into a federal award system. That brought its challenges, because, as part of setting a national retail award for the first time, there was an argument about the appropriate penalty rate to apply for Sundays, and the union had to argue then for the double-time penalty rate to apply. We won that argument, but then we had to fight it again, when there was an interim review of the awards in 2012 and 2013, and we had to argue against cuts by the employer associations to the Sunday penalty rates. On that occasion, we were successful. We held out on the attacks to the Sunday penalty rates. But in 2014 we saw the commencement of the four-year review of penalty rates, where employers once again sought to reduce the penalties for weekend and public holiday rates. Unfortunately, on that occasion the employers were successful, and we saw the decision coming out from the Fair Work Commission last year, so we've seen the outcome of that.
This is just an example of the type of work that the union movement has been doing for decades behind the scenes. It doesn't get a lot of media attention. But I think it's important to remind those listening that unions—not only the SDA but others around the country—are appearing in industrial tribunals around the country every day arguing for the retention of workers' pay and penalty rates and arguing against the cuts that are being put forward by employers. This is something that I will continue to stand for. I will salute the union movement. It's why I'm in the Labor Party. That's why I'm here in the Senate.
I'd like to speak tonight about the crisis facing the iconic Australian animal the koala, particularly in the regions of Queensland, northern New South Wales and the ACT. That koala populations in these areas are under threat is a symptom of the major failure of this government to meet its legal obligations under federal environment laws.
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which was passed in this place almost 20 years ago now, in 1999, was at the time a significant expansion in the environmental powers of the federal government. I played a significant role in the debate and decision at the time when I was in this place. It certainly was not a perfect piece of legislation by any means, and it had some significant shortcomings. Nonetheless, it was a major advance, in many respects, on what had been there before, and if it hadn't been passed then certainly the previous laws would have continued to provide very minimal protection for most of the Australian land mass.
There were those in the environment movement who were disappointed that more wasn't achieved, but there was a hope that the legislation would at least provide a stepping stone that could be built on, particularly when Labor came to government—even though it took them eight years to do so. Instead, what we've seen is that the adequacy of that act has been continually eroded over time. That has been a result of quite conscious decisions by governments of both persuasions, but particularly Liberal governments and Liberal ministers, to slowly but deliberately weaken the effectiveness of the administration of that act. They slowly but effectively developed precedents which reduced the effectiveness and enforceability of components of federal environment laws and, alongside that, simply by virtue of inertia and the winding back or redirecting of funding away from areas that should have been resourced to ensure proper monitoring and proper enforcement of the act, allowed it to decay through lack of use. As a consequence, nearly 20 years later—not surprisingly, given the ideology of putting the interests of corporations, property developers and commercial short-term profit above the interests of the natural environment and the long-term benefits it provides to the entire community, both economically and socially, in addition to its innate ecological value—we are well and truly overdue for a major overhaul of our federal environment laws.
The koala is but one example, but I think an apt example, that illustrates why our federal environment laws are broken and why we once again have a situation where the government of the day is putting the interests of its corporate donors and the interests of property developers, who are of course also big donors, ahead of the interests of the entire community. We're seeing the environment trashed and our iconic species pushed to the brink because of short-term profits for the government's donors and their mates. The examples are widespread, but I'll outline the basics for starters. The government's own Threatened Species Scientific Committee reported, nearly six years ago now, that the koala populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT should be considered vulnerable. It stated that the rate of the decline of the koala 'over the last 20 years readily meets the eligibility threshold for listing as vulnerable'. That advice was accepted by the government and the minister of the day back in 2012, and the koala was listed as vulnerable in those regions, with the requirement that a koala management plan be developed by the time that the then National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy 2009-2014 expired. Instead, what we saw—by which time, of course, the coalition had come to power—was nothing. We've heard continual talk about a management plan appearing, being developed or being considered, but still there is nothing. Frankly, that is disgracefully negligent. If the environment laws were strengthened so that there were criminal penalties for ignoring responsibilities under the law then I could say it was literally criminally negligent, but certainly the deliberate neglect involved is rhetorically very much criminal in the broader sense of the word. The beneficiaries of it, of course, are the property developers and the construction companies.
We've seen media reports covering major failings in mitigation strategies in both northern New South Wales and South-East Queensland in recent times. The mitigation strategies are basically the fig leaves that are used. It is a significant failure of the federal environment laws that, where approval is given to a project that seems a controlled action, it's often with a whole range of conditions attached. It can look very good on paper to say, 'We'll approve this, but we're doing all these things to ensure that overall there'll be no net environmental harm to the species or key factors of national significance listed under the act,' but the big flaw—and I'm happy to say in hindsight I wish that at the time, in 1999, I'd paid more attention to prevent it being able to be exploited—is that there's very little you can do if the government doesn't follow up on those mitigation strategies and check to ensure they're implemented or that they actually work. They all sound great at the time, but the reality is that in many cases they don't work and in many cases they're not even attempted. When the developers or the proponents of various proposals say they're going to do all these mitigation things but don't do them or do them badly—they do them with insufficient resourcing, so they're never going to work—there's no penalty at all, even assuming that there is actually follow-up monitoring.
We're seeing this with the koala in northern New South Wales. The mitigation measures—the road tunnels and other wildlife infrastructure, which are meant to protect the koalas from road strikes and damage through construction and ensure they're able to survive in the habitat after major roadworks have gone through—are simply not working. They're not working nearly well enough to prevent continuing decline in the species.
Similarly, in South-East Queensland, to use just one example, there is the area around Coomera on the northern part of the Gold Coast. Many who drive between Brisbane and the Gold Coast would know it for the amusement parks on either side of the M1, but there's a significant amount of bushland—though a lot less bushland than there used to be 10 years ago—in the surrounding suburbs. There is one development at the moment, called the Polaris Coomera development or Coomera Woods—it does have woods at the moment but by the time the development's finished, if it's approved, it won't have—that is a declared action under federal environment laws, and let this be clear: it is a tipping point. As happens repeatedly, each individual development is not enough to be denied by the federal Minister for the Environment and Energy—at least, that gives them cover—but when you add them up cumulatively they are massively destructive and, en masse, would never be in a situation where they could be approved by the minister. With this latest development, the independent environmental assessment of the koala populations shows very clearly that if that area is cleared as well then it will be a tipping point for the whole local koala population. There is simply not enough connected habitat left for those koalas to survive locally. We've seen significant publicity recently, on the basis of information given to estimates committees in the Queensland parliament, that efforts to maintain that population by transferring koalas from cleared areas to forested areas nearby really fall short. There are very significant, very high mortality rates when you try to relocate koalas.
What we need is an emergency response to the koala situation from the Queensland government and the federal government, not just to finally put in place a management plan but to ensure that it is adequately funded and has powers to back it up to prevent further clearing of koala habitat. We need proper funding of recovery and management plans for all our threatened and vulnerable species, and that is something the Greens will be putting forward alongside the need to completely overhaul and update our federal environment laws so they deliver for the entire community, not for the corporations and the donors.
Senate adjourned at 22:19