I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator. There being none, we will move on.
I remind honourable senators that, pursuant to the order of the Senate agreed on 13 November, the address-in-reply will be presented to the Governor-General at Government House on Monday, 3 December, at 10 am. Cars will be leaving the Senate entrance at 9.50 am to take senators to Government House. I further remind senators that the Senate will meet at midday that day.
I move the motion standing in my name:
That the days of meeting of the Senate for 2019 be as follows:
Autumn sittings:
Tuesday, 12 February to Thursday, 14 February
Budget sittings:
Tuesday, 2 April to Thursday, 4 April
Autumn sittings (2):
Monday, 15 April to Thursday, 18 April
Winter sittings:
Monday, 13 May to Thursday, 16 May
Monday, 17 June to Thursday, 20 June
Monday, 24 June to Thursday, 27 June
Spring sittings:
Monday, 12 August to Thursday, 15 August
Monday, 19 August to Thursday, 22 August
Monday, 9 September to Thursday, 12 September
Monday, 16 September to Thursday, 19 September
Monday, 14 October to Thursday, 17 October
Monday, 11 November to Thursday, 14 November
Monday, 25 November to Thursday, 28 November
Monday, 2 December to Thursday, 5 December.
This motion seeks to put in place the sitting schedule for the Senate for next year, as is the orthodox and conventional practice in this place. The Senate sits in alignment with the House of Representatives sitting, with the exception of estimates hearings, when they occur on days that are House-only sitting days. And colleagues would obviously be aware that the budget sitting week is down to be earlier than is usually the case, for obvious reasons of which we are all aware. I commend the sitting schedule to colleagues.
I move the amendment to government business notice of motion No. 1 that has been circulated in the chamber:
omit:
"Budget sittings:
Tuesday, 2 April to Thursday, 4 April
Autumn sittings (2):
Monday, 15 April to Thursday, 18 April
Winter sittings:
Monday, 13 May to Thursday 16 May
Monday, 17 June to Thursday 20 June
Monday, 24 June to Thursday 27 June"
substitute:
"Budget sittings:
Tuesday, 2 April to Wednesday, 3 April
Winter sittings:
Monday, 13 May to Thursday 16 May
Tuesday, 28 May to Thursday, 30 May
Monday, 3 June to Thursday, 6 June
Monday, 17 June to Thursday 20 June
Monday, 24 June to Thursday 27 June"
This amendment seeks to omit the sitting week proposed for Monday, 15 April to Thursday, 18 April and substitute two new sitting weeks from Tuesday, 28 May to Thursday, 30 May and Monday, 3 June to Thursday, 6 June 2019. It also omits the sitting day scheduled for Thursday, 4 April 2018, essentially to mirror arrangements that were put in place in 2016 to ensure that there was some budget accountability in advance of the election on that occasion.
The amendment works in tandem with the opposition's proposed amendment to government business notice of motion No. 2 relating to the scheduling of estimates hearings. We did seek for the government to progress this matter at this stage, given that we're addressing both issues, but at this point, unfortunately, the government will still proceed with that matter at formal business, where we will deny formality, and it will be debated later in the day—just so senators understand the process.
As I said, this particular amendment to the sitting schedule works in tandem with the opposition's proposed amendment to government business notice of motion No. 2 relating to the scheduling of estimates hearings. That amendment proposes two days of budget estimates hearings in budget week followed by two weeks of budget estimates hearings in the fortnight immediately following the budget. The opposition regrets that it takes this step to move amendments to the sitting calendar.
As Senator Fifield said, the orthodox and conventional approach is for the government of the day to determine their sitting calendar. We recognise the right of the government of the day to propose such. However, this government has abused this right by manipulating the sitting calendar to suit its timetable for an election, and it is clearly ducking for cover. It is not acceptable that there will be an unprecedented eight-week gap—think of that, senators—between the date on which the budget will be delivered and the start of budget estimates. This government has brought forward the budget week but it's put back any accountability of such budget. In fact, there's a possibility that the appropriation bills may even pass before the proposed commencement of budget estimates, defeating the point of the process entirely—some might say defeating the point of the Senate entirely.
The opposition will be moving to shift the budget estimates hearings to where they belong: right after the budget. Accordingly, we've moved this amendment to the motion proposing the ordinary sitting days for 2019 in order to facilitate that change, which will be made by a separate amendment to the later motion. At this stage, I'd also like to assure the leaders of non-government parties and Independent senators that the opposition will work with them to facilitate time for those senators to make their budget reply, another very important element of Senate activity with respect to a government budget. We will facilitate budget reply speeches in budget week, as would ordinarily be the case. I commend the amendment to the Senate.
I rise to speak to the proposed amendment by Senator Collins and observe that the sitting weeks that Senator Collins's amendment proposes for the week commencing 27 May and the week commencing 3 June aren't sitting weeks that would actually occur because there will be an election taking place at that time. I'll make that observation. Again, it is the convention and the practice in this place—and has been for the almost 15 years that I've been in this place—that it's the government of the day that lays out the sitting schedule. That also includes the estimates schedule for this place. I commend it to colleagues, following the regular and conventional practice in this place.
The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Collins be agreed to.
Original question, as amended, agreed to.
I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018. Labor would never have proposed this bill. We should be welcoming new migrants to this country. However, we are not in government and we have to deal with the political reality in which these measures are presented. We had to contemplate the consequences and impact that the passage of the legislation as presented by the government would have, had it passed the parliament in its entirety. There was much at stake. The government's proposed four-year waiting period would have placed many thousands of families and children under significant hardship. This was something we could not risk leaving to One Nation and other elements of the crossbench. The consequences of not working to reduce the impact of this bill would no doubt have seen it get through this place in its entirety on the back of some other unrelated concession to One Nation or other elements of the crossbench.
This was an outcome we could not contemplate. Instead of sanctimony, we sought to pursue and secure significant improvements to the government's bill. These improvements will protect vulnerable newly arrived residents, families and children. We acknowledge these improvements will not satisfy all of our concerns with the government's bill, but they will spare thousands of people from being impacted by this bill. We have taken the roughest edges off the government's proposal. The government originally proposed an increase in the waiting period, to four years, for newly arrived residents for social security, family tax benefit, paid parental leave and dad and partner pay. This would have had severe impacts on many thousands of people, including cutting the family tax benefit for 66,000 families and 144,000 children, and cutting other payments for 47,000 people.
I actually was a migrant to this country, in 1973, and I must say that the support I received was crucial in allowing me and my family to integrate into Australia, to get a job and to move on in our lives. This is typical of this government. This government is absolutely consumed by internal conflict and its lack of capacity to understand how families in this country survive.
In securing these key concessions from the government, we have mitigated the impact and we have mitigated the hardship. There will be no waiting period for family tax benefit part B, no increase in the waiting period for carer payment, a one-year waiting period for family tax benefit part A, a one-year waiting period for carer allowance, a two-year waiting period for paid parental and dad and partner pay. New Zealanders, orphan relative visa holders and remaining relative visa holders are excluded from the changes, and we have expanded access to special benefit when people's circumstances change, including in the case of domestic and family violence.
The concessions that Labor has secured against the government's bill will ensure that 49,000 families and 107,000 children will be spared from the government's family tax benefit waiting period each year, and 21,000 people will be spared the waiting periods for other payments. This means that the number of families and children who would have been impacted by the government's family tax benefit waiting period has now been reduced by around three-quarters, and the number of people impacted by other changes will be nearly halved. Labor has also managed to keep the exemptions from waiting periods for people who become lone parents as well as for people on refugee and humanitarian visas. These were not easy decisions to make, but we made them to protect thousands of people including families and children. The Federation of Ethnic Communities' Council of Australia, FECCA, has said today of the concessions we have secured:
… the Federal Opposition should be congratulated for securing changes to the Government’s Encouraging Self-Sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants Bill 2018.
The chairperson of FECCA, Mary Patetsos, said:
These amendments will help protect the most vulnerable new arrivals and their families from the new four-year waiting period for benefits, imposed by the Federal Government. We congratulate the Opposition for listening to our concerns and for the amendments that reduce the Bill’s impact on the Family Tax Benefit, Carer Payment, Carer Allowance, Paid Parental Leave and Dad and Partner Pay.
Of course it is important that new Australians aim to financially support themselves. We know that the vast majority of migrants are able to secure employment quickly and do not require income support. The Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria told the committee that the workforce participation rate of migrants is 80 per cent, compared to 60 per cent for people who are born in Australia. Migrants are hardworking and committed Australians and they make an important and welcome contribution to Australia socially, culturally and economically.
But, of course, people go through tough times and it is important that they can get the help that they need. Labor will also work to ensure the best and fairest possible outcomes for those doing it tough and we have a proud record in defending social services and payments. On every single occasion we have fought the government's attacks on the age pension. We have fought the government's attempts on Newstart, and we will review the rate of Newstart in government, because it is too low—so low it is driving people into poverty and stopping people from getting jobs. We have fought the government's cuts and outsourcing of Centrelink jobs, which have coincided with outrageous waiting times for many, from pensioners to students. Australia knows that those vulnerable individuals' families and children will always be better off under a Labor government.
Centre Alliance prepared a report, which they produced last night. They did not call for a reduction in the proposed four-year waiting periods in the recommendations of their report, and this is a very clear indication that Labor was absolutely right in our concerns that this bill would have passed the Senate without major changes unless we worked to secure those amendments and protect migrants. The recommendations that Centre Alliance made in relation to orphan and remaining relative visa exemptions have already been secured by Labor, and the recommendations Centre Alliance made in relation to special benefit have also been addressed, with all the restrictions to the special benefit change of circumstances waiting period proposed in the government's original bill now removed. This means that all permanent visa classes can access the special benefit when circumstances change. People who have applied for a permanent visa can access special benefit. People on temporary visas like partner visas will be able to access special benefit. Anyone, including these pontificating Greens down the other end who are critical of Labor's decision to mitigate the impact of this bill and get rid of the worst elements, need only read the Centre Alliance report, which does not call for reduced waiting periods. The changes Centre Alliance were requesting are minor compared to what Labor has secured.
Senator McKim interjecting—
Let me deal with the interjections from the Greens. These people are so sanctimonious and full of their own self-importance but actually miss the main game in this country. That's why in every recent election the Greens have gone backwards. They don't make a difference. They come here with their self-important, sanctimonious approach and do not deal with the key issues. The key issues are to protect people, not to come here and make speeches for their smaller and smaller group of supporters, not to make speeches that try to make them more important than anyone else and try to give the impression that they understand the issues for disadvantaged people in this country. It is okay to make those speeches. We don't mind your making those speeches, but we want to make a difference, and that is what we are doing. We are making a difference. We are actually protecting people. If the Greens' position had been adopted here, all the worst elements of this bill would have gone through the parliament. That is the reality of where we are at.
For the Greens to yell and shout and intervene in this means nothing. Constituents around the country understand how immature the Greens are in relation to many of these issues, how pure they want to be and how they end up not being in a position to make a difference. Making speeches is okay, but the hard work of opposition is to make sure we get rid of the worst aspects of this bill. That's what Linda Burney and Chris Bowen have done, and I congratulate them for actually doing the business, not standing out there at the edges of politics yelling and screaming about how bad this is. What we have done is change the bill for the better to look after vulnerable migrants and make sure that what we do makes a difference. The Greens make no difference in this place and in fact on many occasions their uncompromising approach, their lack of understanding about parliamentary process and how you deal with these issues, makes it tougher for people.
The Greens and Centre Alliance can rail against this all they like. What we are doing is making a difference and protecting vulnerable migrants. For all the purity that the Greens bring to this place—you know the old argument: the more pure you are, the more impotent you are. The Greens are impotent in this stuff. The Greens do not make a difference. Again, I say that is reflected in their declining public support, because the public are onto the Greens. All of the rhetoric, all of the arguments and all of the nonsense that they go on with makes no difference if they do not understand how to actually deals with issues when they are faced with them. That is the problem for the Greens. We probably would have had, for many years now, a price on carbon if the Greens had have shown any common sense in this place, but common sense and the Greens don't go together. They don't go together, and they should never be in the same sentence.
We take the view that what we have done is exactly what migrant communities have asked us to do, which is to get rid of the worst aspects of this bill. I'll conclude on this: we would not have done this in government, but our responsibility is to be responsible. The Greens don't have to be responsible; they will never form government. The Greens don't have to be responsible, because they are talking to a declining group of supporters across the country. The Greens can rail against this all they like, but what Labor has done is deliver sensible amendments and work constructively with the government, even though the government is in chaos. We have actually taken the rough edges of this.
This is a government in decline. This is a government with a leader who just gets angrier and angrier every day. This is a government with a leader who cannot control his own party. He is a leader who will say anything and do anything. You can expect, in the future, more and more attacks on migrants, more and more attacks on ethnic communities, more and more division from this government and more and more fear campaigns by this government. You can expect more and more money to be thrown at their base to try to save the furniture. This government is a disgrace. This government doesn't get it. What we need in this country is a Labor government that understands the needs of migrants, can deal with the needs of migrants and can ensure that migrants come here with reasonable conditions and reasonable rights.
What we would have seen, if we had simply taken the position that the Greens and Centre Alliance would have taken, is that a bill that attacks more migrants and makes life worse for migrants would have gone through. We make no apologies for actually behaving like an alternative government. When you are never going to be in government, you can rail all you like, you can tilt at windmills and you can make all the speeches that you like. What we have to do is make sure we behave responsibility, make sure we listen to the ethnic communities and make the changes that are required. That's what we have done in this agreement with the government.
As I've said, it would not be our most favoured position. It's not what we would have proposed in government, but what we have done is make sure that thousands of migrants will be better off. There is no waiting period for family tax benefit B and no increase in the waiting period for the carer payment. There is a one-year waiting period for family tax benefit part A, a one-year waiting period for carer allowance and a two-year waiting period for paid parental leave and dad and partner pay. New Zealanders, orphan relative visa holders and remaining relative visa holders are excluded from the changes. We have expanded access to the special benefit when people's circumstances change.
If we had not pursued this, we would have then had a situation where this bill would have passed with the support of One Nation and other crossbenchers. We would have seen a situation where thousands upon thousands of migrants would have been worse off. We have dealt with that issue. We are not here simply to please the Greens or please Centre Alliance. What we are here to do is to craft a pathway to be a caring government, a government that understands the issues, a government that looks after the disadvantaged in this country and a government that understands the key issues affecting people in this country.
So I'll wait, with not much concern, for the ranting and raving we will hear from the Greens, who are trying to push to their declining base and address their loss of members and loss of influence around the country. You've got very little influence in here. That's the reality. And this is a clear demonstration that your lack of capacity to understand the issues means that the poorest in this country would be worse off.
I too rise to speak on the so inappropriately titled Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018. What a load of myths we just heard from Senator Cameron! Either he can't count, is deliberately misleading this chamber or has not bothered to talk to the crossbench. Make no mistake: we had the numbers to knock this off. So when he says he's made things better for migrants, don't believe it. They have made things worse. We could have knocked off this bill. We had the numbers. For him to mislead this chamber, mislead people who are paying attention to this debate, and mislead our fellow Australians, particularly migrants, by saying that Labor has improved the situation for them—well, they have not, because the situation was that this bill would have not gone through this chamber. It is a complete crock for him to sanctimoniously stand up there and say: 'We've made it better. If it hadn't been for us'—The only way this bill or the previous bills would have got through is if Labor voted with the government. It is absolute nonsense.
I do think he protests too much. He is trying to stick it to us when his own side has done a dirty deal with the government, which will make things worse, because these measures would not have got through unless some or all of the opposition decided they were going to vote with the government. It is complete nonsense. In fact, I would suggest that, if we had not been here, the opposition would have just followed suit and fallen straight in line with the government. As for FECCA endorsing this position, perhaps they could have made some phone calls to other members of the parliament and not believed Labor when they said, 'This is going to get through.' Maybe FECCA could have made some phone calls to double-check before they backed in a deal that sells migrants up the river. They're saying, 'It's okay, we've made the waiting period a bit better on some of the payments.' The point is that this bill introduces waiting periods for some people who didn't have them, so how has that made it better? They're saying, 'It was going to be this bad, and now we've made it this bad, but, if we'd stuck to our guns and opposed this bill, it would have been status quo.' What they're looking at is the $1.3 billion that they think they can help the government save, so that, if they get into government, they've got that $1.3 billion that they can then spend. That's what it's about. It saves them having to do things that impact vulnerable Australians and migrants. That's what this is about. They did not have to do this. Yesterday, Chris Bowen made the comment, 'If we didn't do it, One Nation would have.' Obviously, he can't count either or he didn't talk to this side of the chamber, because we've got the numbers to knock it off, if they vote no as well.
This bill is, in effect, an omnibus bill. You can't just change the name of the previous self-sufficiency bill and think that people don't notice that other bits from other bills have been shoved in there. The coalition is trying to push through a whole lot of sneaky, punitive measures, with as little scrutiny as possible. This bill was introduced and debated in the House of Reps yesterday, with no significant change from the original bill. The supplementary EM came in as they were going for the vote, so people didn't have any explanation of the amendments. They weren't able to debate those amendments sufficiently, because they hadn't had any time. Less than 24 hours after the government put out a media release that this was some dirty deal stitched up with the opposition, it was in the chamber. That's why this is sneaky. This is just more of that punitive approach taken by the old parties in here, who think this is the way that you treat Australians and, in particular, migrants. It's appalling. Labor has backed in that approach.
This bill incorporates measures from the former Social Services Legislation Amendment (Encouraging Self-sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants) Bill 2018. Its very name explains what they are trying to do; it's to make it harder for migrants. In fact, it goes to two other bills: the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Maintaining Income Thresholds) Bill 2018 and the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2017. It also deals with the announcement in the latest budget where the government signalled that they were moving their proposal to extend the waiting period from three years to four years. It also incorporates that. This bill was rushed through the House of Representatives yesterday, following very substantive amendment by the government, and with the support of the Labor Party. The first amendment turned the bill into the promoting the sustainable welfare bill of 2018.
While I am looking at sustainable welfare—it's actually our social security system; our income support system—I am being lectured by the likes of Senator Cameron on how good Labor is! Who are the people who backed in income management? Who are the people who backed in the cashless welfare card? Who are the people who swung grandfathered single parents onto Newstart? We all know how that ended up, don't we? It ended up appallingly, with more single parents going into poverty and their lives being made much worse. So don't lecture me about how good you are. Who are the ones who steal all our ideas? ICAC: how long have we been in this place talking about ICAC? All of a sudden, they think it's a great idea. The banking royal commission: how long did it take you to come to that realisation? How long has it taken you to come to the realisation that perhaps income management and cashless welfare is not a good idea? You didn't come to those by yourselves.
The only warning anyone got about these proposed changes was a press release issued in the afternoon of the day before this bill was rushed through the House of Representatives. On Tuesday, there was a press release naming a new bill, which we didn't even know existed. It also talked about how the government had secured support through a dirty deal with the opposition. It listed measures from various bills, so the only conclusion that could be drawn from that was that the government had done a dirty deal with the opposition. Yesterday, we saw evidence of that in the House of Representatives. The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Encouraging Self-sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants) Bill 2018 was introduced in February. On 29 March it was referred to a committee. The reporting day was initially 4 May. Remember that date: 4 May. The report was tabled yesterday, on 28 November. The reporting date was changed 10 times, from 4 May to 28 November, yesterday, when it was tabled.
In its original form, the bill would have increased the newly arrived residents waiting period from two years to three years for income support payments—including Newstart, youth allowance, Austudy, carer payment, sickness allowance and special benefits, among others—as well as the Low Income Health Care Card and the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. It would also have extended how long migrants would have to wait for parenting payment, bereavement payment and widow allowance, by applying the three-year newly arrived residents waiting period to these payments. Currently they have a two-year qualifying residency period. It also would have introduced a newly arrived residents waiting period of three years for carer allowance, family tax benefit, parental leave pay and dad and partner pay, all of which are currently free of waiting period or qualifying residential period.
The Australian Greens were opposed to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Encouraging Self-sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants) Bill, and we submitted a dissenting report to the committee's inquiry on this bill, which, as I said, was tabled only yesterday, after the amended bill had already been rammed through the House of Representatives. It was rammed through in the morning. These reports weren't even tabled till the afternoon. The bill discriminated against migrants and was likely to create an underclass of migrants who would have been unable to access Australia's social safety net when they needed it. The bill did not take into account the specific circumstances and vulnerabilities of those it would have impacted most. In its submission to the bill inquiry, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said:
The bill would impose unnecessary hardship on individuals and families, and may impact the ability of people to be self-sufficient if they are not adequately supported in the early years of their arrival in Australia.
Further it said:
The changes will impact the demand on the social services sector in Australia. As waiting periods to access to the welfare payment system are extended (and in some cases introduced)—
thanks to the ALP—
people may face destitution and homelessness and will turn to the social services sector, placing greater demand on an already stretched sector.
In its submission, FECCA said:
FECCA believes the proposed Bill would impose considerable hardship, and create an underclass of migrants who find themselves facing dire financial circumstances as they try to settle into Australia.
It went on to say:
FECCA strongly believes that providing support for people in the early stages of their journey is critical to ensuring that they are able to fully establish their lives in Australia.
As a result of the amendments made in the House of Representatives yesterday, with basically no notice, some new migrants granted certain permanent visas will be worse off. This is because the amendments have increased the newly arrived residents waiting period from three years to four years for working-age income support payments such as Newstart and concession cards such as the Low Income Health Care Card. The amendments also increase the waiting period from three years to four years for bereavement allowance and parenting payment. As a consequence, new migrants granted certain permanent visas who find themselves without a job, who can't find work, will be condemned to poverty. What will they live on? They will need to rely on charities for support. This is an outrageous attack on our multicultural community.
The ALP are claiming their amendments as a win and saying they had to do a deal. This simply isn't true. It's not true. We would have knocked off this bill, so don't go claiming, sanctimoniously, that you've saved so many people. You've condemned so many people to poverty. If you hadn't done this deal, it would have been voted down. Your deal doesn't stack up. There are amendments added as schedule 5 to the bill. This is where various other measures taken from other bills the Greens opposed have been snuck in. The ALP is hoping no-one will see, because this is being rushed through, but we have.
Of most interest is the measure taken from the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2017, which will apply a 30 per cent taper rate to income above the family tax benefit part A higher income free area. I checked the Community Affairs Legislation Committee website last night, and the ALP submitted a dissenting report to the committee inquiry on the payment integrity bill, as did we. They have a whole section on this measure where they said:
The committee heard that the families impacted by this measure have already faced several cuts, which 'when they add up together it's actually a significant hit on family budgets.'
They concluded their dissenting report with:
The committee received evidence from a variety of sources which suggested that the changes contained in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2017 were unfair and would push vulnerable Australians into poverty.
And they're right but they appear to have changed their minds. Now they suddenly support one of the measures in the bill. They must've forgotten it was unfair and would push vulnerable Australians into poverty.
Then there are the measures taken from the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Maintaining Income Thresholds) Bill 2018, which was introduced in May. On 21 June it was referred to inquiry. The reporting date was initially 14 August, and guess what? The reporting date was subsequently extended four times before it finally reported. It was to give effect to the measures announced in the 2017-18 MYEFO. All of its measures have been replicated in this bill via the amendment supported by the ALP in the House yesterday, except the measure to pause the indexation of the end-of-year supplements for 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. It extends the indexation pause of the family tax benefit part A higher income free area, the family tax benefit part B primary earner income limit, and the parental leave pay and dad and partner pay income limits until 1 July 2021. But these are one-offs, so overall this will have a negative impact on families.
There were five submissions to the committee inquiry on its provisions. Only one of the submissions—the government's—supported it. In other words, nobody else supported it. The government should be ashamed that it's trying to save money through our income support system, off the backs of migrants. And what did we get today? An announcement that the government may want to bring forward tax cuts off the backs of our income support system, off the backs of migrants in this country, making their lives more difficult. Shame on you, and shame on the opposition for supporting them and backing them in, because they want to use that $1.3 billion if they get into government. That's what that's about. They want to try and have a bet each way.
Have they talked or even looked at some of the evidence we got to the jobactive inquiry, where the Settlement Council gave very strong evidence about how jobactive isn't working for migrants? The government has set it up so you have to choose between attending your jobactive appointments and getting access to your English classes. No, I bet the opposition haven't paid any attention to that. Go and have a look at the evidence. It'll show you really strongly how migrants are not getting adequately supported through our systems in this country.
This is a dirty deal. There was no reason for them to do it—no reason. Did you come and talk to any of the crossbench? No, you didn't. You can't expect anything better from the government. We knew from these bills they were trying to do over our income support system and do over migrants with all the measures that were contained in it. They were not satisfied with making them wait three years. They've put it up to four years. That's what the Labor Party has backed in: a four-year waiting period for those on particular payments—particularly Newstart. We all know that Newstart is too low and needs to be increased, but at least it's better than nothing. That's what they're going to have: nothing. They'll have to rely on family support. We heard from the evidence given during the inquiry about the way that that sometimes falls apart. We heard that. We heard how families are going into debt, because they have to repay the special benefit. That comes out of the guarantee. We heard how families sometimes have to go into debt in order for people to be supported.
This is atrocious legislation. It's a bad day for our multicultural community in this country, a community which both those parties pretend to pride themselves on. And yet they're the very people they are doing over on this day. They are trying to sneak this through before we all go home for Christmas, hoping people will forget it when it comes time to vote next year, whenever it is that we actually go to the election. That's what they're hoping. So let's ram it through now—there's no time for a Senate inquiry, even though this bill is substantially different from those other bills! And the waiting period has gone from three years to four years; we were talking about three years when we had the inquiry. This is bad legislation. It didn't have to be this way, and it's the result of the Labor Party's efforts, doing dirty deals with the government.
Centre Alliance was never going to support this bill, for the obvious reason that the government never advanced a sound reason for increasing the newly arrived residents waiting period from the current two years. The bill was originally titled the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Encouraging Self-sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants) Bill 2018 and it's now morphed into what appears to be the more friendly-sounding Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018. What a joke! It is a joke.
It was sent to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry in March, with the committee being due to report back in May. However, the tabling of the report was pushed back 10 times. Why 10 times? Because Labor couldn't decide whether to do the right thing and oppose this bill or to pass it and use the savings for the time when they assume they will be in government. That is what this is all about. It's all about money. It's not about doing the right thing by migrants. So, instead, Labor brokered a compromise that no stakeholder was after. The reinvented bill was whisked through the other place yesterday and we on the crossbench have had not even 24 hours to digest the changes. So, next time Labor have a go at anyone else in this chamber for rushing legislation or guillotining debate, they should remember today and the shameful rush job they have engineered to the detriment of newly arrived migrants.
We have not been given any compelling reasons for extending the newly arrived residents waiting period, aside from the $1.3 billion in revenue the government expects to save over the forward years. The sum of $1.3 billion was in the original bill, and this is the same amount the government will reap after the so-called compromise bill we have before us today. In Labor's additional comments to the report of the inquiry, it highlighted its serious concern—serious concern—about the impact of extending the waiting period for newly arrived residents. Well, they are crocodile tears, because the day after the report was tabled we have been presented with a bill which extends the waiting period for a range of benefits not by three years, which was originally proposed in the bill, but by four years. So how can Labor say that they have serious concerns when they supported a longer waiting period?
The government and Labor are treating migrants as piggy banks by doubling the amount of time they will have to wait for benefits, without any thought whatsoever to the hardship this can cause. Both major parties should hang their head in shame at the cynical money-grabbing approach that they have taken with this bill. And, contrary to Senator Cameron's earlier assertions, if Labor had stood firm, this bill would absolutely have been defeated, and we'll see that with divisions very soon. The bill would have been defeated—let's be clear about that. So, if Labor had serious concerns, this bill could have been stopped.
In our dissenting report we recommended the bill be rejected in its current form. The deal that Labor has reached with the government does absolutely nothing to address the deep concerns we have about the bill and the deep concerns expressed by refugee and migrant organisations. New residents will, as we've said before, wait longer, and it puts them in a very vulnerable position. And if Labor thinks that it's doing new residents a favour, well, they are well and truly kidding themselves. Migrants are better off under the existing regime, not under the self-serving deal which we have before us today.
Under this bill permanent migrants will have to wait one year for family tax benefit part A, which helps low- to middle-income families with the cost of rearing their family, and they will have to wait two years for paid parental leave, and dad and partner pay. Single parents at least won't have to serve any waiting period for family tax part B or parenting payment, but carers—think about it: carers—will now have to wait one year for the carer allowance and two years before they can get a carer payment; that's two years.
Thanks to Labor and its deal with the government, new residents of working age will have to wait four years instead of the current two-year waiting period before they can claim Newstart, youth allowance, parenting payment, sickness allowance, bereavement allowance and a range of other benefits—so much for the Labor Party that prides itself on social issues. When I say four years, in reality it will be longer than that for many new residents because of the time it takes to achieve residency in the first place.
Many of us here would know of someone who has experienced—in fact even many in this place may have—a point in their lives where they have been forced temporarily onto benefits because of unforeseen circumstances such as suddenly losing a job or needing to care for a sick loved one. But, apparently, even though the rest of us would find it impossible to plan financially in advance for scenarios like that, new residents, new migrants, are now expected to do it for up to four years. So we'd find it impossible to plan, but we expect them to have the money and everything put aside for them to survive for four years.
Myriad reports indicate very strongly, and we know for a fact, that most migrants are already self-sufficient—they come here with the intention of working and supporting themselves. They don't come here to go on the dole. They don't come here to make the most of the benefits that Australia has to offer financially for those who do not contribute to society. It's plainly stupid for anyone to think that isn't the case. Non-humanitarian permanent migrants have high work participation rates, and in fact they already rely less on social security than the rest of the community does. But it's impossible, absolutely impossible, to guard against unexpected job losses and family breakdown, and these people should not be penalised for any of these instances.
The four-week waiting period is even being applied to the special benefit payment, which is a benefit of last resort. It's designed to help people in severe financial hardship who cannot access any other benefit. So, while there are some exceptions, it makes absolutely no sense to apply a waiting period of any kind to that benefit.
As I've said in my dissenting reports to the committee report, the bill also undermines the federal government's stated intention to tackle domestic violence against migrant families. In the same week that we have passed the Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill which aims to protect family members from potential violent sponsors, the government is attempting to shoehorn this bill which potentially makes domestic abuse victims reliant on sponsors for longer. We simply cannot support this. And, as we said in our dissenting report, we cannot support the original bill and we absolutely cannot support the revised version either. It does not in any way serve the interests of permanent residents who come to Australia and want to contribute and make Australia home. It pulls what are currently fair safety nets out from under them and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and severe hardship through no fault of their own.
We have started on a slippery slope. Newly arrived residents are now an easy target for so-called saviours, and I fear we'll be back here again in the future, fighting off further extensions of the waiting period for no other reason than the government, or the party that sees itself very soon being in government, wanting to line its pockets.
This bill that is before us today, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018, is the subject of a dirty deal done dirt cheap at the stroke of midnight between the Labor Party and the LNP. They've stitched up, under the cover of darkness, a bill that is a massive step backwards for multiculturalism in this country. It is a Trumpesque punishment of migrants in this country that Labor have stitched up with the Liberal Party so that they can get a few budget savings in before they take government next year and so they don't have to wear the flak as a government for doing this. This is a disgusting, disgraceful attack on some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and the Australian Greens will not have a bar of it.
What we've got here is the first taste of what legislation under a Labor government might look like when they win the election in the next six months. And the flavour of this legislation is just a slightly less potent form of the xenophobia that Minister Dutton, Prime Minister Morrison and One Nation have inflicted on the people of our country. This bill will inflict poverty, misery, destitution and homelessness on many thousands of people who are trying to get by and who have come here to make a contribution to our community and to make a contribution to the future of this country. It is straight out of the One Nation playbook, and Labor have signed onto it in a disgraceful cop-out, in a terrible sellout of migrants in Australia.
This bill punishes migrants because the LNP think it's in their political interests to do so and Labor have collapsed in a most spineless and cowardly way. What you're about to see in this Senate is conclusive proof that, if Labor had held onto their position, if Labor had rediscovered their spine, this bill would have gone down in the Senate, and the status quo would have remained. But, no, Labor stitched up a dirty deal under the cover of darkness to do over migrants in this country, and they should be ashamed.
It's interesting that Senator Cameron, who was sent in here by the right-wing powerbrokers of the Labor Party to front Labor's pathetic arguments for doing their deal today, has now fled the chamber and is not prepared to stand here and listen to the massive error of his ways. Labor have collapsed out of sheer cowardice on this legislation.
A lot of Labor people get upset when I keep pointing out their horrible voting record, because it pricks their conscience, let's face it, and I understand that many Australians want to see the progressive parties in this chamber work together. But how are we expected to work with Labor when they continually side with Peter Dutton to lock up innocent men, women and children on Nauru? They voted just this week to make it easier to send the Defence Force out onto Australian streets, potentially to use lethal force against Australian citizens, and now they're in here today doing over vulnerable migrants.
We cannot work with the Labor Party on these issues. It is our job in this place to stand up for the rule of law, to stand up for migrants, to stand up for refugees. We will continue to do it, and we will proudly continue to do it. Please, Labor, spare us and the Australian people this absolute nonsense about how the deal you've stitched up with the LNP is somehow better than a deal with One Nation. That is a big fat Labor lie, and it's about to be exposed when the division on the second reading of this bill occurs today. We will conclusively prove that, if Labor had held its ground, this bill would have gone down in the Senate, and the status quo would have remained.
You can bleat all you like about making life better for migrants with your dirty deal with Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. You can bleat all you like about it, but at the end of the day the proof will be in the pudding. That pudding will be baked when the division occurs on the floor of this Senate today. You will see the conclusive proof that, if you'd held your ground, you could have delivered a great outcome for migrants, but instead you've sold your souls, yet again, stitching up a deal to do over migrants and to make life far more difficult for many thousands of people who've come to this place to make a better life.
This is a Labor bill—make no mistake about it—because, if Labor hadn't stitched up a dirty deal, this bill would not be passing. You've got a government on its knees, in minority in the House of Representatives—absolutely down on their knees, falling apart before our very eyes. But Labor couldn't help themselves; they had to stitch up a deal, under the cover of darkness, to do over migrants. What a pathetic mob they are!
Let's be clear about this, Labor: you don't sit down at the table with racists and xenophobes. You do not compromise with those people. You don't take just the roughest edges off the agenda while passing 95 per cent of what they want and claim it as some kind of victory. What you do is: you stand up to them. You defeat them—you defeat them in the public debate, you defeat them on the streets, and you defeat them in this place. You don't cosy up to them with a pathetic deal, done under the cover of darkness, to do over migrants, like the Labor Party has in the last 24 hours.
But you know what? Once again, you're staying true to your history as a party. Look at the history of the Labor Party. This is what they do. Over its entire history, Labor has spent more of its history supporting the White Australia policy than they have opposing it. Racism and xenophobia have deep roots inside the Labor Party, and they've come to the surface today.
Your willingness to work with Minister Dutton and Prime Minister Morrison to torture refugees on Manus Island and Nauru is yet another example of that. You've refused to free the innocent children, men and women who are coming up on six years now in offshore detention since you put the overwhelming majority of them there in the first place. You disgust me! The Labor Party disgusts me.
You've refused to block the Adani coalmine. You go out and try to convince people you've got some decent climate plan, but you support the biggest climate-wrecking project in Australia's history. You won't commit to increasing Newstart, even while some people wither and suffer in poverty in this country and simply don't get enough to get by. And, as I said, just this week you voted to make it easier to send the Army out onto the streets to use lethal force against the Australian people.
Well, the Australian people are entitled to ask themselves: what kind of government—what kind of Labor government—are they going to vote in next year? I'll tell you what: if you want to be considered as any kind of progressive government when you win the election next year, you're going to have to do a lot better than you're doing at the moment. We cannot hope to properly come together in this place to fight racism, xenophobia and inequality while the Labor Party supports absolute rubbish like this legislation.
Now, a couple of comments on Senator Cameron's contribution. He had the absolute gall to trot out the old saying, 'Only the impotent are pure.' Well, if Senator Cameron's forgotten his history of the Labor Party, that was said by Gough Whitlam when he was trying to eat up and attack the left wing of his own party—the faction that Senator Cameron purports to be a part of. I can't believe he has quoted Whitlam, when Whitlam was trying to do over the left wing of the Labor Party with that quote. That was a little bit of a history lesson, because some of us don't forget when this stuff was said, who said it and the context in which it was said.
There has been a bit said about the positions of ACOSS and FECCA on this legislation. If you want to think what ACOSS and FECCA really think about this legislation, not what they've said in the last 24 hours, let's look at what they said about this legislation when it came to a parliamentary inquiry. ACOSS concluded:
There is no valid justification for this Bill. This Bill would simply serve to make life harder for recent migrants and their families.
The Australian Greens could not agree more with ACOSS's original position on this bill. Similarly, the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia said:
FECCA believes the proposed Bill would impose considerable hardship, and create an underclass of migrants who find themselves facing dire financial circumstances as they try to settle into Australia
The Australian Greens could not agree more with FECCA's original position on this bill. FECCA also said:
FECCA strongly believes that permanent migrants and their children should enjoy the same benefits as all residents, and that their transition to life in Australia should not be made more difficult, particularly when they have been acknowledged as possessing skills that are critical to our future prosperity.
The Australian Greens could not agree more with FECCA's original position on this bill.
Let's think about the philosophy behind this bill. What Labor and the Liberals are saying to recently arrived migrants is: you're expected to work and pay taxes in this country, but you don't get the benefit of the social security safety net that your taxes are paying for. In what world is that fair? On what planet was this a good deal for Labor to do? I'll tell you: on no planet, in no world, was this a good deal for Labor to do. They've copped out, they've sold out. The people who lose out are going to be recently arrived migrants in this country, some of whom will find it difficult to find work because together the major parties have established a system in this country where there is simply not enough work for everyone and they will be denied access to Newstart for four years. Inadequate as Newstart is, as Senator Siewert so eloquently put it, it's a whole lot better than nothing—and nothing is what you are voting together today to deliver to recently arrived migrants in the first four years that they are in this country.
I'm not surprised that Labor members have got their heads down. I'm not surprised they're sitting pretending to play on the iPads and iPhones, because they're deeply ashamed, or they should be, about the dirty deal that's been stitched up here. Unbelievable! Pathetic! Disgusting and disgraceful! That's how I feel about the Labor Party, and this is a classic example of why you need the Greens in the Senate: to hold Labor to account, make them more progressive and point out when they fall flat on their face and stitch up dirty deals with the LNP, the racists and the xenophobes in this place. This is why you need the Greens in the Senate to hold Labor to account, to force them to be a more progressive party than their history suggests they will be in government when they win the election next year.
It is so crucial that Labor is not allowed to win government and stitch up deals with One Nation, which this deal they have done shows that they are prepared to do. This is why you need the Greens in the Senate. This is why you need a Labor government held to account by the Greens in the Senate, and we will proudly continue to point out the perfidy, the secrecy, of this deal and its horrendous impact on some of the most vulnerable people in our country.
I am shocked by what I heard from the ALP this morning: to claim that they were forced to support the government on this bill because otherwise it would have passed with crossbench support is simply not true. I am opposed to this bill and will be voting against it, as are the Greens, Centre Alliance, and the Hinch Justice Party. This means that, with the opposition of the ALP, this bill will not have the numbers to pass. Worse still, the amendments agreed to by the ALP now actually increase the waiting period for a range of benefits from the three years proposed by the original bill to four years. It is particularly relevant to Newstart, which, as we know, from the passing of the welfare reform bill earlier this year, ties a number of payments to the Newstart payment itself. This extension of a range of benefits from three to four years is up from the current arrangement of two years, and the Labor Party seems more concerned about the money saved from this bill than the welfare of new arrivals in Australia. It seems they're preparing for government and having access to these savings to make possible use of them in their legislative programs.
Then we come to the name of the bill. The bill has gone from being called, in a somewhat Orwellian way, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Encouraging Self-sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants) Bill 2018 to now being called the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018. It can only be imagined whether it was the ALP that required this change to be made just in the last days. The release of the report of the committee inquiry undertaken by a range of senators was delayed many times, possibly 10 times. This legislation was brought into the other place and voted on in the last 24 hours. We heard from many social welfare groups, such as ACOSS and FECCA, who did not support the previous bill, and this bill extends many of the aspects of the previous one.
Migrants make an incredible contribution to our society. They start businesses, they pay their taxes, and they contribute to the growth and prosperity of the nation. Why should they not also have access to the safety nets we have in place to support people in Australia when times are tough? Inclusion has been one of the keys to success of Australia's multicultural society. And, bit by bit, we are undermining that inclusion by excluding new arrivals and those who entered Australia previously from the benefits that apply to other residents. The more we do this, the greater the risk of alienation and all the problems for society that that entails. I will always stand up for migrants in our community, and I'm incredibly disappointed that today the ALP has turned its back on them.
The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018 is an outrageous attack on migrants. It is punitive and it's xenophobic. There is no other way to describe it. This bill is an inhumane piece of legislation. It completely ignores the specific circumstances and the vulnerabilities of those it will most impact—those who most need support and help. And there is a human cost to measures like this. It may be a piece of paper for most of us in this place, but for me it's much more than that. I know firsthand the human cost of measures like this and their impact on people.
I came here as a migrant in 1992 with my husband, my one-year-old son and two suitcases—and that's a very typical migrant story. When we applied for permanent residency, we got it very quickly, because both of us were engineers and we were told that there was an acute shortage of engineers in Australia and that there would be lots of jobs available for us when we got here. But things were quite different when we actually did get here. It was the middle of the recession that apparently we had to have, jobs were few and far between, and of course we had the added burden of not having local experience, even though we had degrees that were recognised all over the world. And I can tell you that civil engineering experience is no different in Pakistan, in America or in Australia. We all know that resume racism does exist. We applied for hundreds of jobs but did not even get a look-in. While no-one would give us a job, and through no lack of trying on our side, the support system in Australia at that time did recognise that migrants do need financial assistance to survive, and we were provided that assistance. That was the only way we could have a roof over our head and food on the table for the first few months that we came to a new country where we literally knew no-one. My husband started to drive a taxi as soon as he got a licence and he passed the tests.
We are still here 27 years on. I studied here. I worked here as a civil and environmental engineer in local government, in consulting firms and as an academic. We're still here because we were supported in those early days. Like us, millions of other migrants who come here contribute to our society as much as any other Australian. To punish migrants as soon as they arrive here, when we invited them here, is absolutely despicable. And it's pretty rich of Labor to tell us that we don't understand the complexities. Well, I'll tell you what: I've lived those complexities, so don't come in here and preach to me! And the verbal gymnastics that Labor senators today are playing are absolutely fascinating. Pretending that they have no choice but to vote for this terrible bill is shameful. You do have a choice: vote against this horrific, xenophobic bill!
How can we set migrants up for success in Australia if we penalise them at the very time that they and their families most need support? This bill, and others like it, feed into this government's rhetoric that all immigrants come here just to access the social security system. Despite the dog whistling that happens in this place, people are trying to work hard and live through difficult times. But, just like anyone else, migrants can also fall on hard times. What this government, in cahoots with Labor, is doing is taking away that security net and potentially allowing tens of thousands of people to fall through it. Migrants pay income tax. We pay the GST. We pay every other tax that any other Australian pays, but you want to treat us as second-class citizens. If someone is caring for someone with a disability or a severe illness, perhaps their child or their partner, what exactly is Labor's and the government's advice for them in that first year that they are now excluding them from carer payments? If a migrant loses their job or is made redundant or takes some time to find another job, what shall they do? Where should they go? And tell me, senators, what should they do without? Food? Medicine? A roof over their heads?
This bill has been rushed through. It wasn't even on the Senate agenda this week, and it was rushed through the lower house last night, shamefully with Labor sitting not in opposition but cosying up to the government to stitch up this dirty deal, this attack on migrants. Shame on you, Labor! Here we are this morning debating the bill with a weak opposition getting ready to wave it through. Have some integrity! The committee report on this bill had barely been printed when the government decided to rush it through. We know—and the inquiry into this bill stated very clearly—that the vast majority of recent migrants do not access the welfare social security system unless they really need it. But now, under this extremely dirty deal, those who do need it will not be able to access Newstart welfare payments for their first four years in Australia. This means that migrants and their families will not be able to access this support even if they lose their jobs. This is creating another class of people in this country—a second-class people who cannot access the safety nets available to all the rest of us. This is a punitive and deeply unfair measure that has a terrible stench of xenophobia. As a migrant, I find Labor's position on this disgusting and cowardly. If you are going to stab migrants in the back, look us in the face as you do it. Don't pretend that you're doing it for our own good. Don't sit here and pretend you had no other option, when it is your votes that will pass this bill.
The government may be trying to couch this as a money-saving measure in the budget, but it's nothing more than yet another attack on migrants, which this government and the weak and complicit Labor opposition have cooked up together. Let's tax the coalmining companies that get billions of dollars in subsidies—money that belongs to Australian taxpayers. The Greens have plenty of other ideas to offer this government to craft a better and fairer budget, but attacking migrants is definitely not one of them. Labor needs to show some guts. We know that you don't really have a backbone, but show some guts today and vote against this horrible piece of legislation.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance summed it up, I thought, pretty well when they said during the bill's inquiry:
Whilst the title of the bill is encouraging self-sufficiency for newly arrived migrants, we don't see it as encouraging self-sufficiency so much as being highly punitive and certainly not achieving any laudable or plausible aim.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance further said:
We're not aware of any evidence at all that suggests there is a link between increasing self-sufficiency on the part of migrants and delaying payments for a period of a further year—in other words, discriminating in an active fashion. I'm not aware of that evidence. If there is evidence and data we'd be happy to see it, but we're certainly not aware of it.
This is true. There is not a shred of evidence that supports increasing the wait times for migrants to access social security. There already is a waiting period, and the Department of Social Services' own submission fails to provide any rationale for why it needs to be extended at all. This is a disgusting, xenophobic attack by the Liberal and Labor parties, and you should all be ashamed of it.
Transparency, accountability, a willingness to discuss the ideas, the policies, which you believe to be best for the Australian nation—this is what the people of this country should be able to expect from their government. If they can't find it in their government, good God, they should be able to find it in their opposition, but both are absent on the field. This is a dirty, xenophobic deal, done in the dead of the night, attempting to sneak past the Australian people the reality that, under this legislation, migrants will be forced to go without access to Newstart for four years. What do the opposition propose that they do? How do they expect them to live? They have no answer, for the only reason they support this legislation is the $1.3 billion that they think they can pour into their election war chest to fight the government. They would take this money from this group in the full knowledge that they will face no electoral consequence at the ballot box, because these people can't vote. Shame on you!
There was a time when I considered myself a supporter of the Australian Labor Party, and it is on days like this that I am reminded of exactly why I could never put my name nor my vote to this organisation. The light in this place falls down upon the chamber, and you are revealed as spineless cowards who would sell out vulnerable people, who would attempt to sneak legislation that you are ashamed of past the Australian public in the dead of the night so that you can meet your election objectives and avoid a bad headline in the Murdoch press. You would condemn children, mothers and fathers, families, to poverty rather than confront this government.
This is not a decision you had to make; this is a decision you wanted to make. You weighed the lives and the security of migrant families—folks who come to this country seeking a better life, people who, from the moment they arrive, are required to pay taxes—against your own desire to roll out a campaign across Queensland and Western Sydney. You decided: 'Why the hell not? It won't come back to bite us. Nobody will notice. We'll move it through in 24 hours and nobody will be any the wiser.' I can tell you: they bloody well are. You ask, Senator Cameron—through you, Chair—whether anybody has let him know of the position upon which the Labor Party had taken—
Senator Steele-John, I'll just get you to hold on for a second. Minister, on a point of order?
I understand that Senator Steele-John is making an impassioned speech, but I do think an appropriate use of language should be applied.
I remind the senator that there is a fine line between passion and choosing the right language.
Thank you, Chair. I would remind the government that there is a fine line between humanity and cruelty. Your legislation, which you bring in here, has been condemned as imposing unnecessary harm upon migrant families. I do wonder at the psychopath who sits at the heart of a government who wakes up in the morning and decides that the day's agenda will be filled with plunging migrant families into poverty. More than anything else, I wonder about the nature of the soul that inhabits an opposition that, upon hearing of that plan, would wave it through.
Do you know what? I've spent too much time in my community in Rockingham, in Western Australia, talking with people who have been affected directly by your systematic cowardice when it comes to welfare policy to let you off this one. It was you lot who chucked single mothers and single parents off Newstart. It was you lot who got together and changed the impairment tables on the disability support pension. I have not forgotten that, and neither has the disability community.
What, ultimately, is the point in your political project if you are willing to engage in this kind of soulless, calculated politics? What is the point in you, as an organisation, if you are willing to trade the lives of vulnerable people for an enlargement of your electoral war chest? How dare you come into this place and attempt to defend it as anything other than the shrewd political manoeuvre it is. My colleague Senator Faruqi is absolutely right—you have no right to lecture anybody on the experience of migrants in this country. I want to commend my colleague Senator Rachel Siewert for the speech she has just given in this chamber. Rachel has spent a decade or more trying to work with you, constantly bringing your attention to the flaws in the legislation that you put forward or that you propose to support, and nine out of 10 times you bat it back. You say: 'Oh, it's too much trouble. There's this reason. There's that reason.' Well, I want to commend her for her work, for her ceaseless advocacy for those she has given voice to over the decade when you turned them away, when you decided that you would condemn them.
If ever there was a question in the minds of the Australian public, in the minds of all those who care about vulnerable people, as to whether there is a need for the Greens in this place and whether you can be trusted to act in the interests of the vulnerable people of this nation, I can think of no better example than this. And I pledge every fibre of my being, for every moment that I'm given here by the people of Western Australia, to hold you to account. You may well sit there playing with your phones, but we are on the watch. We will hold you to account. We will not let you forget.
Voters in this country very shortly are going to be facing an election, and Australian voters have a clear choice to make. I hope Australians are paying attention to what's happening in this chamber today, and to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018, because there are some very instructive lessons that might help them make their decisions when they go to the polling booths early next year. Before us we have a piece of legislation that every single Australian who is progressive, who cares about helping the vulnerable, who cares about a social safety net, which is part of the backbone of this country, and who cares about the role of government in protecting the vulnerable should be paying attention to.
They have a choice. They can turf out this government, and they're probably not surprised that we're seeing a piece of legislation like this from the Liberal-National Party. Sadly, going back to 2013, to the zombie budget cuts, the cruel and heartless agenda of, at that time, Senator Cormann and Mr Joe Hockey, this is exactly what we saw then. Clearly, the Liberal-National Party haven't changed their spots in five years. They haven't learnt their lessons. Certainly in my home state of Tasmania, where the so-called three amigos were all turfed out because three electorates had some of the most vulnerable people in this country, they clearly haven't learnt their lesson. But that's not surprising. I'm a bit of a cynic, having been in this chamber for a few years now. That ideology and philosophy are firmly embedded within the Liberal Party.
But I am surprised that Labor are supporting this. We've heard some fantastic contributions from my colleagues today. I'm not going to go into the detail, but I do want to raise a point that Australians need to think about. Those who care about a progressive country, those who care about the role of government in looking after the most vulnerable and about managing this country so that everybody has a fair go, need to remember this legislation and remember that the Labor Party in government are capable of doing exactly what the Liberal-National Party have done in government. They need an influence in this chamber, the Senate, to hold the Labor Party to account, and that's exactly what the Greens are doing today. That's what we've done since we've been in the Senate, since the early 1990s, and that's what we will continue to do.
This is exactly the example they need to look at to understand that parties of government will do what parties of government do: make decisions that are in their self-interest. In the interest of getting elected, they will put their own interests ahead of the interests of the people, especially vulnerable people—essentially a 'whatever it takes' approach to getting elected.
One point of difference in the contribution today that I want to make is that, in the context of the debate today, it's very important to note a report this morning in The Age, in the Fairfax media, that the government are planning to bring forward over $10 billion of personal income tax cuts for medium- and high-income Australians—income tax cuts that the Greens opposed when they were first proposed by the government in their last budget. The idea is that somehow we will now take our $200 billion fiscal war chest—that's the way it's been described in this article—and reward high-income earners in this country and continue to lock in inequality, and this is when we're taking a billion dollars, through this legislation, away from some of the most vulnerable people in our country. It's a stark contrast. The motivations behind this are very clear, in my books. The government are going to run a campaign to get themselves elected. That's what governments and political parties do. They're going to offer Australians an inducement: to take a tax cut and vote for them.
The question I have today is: what are the Labor Party going to do when these tax cuts come before this parliament? Labor have said that they won't support these tax cuts to medium- and high-income earners because they're too far into the future—they're in the never-never. They're not taking them seriously. If the government do bring them forward in their budget next year—and we have been told that the budget is likely to be on 3 April, if the calendar stays as is—then it's very clear that we will need to make a decision, if the legislation comes before this chamber or even if it doesn't. The voters will want to know how the major parties, the minor parties and the crossbench will vote on bringing forward tax cuts. So Labor have to think long and hard about this. If the political debate is going to be around those tax cuts, and that's clearly going to be a major campaign for the Liberal Party to get themselves elected, we will continually remind the Australian people and the Labor Party that they voted for a piece of legislation today to take a billion dollars away from some of the country's most vulnerable people while it's well known that we are entering a period of fiscal stability and fiscal surplus, when there is money available to help the most vulnerable people in this country. Decisions are being made by politicians and political parties in their own self-interest to give tax cuts to high-income Australians when it's a time when we can actually afford to look after our most vulnerable.
Senator Siewert has consistently raised the issue of Newstart, and she did so very eloquently in this chamber this morning. Seventy-five dollars a week is what the Greens want to see as an increase in Newstart. It is not enough to live on and it's a particularly big issue in my home state of Tasmania. In the north of Tasmania we saw, during the Braddon by-election, that the issue of raising Newstart was very important for voters. We know that raising Newstart can also stimulate the economy. It can be good for small businesses and good for the economy because that money is spent directly in local economies. It's not discretionary expenditure; it's usually money that goes straight to essentials, so it has a very direct impact on stimulating a local economy as well as helping the most vulnerable. So we have money to increase Newstart; we have money, for God's sake, to look after immigrants in this country when they arrive and they're vulnerable. We don't need to do this. We can afford not to do this.
For those of you who aren't interested in the values based propositions in this debate, at least think about the economic proposition. This country doesn't need to do this. We can afford to look after migrants when they come to Australia. Migrants have helped build this nation. We all know that. We're well represented in this chamber and in the other place by people who have come to this country and have contributed. Senator Faruqi spoke very passionately about this earlier. Why are we doing this? We're doing this because this is dog-whistle politics—taking money off the most vulnerable at a time when it's absolutely not necessary to do so. We've got to make a very strong statement about our priorities as politicians, as senators, as individuals and, of course, as members of different political parties.
I'll just state finally that the policies and priorities of my party have never wavered. We will look after the vulnerable, and we will find ways to pay for it. We will have responsible policies that can raise revenue and help look after this nation's most vulnerable. Right here, right now, this country is about to go into a period where we will have extra money; we do have higher receipts than expected. We should be thinking now about how we can look after this nation's most vulnerable, not getting together to pass legislation like this. It is totally unnecessary. It is totally uncalled for. It is dog-whistle politics at its worst, and people won't forget. The Greens will be here in the Senate to continue to remind both the major parties that they have a duty, a responsibility and an obligation to this nation's most vulnerable—an obligation to reduce inequality, to restructure the economy and to put up big ideas that we know can help the lives of all Australians no matter who they are. This is not necessary, and the Greens wouldn't be supporting it.
It's very interesting to listen to some of the comments made today in regard to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 201. What this bill is about is extending the welfare waiting period for newly arrived residents from two years to three years. These are nearly arrived residents to Australia—migrants—who have chosen to leave their country to come here to our country. Do Australians want migrants coming here to end up on our welfare system and get handouts? No, they don't. On a nearly daily basis, as I travel through rural and regional towns, I see people struggling to pay their electricity bills and get housing. In Canberra, when I drive back to my apartment after leaving this place, I see many homeless on our streets, with all their goods and blankets, trying to keep warm on cold Canberra nights. I speak with Defence personnel who have fought for our country and sacrificed their lives. They have PTSD and other issues and problems. It's estimated that about 4,000 are homeless and have drug or alcohol problems. But that's not addressed. We have families living in cars. We have Aboriginal communities that need help and assistance. But I hear from people in this parliament worrying about those who have chosen to come to our country that we should be looking after the vulnerable. Well, 'the vulnerable' starts here in our own country first and foremost.
Should we give migrants carers allowance, bereavement allowance, widows allowance and parenting payments in such a short time—after being here for two years—which they get at the moment? Or is it fair to say, 'Prove your worth to this country and make sure you haven't come here just for the welfare handouts'? I don't think it is unreasonable to ask these people to wait an extra year. The Australian people are paying taxes in this country for migrants who come here of their own choice. I don't think it's unreasonable to say to the migrants: 'Make sure you can provide for yourself. You've really given nothing to this country, so don't expect to come here and have all the handouts.' We are the fools of the world: 'Come on down to Treasure Island!'—that's what Australia's all about. I hear my crossbench colleagues in this place saying that we're a very well-to-do country. With a nearly $600 billion debt, on which we pay approximately $15 billion to $18 billion a year in interest, we're 'well to do'? What are we handing down to our future generations? Let's look at our welfare bill. Around $185 billion a year is spent on welfare in this country. Who's going to pay for this? Are you going to say to the people out there, 'Sorry, you're going to have to pay more taxes'? It doesn't cut the mustard with the Australian people.
I am so proud of the Labor Party that you're now going to support this because you can see some common sense. Don't take any notice of the Greens or anyone else in this place calling you racist because these are migrants coming from another country. It has nothing to do with racism. This is about common sense and worrying about the Australian taxpayer out there, who's had a gutful of paying their taxes constantly, all the time, and seeing them go to places where they shouldn't. We hear the Greens in this place stand up constantly, all the time, talking about how they want more money towards health, more money towards education and more money given out left, right and centre, but they never come up with the policies of how you are going to do it. They can have all of these handout policies. I don't hear any policy of where they are going to get the money from. It is an absolute disgrace. I see them as nothing but a socialist communist party that wants to shut down businesses, farming and everything in this country—these industries that provide us with the income with which we can actually pay for those services in Australia.
What we need on the floor of parliament is some common sense and to start respecting Australians out there, their taxes and where that money goes. We spend about $15 billion a year in welfare for permanent residents in Australia—not those people who have taken out Australian citizenship, who are proud to be Australians. We pay permanent residents approximately $15 billion a year out of the $185 billion that we pay out in social service and welfare bills in this country. No wonder we are going further and further into debt. I will give credit where credit's due, because the Liberal Party have pulled back a lot. They are bringing the budget back into surplus, but a lot of people forget about this. They don't want to talk about this. Heaven help us if the Labor Party get the reins of this government, because they're not economic managers of this country, and they took the debt from $56 billion up to over $270 billion or $280 billion when they were in government last time. It's going to be a spending spree, and they're going to destroy the housing market with their changes to negative gearing and also the capital gains tax. Then, on top of that, they're going to bring in death duties, plus the carbon tax on cars, which is the problem happening over in France. So we're in for a bloody rocky road if the Labor Party get hold of the government. What's going to happen in Australia is going to be an absolute crying shame. I wish they'd come forward with their policies on immigration. The numbers are going to expand in that as well, with more refugees. The floodgates are going to open with the 14,000 waiting up in Indonesia to flood here into Australia. So where is the money going to come from for all that? How are you going to pay for all that?
So I am pleased that the Labor Party can see the writing on the wall with their policies, because then they are going to explain that to the people, but they're going to pull it back. So I am pleased to see that, in Labor, common sense prevailed and that Labor will support the government on this bill, which is common sense. But the Greens and the Centre Alliance believe that these people have a right to be looked after. No, make the decision before you come to this country, and don't expect the Australian people to be supporting you when we can't look after our own—when we can't provide the services that we need for our own Australian people here. I will not stand in this place and represent and look after those that come here. My duty is to the Australian people first and foremost, to make sure they're looked after. Clean up our own backyard first, make sure they're provided for, and then you can look after other people. But it's their choice to come here to Australia.
So I do support the government on this bill, and I will just make it quite clear that there weren't deals done, as the Labor Party will say. There were no deals whatsoever. My voting record shows that I support legislation that is right for this country and for the Australian people. That's what I do. If Labor end up in government, my decision on any legislation they put up would be based on its merit and whether it is right for this country, not on whether they're going to buy my vote or try to convince me to provide my vote. That does not cut with me.
So One Nation will be supporting this bill, and I'm pleased to see it introduced on the floor of parliament. Shame on the other political parties who are not here to back the Australian people first and foremost.
I could say a lot about this piece of legislation, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018, and the fact that the government, with the support of the Labor Party, are backing in a bill that attacks newly-arrived migrants to Australia and makes life harder for them. But perhaps the most damning indictment is Senator Hanson's support for this piece of legislation. Senator Hanson just said in her contribution that she's proud of the Labor Party for supporting this piece of legislation. She's proud of you. You've had a ringing endorsement from One Nation and Senator Hanson, for a piece of legislation that attacks the rights of people who come to this country to make a contribution here. I hope you feel proud about that!
I hope that ringing endorsement is ringing in your ears as you stand with the government to support a piece of legislation that says this. Let's say, for example, that you are a migrant who has come to Australia on a skilled visa or a family visa, that you've come here because you've got a promise of work. You want to make a contribution to this country. You want to start a better life for yourself. You start work in a small business. Things seem to be going well. But, before you know it, in six months time, the business goes under—it just doesn't work out. Well, under this piece of legislation, you're out on the street. You're not going to get the support that you need. You're going to be faced with a different set of rules and conditions from those that other Australians have to live with. In a decent country we say to people who live here: 'We're going to look after you if you don't have employment, if you can't put a roof over your head, if you can't put food on the table.'
Senator Hanson also talks about looking after Australians. Well, I've got news for Senator Hanson: these people are Australian. In Australia, nearly 50 per cent of people were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas. These people are Australian. They are why Australia is such a rich, prosperous nation. We are the incredible nation that we are because of the contribution of so many people who come here to make Australia their home. These people are Australian. They might not be Australian citizens yet. If they were, they could go out and get the support they needed before they found their next job. But these people who've come here are, for all intents and purposes, making a contribution; they are sending their kids to school, contributing to local communities and helping their local economy. If, through no fault of their own, their employer ceases their employment, or the business goes under, we're saying to them: 'Tough luck. You're out on your own. We're not going to look after you.' I just say to the Labor Party that you should be an opposition here, that you should be an opposition party. This is bad government legislation.
We know where the next election is going. We know that this will be an election fought on fear and division. We just saw that in Victoria. In Victoria the Labor Party and the Greens stood against that agenda, and the Labor Party was rewarded for it. They fought a campaign fought on fear and division. They fought against a campaign that was designed to divide the Australian community. And the people of Victoria said: 'Do you know what? We want a bit of hope. We want our governments not to prey on base instincts but to actually have a vision for our country—a vision that's more decent, more compassionate and more caring.'
This piece of legislation is punitive. This says everything about the coalition government. It says everything about its cruel, inhumane approach to people who come from overseas. It's shown its true colours when it comes to the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. It's shown its true colours through attacks on settlement services. We once had a proud record of leading the world when it comes to settlement services—the support that we provided to migrants through housing services, through language and education services, through assisting people to get employment and, of course, through looking after people during that difficult period. We once led the world. Yet this government, in attempting, again, to divide the community, is showing its true colours. It's not just attacking people who might not have been born here; it's also attacking people who are down on their luck. These are the two areas in which the coalition has shown itself to be the mean, cruel, nasty government that Australians are rejecting and will reject in a few months time.
We believe that income support is something we should be proud of—to be able to offer help and assistance to people at a time when they might not be able to find a job. We think that's a good thing. It's a good thing that a rich, prosperous nation can provide universal health care, public education, support to assist someone to pay their rent and an income to put food on their table. Yet what we see, consistently, are attacks on people who are vulnerable, people who, often for brief periods of time, don't have the means to support themselves, and attacks on people from different cultural backgrounds. It sums up this government.
My colleague Senator Faruqi made an impassioned contribution about how important this sort of assistance was to her. Could there be a better example than somebody who has come to this country, who has worked hard, who has made an enormous contribution and who now sits in the Senate representing the state of New South Wales? There she was, in 1992, coming to Australia with her husband, her child and a couple of suitcases, becoming an engineer, along with her husband, working hard, providing for her family, getting some support from the government, and now she is paying it back in spades. That's not an unusual story; that's the story of millions of Australians—getting a little bit of support to begin with, and then paying this nation back in spades.
Creating jobs, creating businesses, contributing to local communities—that is the story of multicultural Australia, yet it seems that this government is intent on attacking it. The great shame here is that it's with the support of the Australian Labor Party. Government is about choices. You've got a choice to be mean and nasty to people who come to Australia to contribute and to add to this nation. You can be mean and tricky to them. You can be nasty. You can make life harder for them, if you want to, in an attempt to pinch a few dollars and try and steal a few votes from One Nation, because, let's be frank, that's what this is about: let's beat up on immigrants and refugees; let's pitch to the One Nation supporter base. You can do that, or you can be a decent society where you provide people with the means they need to be able to put a roof over their head and feed their family.
Here's a suggestion: instead of accelerating those $10 billion of income tax cuts—tax cuts that go to people on $120,000 a year—instead of spending billions of dollars to bribe people in the lead-up to an election, how about putting those on hold and continuing to support multicultural Australia and people who come to this country?
That's what you should be doing. But, because you don't have the guts to stand up to One Nation, we end up with policies like this. And here we are. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if it weren't for the Labor Party. I say to them: why is it that you would want the endorsement of Senator Hanson? What is it about this piece of legislation that means that you want to get in there with the coalition and Senator Hanson and attack a community that you once represented? We know that this is being rushed through this chamber in unseemly haste because of this dirty deal you've done with the Liberal Party to sell out these people. They might not vote yet, but, let me tell you, this is a community of people that have built Australia. The success of Australia is built on the contributions of people that you are selling out today.
Many of the contributors to the inquiry into this piece of legislation made it very clear that there's no place for a discriminatory policy like this which removes income support from these people who will pay it back in spades. I want to take a moment to appeal to FECCA, an organisation that we've worked with closely over many years, to ask Labor to reconsider their views on a bill that is quite clearly intended to make life harder for migrants and ethnic communities right around the country. If Labor were to vote with the Greens and the crossbench, this bill would be defeated. We need to ensure that you understand that it is the Labor Party who are facilitating the passage of this legislation.
We've got a bill that wasn't even on the Senate agenda at the start of this week, and, because last night the Labor Party decided to join with the Liberal Party, we're now here, without even having been given the due courtesy of letting us know this was coming up for debate. We have the Labor Party cosying up to the government to stitch up a deal that attacks migrants. How does that happen? I look across the chamber and I note that members of the Labor Party have their heads down and are not engaging in this. They're quite clearly ashamed of the fact that the most ringing endorsement of their position comes from Senator Hanson. I'll remind you again of what she said: 'I am proud of the Labor Party for finally realising we have legislation that looks after Australians.'
Well, guess what? The nation of Australia is a nation of migrants. It's a nation built on the back of the contributions of families like Senator Faruqi's and like my own family—people who came here and, with the support of the Australian government, were given some modest assistance to start their life. They were given assistance to settle, to learn the English language and to put a roof over their head and house their families. They were given assistance to find employment and they were given income support for that short period of time when they were not able to look after themselves. But they knew they were coming to a decent country that would look after them, and they were prepared to make a commitment that, if they were being looked after, they would make sure they contributed to this nation. So here it is: we've entered an election period based on race baiting and dog whistling, an election period that targets people who have come here to make Australia their home. Rather than embracing the diversity that is the Australian community, it seems the two major parties are rejecting it.
Let me tell you a few things. People who migrate to Australia pay income tax. They pay the GST. They contribute to their communities. They send their kids to schools. They make sure that they get an education. They become the nurses and doctors and teachers of tomorrow—
Order! Senator Di Natale, you'll be in continuation when debate resumes. It being 11.45 am, we will move on.
On behalf of Senator Bushby, I present the 14th report of 2018 of the Selection of Bills Committee, and I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The report read as follows—
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Report no. 14 of 2018
1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 28 November 2018 at 7.30 PM.
2. The committee recommends that—
(a) the provisions of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral).
3. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:
• Australian Cannabis Agency Bill 2018
• Australian Research Council Amendment (Ensuring Research Independence) Bill 2018
• Customs Amendment (Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2018
Customs Tariff Amendment (Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2018
• Electoral Legislation Amendment (Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2018
• Future Drought Fund Bill 2018
Future Drought Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2018
• Halal Certification Transitional Authority Bill 2018
• Intelligence Services Amendment Bill 2018
• Migration Amendment (Streamlining Visa Processing) Bill 2018
• Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australia Fund Bill 2018
• Social Services Legislation Amendment (Ending the Poverty Trap) Bill 2018
• Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Supporting Retirement Incomes) Bill 2018.
4. The committee considered the following bills but was unable to reach agreement (see appendix 2 for statements of reasons for proposed referrals):
• Australian Citizenship Amendment (Strengthening the Citizenship Loss Provisions) Bill 2018
• Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
• National Integrity Commission Bill 2018
• National Integrity (Parliamentary Standards) Bill 2018
• Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty Consequential Amendments Bill 2018 and the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Bill 2018
• Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Bill 2018.
(David Bushby)
Chair
29 November 2018
Appendix 1
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill:
Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2018
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
To be determined by the committee
Possible reporting date:
11 February 2019
Appendix 2
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill:
Australian Citizenship Amendment (Strengthening the Citizenship Loss Provisions) Bill 2018
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Possible hearing date(s):
23 January 2019
Possible reporting date:
Second sitting Wednesday of 2019
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill:
Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
13 and 14 December 2018
Possible reporting date:
First sitting Wednesday of 2019
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bills:
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Committee to which bills are to be referred:
Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
To be determined by the Committee
Possible reporting date:
5 April 2019.
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill:
Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty Consequential Amendments Bill 2018, and Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Bill 2018
Reasons for ref erral/principal issues for consideration:
Impact on Australia's relationship with Timor Impact on business in the region
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science
Woodside
ConocoPhillips
Santos
INPEX
Eni
Tokyo Timor Sea Resources
Woodside
Shell
Osaka Gas
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Senate Economics Legislation Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
To be determined by the committee
Possible reporting date:
12 February 2019
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill:
Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Bill 2018
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
This Bill responds to the ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce Report, released in December 2017.
Since this Report was released, the Banking Royal Commission has uncovered widespread and systematic misconduct across the financial services industry.
Given the new evidence that has come to light, it would be appropriate to refer the Bill to inquiry for careful consideration to ensure it sufficiently strong and robust to tackle corporate misconduct.
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Consumer Action Law Centre, Financial Rights Legal Centre, ASIC, the ACCC, experts on corporate misconduct and financial crime, the Law Council of Australia, State, Territory and International Bar Associations (e.g. the Victorian Bar and Criminal Bar Association), state and territory law associations/institutes (e.g. Law Institute of Victoria, NSW Law Society).
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Senate Economics Legislation Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
to be determined by the committee
Possible reporting date:
12 February 2019
I move:
That the report be adopted.
I move the following amendment:
At the end of the motion, add "and, in respect of the—
the bills not be referred to committees for inquiry and report.".
These three bills are bills that the Greens thought should be referred. We do not believe that these bills should be dealt with in this way, not being reviewed by the broader committees in this parliament, because the Greens want an opportunity to be involved in the inquiry into these bills. Doing it this way locks out the Greens from being involved in inquiries into these bills. We believe they require broader scrutiny, so we're disappointed that the government has moved to not refer these. We couldn't reach agreement on these, but we will not call a division; we just want our deep concern registered that these bills have not been referred to the appropriate committees.
The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Fifield be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Collins, I move the amendment circulated in the chamber:
At the end of the motion, add:
"(a) and, in respect of the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 5 April 2019;
(b) and, in respect of the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty Consequential Amendments Bill 2018 and the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Bill 2018, the provisions of the bills be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 February 2019;
(c) and, in respect of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Bill 2018, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 February 2019;
(d) and, in respect of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2018, the provisions of the bill not be referred to a committee."
I seek leave to amend the motion in the terms that I believe have been circulated in the chamber, the effect of which is to change the reporting date for the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018, which has been referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, from 5 April to 12 February.
You don't need leave. I'll take that as you moving the amendment to Senator Collins's amendment.
At the request of Senator Siewert, I move:
In paragraph (a), omit "5 April 2019", substitute "12 February 2019".
Mr President, do I have the opportunity to speak briefly to that?
You do.
I am incredibly disappointed that we have a chance now, in this term of government, to actually pass a bill to establish a National Integrity Commission, this federal anticorruption watchdog that the public has been desperate to get for so long and that the Greens have been working for since 2009 with motions, with bills and with inquiries, but what's happened here is that the two big parties have ganged up and sent this off for inquiry with a report date past the budget, when we all know that the parliament will be prorogued and we'll be in an election campaign. It is just a little bit too convenient that this date has been chosen. This is effectively killing the member for Indi's bill to establish an ICAC, and we all in this chamber know it.
I want to make sure that the public and anyone who's listening to this understands what's going on here. I think it's an absolute abomination. We know that we have the numbers to establish an ICAC. We can all see what's happening in the House, the disarray that the government have fallen into and the fact that they have now lost the numbers. There is enough support in both chambers to set up a federal anticorruption body. I'm about to introduce a bill, when we move to the next part of business, to do just that. Ms McGowan has introduced a bill. We don't care whose bill gets up.
The Australian public don't care whose name is on this; they just want this outcome. They are desperate to get their democracy back. It is laughable that there is an assertion that there's no corruption and that this body is not needed. The Commonwealth is the last jurisdiction to not have an anticorruption body. Today the ACT are passing a bill to set up an anticorruption watchdog in their jurisdiction. We are the last ones that don't have this body that holds us all to account.
The Australian public's opinion of all of us in here is very low—and is it any wonder when you are standing in the way of a watchdog, a body, that looks into corruption, dodgy dealing, donations that buy policy outcomes, and fancy lunches that buy access and policy outcomes? We've got a chance to actually clean up democracy. We've got a chance to get the vested interests out of democracy and put the people back in. That's what we're elected to do. What's happening here is that you two have stitched up a deal to kick this off into the long grass. It is absolutely outrageous. We've been working on this for 10 years—and over my dead body will we stop working on this, because this is an issue that the Australian public want action on.
Opposition senators interjecting—
I'm sorry that you find that amusing. The Australian public don't find it amusing. They want action on this. We've got the chance to do that and, instead, you're sending this off to an inquiry that won't report until after the election is called. What a joke! What you're doing is killing this bill.
I hope that we get support for the bill that I'll be moving to introduce very shortly. But, as I say, I don't mind whose bill gets up. The Australian public don't care whose name is on the front cover; they just want an anticorruption body. So I would urge both sides of the chamber to support my amendment to bring the report date forward to 12 February. There's still time to look into this bill. We can still look at how it's going to work. We can still give consideration to potential amendments and tweaks if those are deemed necessary. We can still follow that decent process, but we could then still have time to pass this body and make it happen.
The fact that you're standing in the way of that really puts the lie to the fact that you supported my motion last week to set up an anticorruption body. If you don't want to do it, why did you say you do? We had support for that motion. A vote wasn't even called in the House. Obviously, that's because the government knew they were going to lose. Labor supported the motion. If you say you support a federal anticorruption body, why don't you follow through when you've got the chance to do that? Surely that's the least that the Australian public can expect of us in here.
I rise to speak on the amendment and the comments just made by Senator Waters. Labor has a very strong position in relation to a national integrity commission. I chaired the last Senate inquiry and I was the deputy chair of the inquiry prior to that. I know which senators have a long-term commitment in relation to establishing a national integrity commission, and I take lectures like that from the senator as they should be taken.
The clear position of the Labor Party is that we will, in government, introduce a national integrity commission within the first 12 months. But we have to make sure that we get such a body right. The Senate committee has not looked into this matter in such detail, with very clear recommendations, of the process that needs to occur to rush it in a way which will establish a commission that does not have the support and the standing that it will need to have in the future. Labor has a very strong position. In government we will establish a commission, but we will get that process right. We have heard a number of concerns in relation to the McGowan bill. We understand the good faith in which it's being progressed, but there are some sensitive issues that need to be managed effectively and it should not be rushed.
We will be supporting part (a) of the motion moved by Senator Urquhart and we do so fully supportive of a national integrity commission. The bill that has been introduced by Ms McGowan in the House of Representatives was co-sponsored by Ms Rebekha Sharkie. We accept, as Labor does, that the bill is not perfect but that it's a foundation upon which we can work. We would also suggest that this is the sort of bill that you can't rush through a parliament. It involves intrusive and coercive powers. It involves complex concepts, and it even crosses into complex areas of law. So this should not be rushed. It should be dealt with diligently and properly by the Senate. We will be supporting that motion. I'd just ask that, when this motion is moved, we have an opportunity to vote on (a) and (b) as one group and (c) and (d) as a separate group, unless someone else wants to break it up further.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Waters on behalf of Senator Siewert to amend the motion moved by Senator Urquhart on behalf of Senator Collins be agreed to.
I will now put the amendment as it was moved by Senator Urquhart. Senator Fifield, did you request that matters (a) and (b) be dealt with separately to (c) and (d)?
No, Senator Patrick asked that (a) and (b) be put separately, but I would like (c) to be put separately.
Okay. I just need a name for the record. Senator Patrick, you're requesting that (a) and (b) be dealt with separately?
Mr President, I ask that (a) and (b) be put together and that (c) and (d) be put together, unless someone wants it broken up further.
I'll deal with (a) and (b) first if the Senate's happy with that. The question is that paragraphs (a) and (b) of the amendment moved by Senator Urquhart be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
Senator Fifield, you would like (c) dealt with separately.
The question is that paragraph (c) of the amendment moved by Senator Urquhart be agreed to.
The Senate divided. [12:07]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
Question negatived.
The question is that paragraph (d) of the amendment moved by Senator Urquhart be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Williams to adopt the Selection of Bills Committee report, as amended, be agreed to. I ask senators to remain in the chamber, as we're about to go into general business, when I'll be ringing the bells for one minute.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That—
(a) government business orders of the day as shown on today's Order of Business be considered from 12.45 pm today; and
(b) government business be called on after consideration of the bills listed in paragraph (a) and considered till not later than 2 pm today.
Non-controversial government business—
Office of National Intelligence Bill 2018
Office of National Intelligence (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018
Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Student Protection) Bill 2018
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the order of general business for consideration today be as follows:
(a) general business order of the day relating to the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, subject to introduction; and
(b) orders of the day relating to documents.
Question agreed to.
():
That the following general business orders of the day be considered on Monday, 3 December 2018 at the time for private senators' bills:
Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, subject to introduction
No. 94 A Fair Go for Australians in Trade Bill 2018 [No. 2].
Question agreed to.
I move:
That leave of absence be granted to Senator Canavan for today for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
We will now move to the discovery of formal business. What I will be doing, senators, given it is Thursday and I've received a number of comments, is following the provisions of standing order 66(2) and disposing of matters in the order in which they appear on the Notice Paper. That is, I believe, the only equitable way to deal with constrained Thursdays. I remind senators that statements can be used in lieu of divisions, as they were originally intended, in order to facilitate as much business as possible. We will deal firstly with Business of the Senate notice of motion No. 1 standing in the name of Senator Williams.
I move:
That the following matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances for inquiry and report by 3 April 2019:
(1) The continuing effectiveness, role and future direction of the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances, including:
(a) whether the committee's powers remain appropriate;
(b) the adequacy of the principles by which the committee scrutinises delegated legislation, including the committee's ability to fully consider:
(i) the constitutional authority for delegated legislation,
(ii) administrative law principles, and
(iii) principles of democratic accountability; and
(c) the adequacy of the existing framework for parliamentary control and scrutiny of delegated legislation, and whether this framework should be enhanced.
(2) In undertaking this inquiry, the committee should have regard to the role, powers and practices of similar parliamentary committees, including those in other jurisdictions.
(3) The committee be authorised to hold public hearings in relation to this inquiry, and to move from place to place.
Question agreed to.
I move:
(1) That estimates hearings by legislation committees for 2019 be scheduled as follows:
2018-19 additional estimates:
Monday, 18 February and Tuesday, 19 February (Group A)
Wednesday, 20 February and Thursday, 21 February (Group B).
2019-20 Budget estimates:
Tuesday, 28 May to Thursday, 30 May, and, if required, Friday, 31 May (Group A)
Monday, 3 June to Thursday, 6 June, and, if required, Friday, 7 June (Group B)
Monday, 21 October and Tuesday, 22 October (supplementary hearings—Group A)
Wednesday, 23 October and Thursday, 24 October (supplementary hearings—Group B).
(2) That pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 August 2008, cross portfolio estimates hearings on Indigenous matters be scheduled for Friday, 22 February, Friday, 31 May and Friday, 25 October, but not restricted to these days.
(3) That cross portfolio estimates hearings on Murray-Darling Basin Plan matters be scheduled for Friday, 22 February, Friday, 31 May and Friday, 25 October, but not restricted to these days.
(4) That the committees consider the proposed expenditure in accordance with the allocation of departments and agencies to committees agreed to by the Senate.
(5) That committees meet in the following groups:
Group A:
Environment and Communications
Finance and Public Administration
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport
Group B:
Community Affairs
Economics
Education and Employment
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.
(6) That the committees report to the Senate on the following dates:
(a) Tuesday, 16 April 2019 in respect of the 2018-19 additional estimates; and
(b) Tuesday, 25 June 2019 in respect of the 2019-20 Budget estimates.
I move the revised amendment to government business notice of motion No. 2 that has been circulated in the chamber:
(1) In paragraph (1), omit:
" 2019-20 Budget Estimates:
Tuesday, 28 May to Thursday, 30 May, and, if required, Friday, 31 May (Group A)
Monday, 3 June to Thursday, 6 June, and, if required, Friday 7 June (Group B)"
substitute:
"2019-20 Budget Estimates:
Thursday, 4 April and Monday, 8 April to Thursday, Tuesday 9 April, and, if required, Friday 12 April (Group A)
Friday, 5 April and Wednesday 10 April to Thursday, 11 April, and, if required, Friday 12 April (Group B)".
(2) In paragraphs (2) and (3) omit: "Friday, 31 May", substitute: "Friday, 12 April".
(3) In paragraph (6) (a), omit: "Tuesday, 16 April 2019", substitute: "Tuesday, 2 April 2019".
(4) In paragraph (6) (b), omit: "Tuesday, 25 June 2019", substitute: "Tuesday, 14 May 2019".
This amendment seeks to add two days for estimates consideration of the budget on Thursday, 4 April and Friday, 5 April 2019. This mirrors the process that was in place immediately prior to the 2016 election. It also seeks to reschedule the week proposed for budget estimates hearings from Tuesday, 28 May to Thursday 30 May and Monday, 3 June to Thursday, 6 June 2019 to Monday, 8 April to Thursday, 11 April 2019. This would create three days for each estimates group.
The government cannot dodge the accountability of the estimates process by scheduling estimates hearings eight weeks after the budget or by calling an election. This amendment seeks to shift the budget estimates hearings to where they belong—right after the budget—and to preserve as much of them as possible before any election is called. Again, I would like to assure the leaders of non-government parties and Independent senators that the opposition will work with them to facilitate time for those senators to make their budget reply speeches in budget week, as would ordinarily be the case. I commend the amendment to the Senate.
I will take it, Senator Collins, that, firstly, you sought leave to move the amendment, and, secondly, you sought leave to make a statement and it was granted—given that it has been the subject of discussions! So is leave granted for that amendment to be moved?
Leave granted.
The question is that Senator Collins's amendment be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The question now is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I ask that general business notice of motion No. 1219, standing in my name, proposing the introduction of a bill to establish a national integrity commission, be taken as formal.
Is there any objection to that motion being taken as formal? I remind senators to stay in the chamber. There'll be one minute bells, given that it's Thursday. Is leave granted?
Leave granted.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to establish the National Integrity Commission, and for related purposes.
Question agreed to.
I present the bill and move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.
Leave granted.
I table an explanatory memorandum, and I seek leave to have my second reading speech incorporated in Hansard and to continue my remarks.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
NATIONAL INTEGRITY COMMISSION BILL 2018
SECOND READING SPEECH
The Greens have been campaigning for 10 years in federal Parliament for a national anticorruption commission. Back in 2009, former Senator Bob Brown moved a motion in the Senate calling on the Government to establish a National Integrity Commission. Since then the Australian Greens have introduced four Bills, this is the fifth, the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018.
The federal Parliament is facing the prospect of ending the 45th Parliament as the only jurisdiction in Australia left unchecked against the very real threat of internal corruption or maladministration across the Parliament and federal public service.
In the years since former Greens Senator Bob Brown introduced the first Australian Greens bill for a National Integrity Commission in 2010, every Australian state has now developed and implemented their own independent anti-corruption commission. This week we expect to see the ACT pass their own anti-corruption bill into law. On 30 November 2018 the Northern Territory Independent Commission Against Corruption will commence operation. That leaves the Commonwealth as the final jurisdiction in Australia without an anti-corruption body. The overwhelming evidence of these culture-changing institutions has reinforced the need for such a body at the Commonwealth level.
I note that Labor and the Coalition have voted against Greens motions in the Senate calling for a National Integrity Commission in 2009, 2016, 2017 and 2018, with a motion in 2014 not even proceeding to a vote.
There was a debate on the Greens' 2013 National Integrity Commission Bill in the last Parliament during which Labor senators stated that their party was open to considering a National Integrity Commission but they argued that the bill was premature. It's been several years since that debate; surely we're all mature enough now to vote to restore integrity to our politics.
Not until January of this year did the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Bill Shorten announce Labor finally supported a federal anti-corruption watchdog and would move for one to be established within their first year of government, should Labor be elected. Well, Labor doesn't have to wait that long.
We have recently learnt that the federal cabinet, under former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, was due to decide on the national anti-corruption commission in a detailed plan prepared in June 2018. That plan was allegedly derailed by the leadership spill a few months ago. Now our new Prime Minister, the Hon Scott Morrison MP, has declared that a national integrity commission is a 'fringe issue'. Once again our democracy has become collateral damage for prime ministerial ambitions.
On 13 November 2018, after almost 10 years since the Greens' first motion, the Senate passed my motion calling for a National Integrity Commission. This week that motion was put to the House for concurrence - and it passed. Both Houses of our Parliament are in favour of this, let's get it done.
We must act on this issue to regain community trust in our democracy. Since former Senator Brown introduced that first bill in 2010, research by the University of Canberra and the Museum of Australian Democracy has revealed that the percentage of Australians who are satisfied with the way democracy is working today has plummeted from 72% to just 41%, and only three in ten Australians trust the federal government. The longer our politicians stand in the way on this issue, the more trust is lost.
This bill was drafted using the bill of the same name introduced to the House of Representatives by Cathy McGowan AO MP on 26 November 2018, which itself is built on bills introduced by the Australian Greens. There are two major changes that have been incorporated in this latest version to address concerns raised by the Government and Opposition. A 10-year limit on retrospectivity of the Commission has been added, and the definition of corrupt conduct has been tightened so that only substantial breaches of codes of conduct which apply to Ministers and Members of Parliament are capable of being corrupt conduct, rather than any additional codes of conduct that apply to public servants. For employees and former employees in the public service, the standard will be set at criminal offences, disciplinary offences or grounds for termination. This returns the scope of corrupt conduct to that originally proposed by the Greens' National Integrity Commission Bill 2017. The definition of corrupt conduct has also removed the unclear terms in the House bill which were taken from existing NSW ICAC provisions which are being challenged in the High Court.
This bill will provide the infrastructure to challenge corruption by establishing the National Integrity Commission as an independent statutory agency. It establishes the office of the National Integrity Commissioner, based largely on the successful NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) model. It would absorb the existing Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI).
The office of the National Integrity Commissioner will actively prevent and investigate misconduct and corruption in all Commonwealth departments, agencies, federal parliamentarians and their staff. This will fill the largest gap in our country's anti-corruption framework. The powers of the National Integrity Commissioner are based largely on provisions in the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006.
It will focus on corruption in relation to parliamentarians and their staff, public officials and Commonwealth agencies and has full investigative powers, including summoning any person or agency to produce documents and appear before the Commission, conduct investigations, and apply for and execute search warrants.
Importantly the bill provides the capacity for the Commission to investigate cases where corrupt conduct is foreseeable, making the Office's role proactive in addressing corruption.
The National Integrity Commission will operate in the federal jurisdiction and will not replace or override state legislation.
The second office within the National Integrity Commission is the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner, focusing on federal law enforcement agencies in accordance with the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006. It will continue to have the functions and powers conferred under that Act.
The Commission also includes the Whistleblower Protection Commissioner to receive and investigate disclosures of wrongdoing, and provide advice, assistance, guidance and support to persons and agencies who disclose wrongdoing.
There has only been brief exposure time for this bill since its previous version was introduced to the House earlier this week by independent Cathy McGowan AO MP, so I will be moving several amendments in the committee stage to address concerns raised since the bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. These include:
communications after getting a warrant from a judge, as per state anti-corruption commissions.
In summary, this bill provides the legislative framework for the comprehensive prevention of corruption and misconduct in the federal Parliament and public service. It fills the most glaring defects of our governance framework and it will provide the public with an institution it can rely upon to ensure the highest standards of public administration now and into the future. Our democracy belongs to the people of Australia, not to vested interests, corporate donors and those who can afford to buy access in the halls of Parliament. We need transparency and accountability in our political system and until we get a federal anticorruption body, our politicians will keep working for the big end of town, not the community they are elected to represent. This reform is well overdue; it's time to get this done.
I therefore commend this bill to the Senate.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to taxation, and for related purposes.
Question agreed to.
I present the bill and move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That the bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.
Leave granted.
I table an explanatory memorandum, and I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard and to continue my remarks.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
LOWER TAX BILL 2018
SECOND READING SPEECH
Mr President,
I introduce the Lower Tax Bill 2018.
Enacting this bill would nearly halve Commonwealth Government taxation. This is evidenced by a costing from the Parliamentary Budget Office, which I have attached to the explanatory memorandum to this bill.
Such a massive tax reduction is warranted because tax involves using coercion to take someone's property, and so should be kept to a minimum.
Such a large tax reduction is also responsible, provided it is coupled with an even greater reduction in Commonwealth Government spending, so that the Commonwealth Government's budget and balance sheet are repaired. I have outlined how Commonwealth Government spending should be halved in costings from the Parliamentary Budget Office, available on their website.
The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would introduce a $40,000 tax free threshold and a uniform 20 per cent personal income tax rate. Every taxpayer would pay markedly less personal income tax, and millions of current taxpayers would pay no personal income tax. The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would also abolish the Medicare Levy and reduce the Fringe Benefits Tax rate to 20 per cent.
The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would reduce the company tax rate to 20 per cent, leading to a lower cost of capital, higher investment, higher employment and higher wages. A lower company tax rate would also directly benefit Australians who invest in Australian equity, notwithstanding dividend imputation.
The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would abolish import tariffs. This would encourage Australian business to concentrate on making make products where they are first rate, rather than second rate.
Abolishing import tariffs includes abolishing ad hoc tariffs imposed in response to dumping. Dumping is the selling of products in Australia at below the price prevalent in the country of origin and should not be discouraged.
The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would abolish tobacco and alcohol taxes. Smoking primarily hurts the smoker, and when drinking generates harm, it is primarily the drinker who is hurt. It is not the role of government to prevent self-harm.
The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would abolish fuel taxes and the luxury car tax, revenues from which far exceed the costs of roads.
The Lower Tax Bill 2018 would abolish the passenger movement charge, which hurts Australia's tourism industry.
And the Lower Tax Bill 2018 would abolish the major bank levy. This imposition on the shareholders, employees and customers of major banks potentially skews lending and people's choices of who to bank with.
I commend the Bill to the Senate.
Debate adjourned.
At the request of Senator Chisholm, I move:
That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Prime Minister, by no later than 10 am on 3 December 2018, all documents regarding contracts entered into by Tourism Australia between 1 January 2004 and 31 January 2006.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The motion is essentially a fishing expedition for, potentially, hundreds of documents from more than a decade ago, which is an unnecessary diversion of Tourism Australia's resources away from their core business of attracting tourists to Australia, which is a significant contributor to the Australian economy. The letters to the President of the Senate have responded fully to the questions asked by all senators.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Urquhart be agreed to. Those of that opinion say aye.
Honourable senators: Aye.
To the contrary, no.
Honourable senators: No.
A division is required. This is the last time I'll be doing a four-minute bell, after I specifically warned senators to remain in the chamber on Thursday. It is discourteous to colleagues. I defer to the whips, but this will be the last four-minute bell. I warn senators: this will be the last time. Stay in the chamber. To save time, colleagues, before I call 'lock the doors', all senators need to remain in the chamber. Any subsequent bell, until 12.45, will be for one minute. I remind senators that statements by leave were originally conceived to take place in lieu of divisions, as opposed to 'as well as'. This is only particularly acute on Thursdays when we cannot clear the Notice Paper and all senators can't get their motions dealt with. Lock the doors! The question is that motion No. 1260 be agreed to.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and for related purposes.
Question agreed to.
I present the bill and move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.
Leave granted.
I table an explanatory memorandum. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AMENDMENT (GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT) BILL 2018
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Great Australian Bight) Bill 2018 amends the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to enhance the assessment process for applications for petroleum or greenhouse gas activity in the Great Australian Bight.
The purpose of the Bill is to enhance and improve the rigour and quality of decision-making to appropriately match high-stakes activity such as drilling for oil which could have catastrophic ramifications in the case of a spill.
The Bill provides for a two-stage assessment process, which would retain the initial NOPSEMA review as it currently operates. If NOPSEMA approves an action in the Bight, then the EPBC Act review processes would kick-in, with the final decision being made by the Minister.
This does not give the Minister free rein to make a unilateral decision. Far from it. The requirements surrounding ministerial decision making are far more stringent than those for NOPSEMA alone.
Before the Minister makes that decision, the second stage assessment would necessarily involve environmental impact statement or, in suitably unusual cases, public inquiry, as outlined in the EPBC Act.
The Bill is a response to increasing consensus highlighted by the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee reviews that NOPSEMA takes insufficient criteria into account when deciding whether or not to approve petroleum or greenhouse gas related activity in the Bight.
Specific deficiencies in NOPSEMA assessment include insufficient weighting of social license; probable bankruptcy and scale of remediation of fishing and tourism industries; long-term and potentially irreversible ecological damage; lack of transparency and accountability; weak powers of review; and poor penalties for non-compliance.
That said, NOPSEMA does have helpful expertise in the examination of scientific and engineering evidence that is site-specific, especially in terms of health and safety, which is why the Bill retains that element of the current process.
In all of this, it is important for us to remember what is at stake. There are serious, possibly irreversible consequences of an oil spill for economic, environmental, health and social lives intertwined with the Bight. That high-stakes context should be properly and fairly taken into account when assessing applications for petroleum or greenhouse gas activity in the Bight.
That is not currently the case.
The Bight is one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, which provides pressing reason to more carefully assess why we, as a Parliament, would accept any risks posed by drilling in the Bight.
As we know, the Great Australian Bight provides an essential breeding ground for vulnerable species such as the Southern Right Whale, and ideal habitat for the endangered Sea Lion, as I saw on my recent visit to Kangaroo Island. And recent scientific findings suggest that there are at least 1,200 species of plants and animals in the region, around 85% of which are probably endemic.
Those are all important points that suggest the Bight is worth fighting to protect, but economic reality alone makes petroleum activity in the Bight a clear loser for South Australia.
The economic reality is that fishing and tourism industries provide critical sustainable and long-term economic benefits to South Australia, through thousands of jobs and billions of dollars every year. It is obvious that protecting the sustainability of those industries is in the best interests of South Australians -- and indeed for all Australians.
Fishing in the Bight brings half a billion dollars every year to South Australia. Tuna, crab, prawns, sardines, lobster and abalone…the list goes on. The entire fishing and aquaculture industry could be wiped out in the event of an oil spill, perhaps irreversibly.
Tourism in the region also brings in around a billion dollars every year to South Australia, much of which would be irreversibly affected by an oil spill in the Bight. There are at least 10,000 tourism jobs based in the Bight region, all of which would be under threat from a spill.
As I said in September, we must not put that at risk from a future oil spill.
It is worth remembering as well that modelling of economic benefits of petroleum activity in the Bight is based on many uncertain assumptions, such as the actual volume of oil available for extraction, as well as reliance on the global oil market, predicted by many to have massive slowdown in the next couple of decades.
This is not mere fearmongering. My concerns actually run deeper. Current evaluation processes are not operating in the best interests of South Australians.
The 2014 decision to outsource authority to NOPSEMA demonstrates lack of foresight, disregard for the significance of the Great Australian Bight, and disrespect for what the Bight means to the people of Australia in general, and the people of South Australia in particular.
The stakes are clearly too high, and the simplistic argument of streamlining regulatory requirements that was made for outsourcing is obviously not persuasive in this case. Put simply, the Minister should have ultimate oversight and responsibility for decisions which could have such massive ramifications.
The Bill ensures that responsibility for decisions on petroleum or greenhouse gas activity in the Bight is returned to the Minister, who would be forced to take into account more rigorous assessment criteria under the EPBC Act.
That would greatly broaden and strengthen the current narrow assessment process.
Assessment under the EPBC Act would:
1. Provide fairer balance of environmental, social, economic and safety considerations by ensuring adequate public consultation and social license;
2. Increase transparency and accountability in the decision-making process. The Minister must act consistently with additional considerations, such as the precautionary principle, treaties and conventions, leading to improved public trust;
3. Strengthen powers of review by extending the definition of persons aggrieved who could challenge an approval;
4. Ensure that penalties for non-compliance are appropriately broad and strict.
In other words, the Bill would give the Bight the respect it deserves.
It is also worth noting that, although there are some differences in the content submitted to NOPSEMA compared to content submitted under the EPBC Act, the primary difference is in the assessment of that content.
That is a significant point, and one which highlights the critical flaw in the policy idea that broadening the information submitted to NOPSEMA will result in fairer decision-making. In other words, even if more information is submitted to NOPSEMA, the same assessment criteria will apply.
That seems a positive step in the right direction, but is ultimately insufficient if the aim is to ensure that those applications are reviewed at the highest possible standards.
More precisely, the NOPSEMA criteria, which on cases of approval are that the risks have been reduced to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) and Acceptable, is insufficient.
That criteria are obviously at odds with the fact that even a small oil leak could be disastrous for the region. Other consequences, such as longer-term rehabilitation and remediation, are not fairly taken into account under NOPSEMA criteria.
That is evident in the Montara case, which is a well that blew-out in Australian waters near East Timor in 2009. The well was leaking for about 3 months, the equivalent period of time as the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
There are still 15,000 fishing and aquaculture operators in Timor who are -- even today -- pursuing class action for compensation for that event, supported by the Indonesian Government.
I am sceptical that any oil company would have the capacity to fairly compensate the entire fishing and tourism industry in the case of an oil spill in the Bight, which would be likely to lead to losses to the tune of billions of dollars every year for South Australia.
The Montara case reminds us that current criteria have clear problems of compliance and enforcement, but also that the risks of drilling for oil in the Bight to the livelihoods of South Australians are real.
Despite those significant worries, NOPSEMA does have considerable expertise in evaluating technical engineering and scientific risks at specific sites, which are important to include in decision-making.
For example, health and safety assessment, especially in remote, isolated areas of the Bight where waves can reach 23m and the water can be up to 3km deep, seems to be a combination which makes petroleum activity even more unsuitable.
Even the so-called 'safeguard' of a Capping Stack stationed on-site just in case of a spill seems basically worthless in such treacherous weather conditions, and NOPSEMA are best-placed to assess such matters.
Another policy response to the threat of an oil spill would be to list the Bight on the World Heritage List. That proposal seems to have merit, both in order to protect the Bight from risks of mining exploration and drilling, but also to lock-in the status of the Bight as a major tourist destination.
However, there is further work to be done to ensure that there would be no negative impacts from that listing on the South Australian fishing industry, which as we know provides critical jobs and economic growth for South Australia.
I'm also wary that the World Heritage listing process would be lengthy, perhaps taking three or four years, which seems too long to wait given the imminent threats to the Bight by interested companies. A positive result is also by no means guaranteed and relying on the World Heritage List approach in isolation risks an oil leak in the meantime.
That is why I believe it prudent to move ahead with enhanced assessment processes as outlined in the Bill rather than simply wait for World Heritage listing.
I would like to end with a plea to the Government and to the next Government.
The Bill is really the least that we should do.
The Parliament should not be in denial over the risks of drilling in the Bight, and Boiling Frog Syndrome is a real risk.
Six of Australia's most significant Marine Parks are located in the Bight, the Twilight; Murat; Western Eyre; Western and Southern Kangaroo Island; and Great Australian Bight.
While those parks provide important conservation measures, I was surprised to learn that large areas of all of those Parks actually allow drilling for oil.
It makes no sense to allow mining activity in our National Parks, and it certainly makes no sense to allow it in our Marine Parks.
The Commonwealth Marine Park Reserves zones in the Great Australian Bight should be amended so that no petroleum or greenhouse gas activity is allowed within those zones.
That is a relatively simple and obvious step that should be taken as a matter of urgency. It would provide security and stability not just to the people who live in the region, but also to those oil companies who are hamstrung by legislative uncertainty.
To conclude, decisions about petroleum and greenhouse gas activity in the Bight should be given the respect they deserve.
The Bill achieves that aim by strengthening integrity and fairness aspects of the current assessment process.
For those reasons, I hope that the Bill is warmly welcomed by our Parliament.
I commend the Bill to the Senate.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: a Bill for an Act to amend the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to remove discrimination against students.
Question agreed to.
I present the bill and move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.
Leave granted.
I table an explanatory memorandum. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
SENATOR WONG SEX DISCRIMINATION AMENDMENT (REMOVING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST STUDENTS) BILL 2018
In 2013, Labor introduced reforms to the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA) which expanded the protections it provided to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Since its introduction in 1984, the SDA has included exemptions for religious schools, and in 2013 these exemptions were extended to also apply to the newly protected attributes of sexual orientation and gender identity, essentially as consequential amendments to the expansion of protected attributes.
These changes to anti-discrimination laws were broadly welcomed by the Australian community at the time.
However, over recent years there has been growing concern in the community about the ongoing appropriateness of and need for the exemptions under the SDA in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. The leaking of parts of the Ruddock Review into Religious Freedoms during October 2018 led to a significant increase in community discussion about the need to remove these exemptions from the SDA because of their potential to impact students at religious schools.
In October 2018 the Morrison Government, the Labor Opposition, the Australian Greens and a number of cross-bench MPs committed to amend the SDA to prevent schools from discriminating against students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. This Bill will achieve that outcome.
The Morrison Government has not acted on their promise. In fact — the Government seems so paralysed by their own internal divisions that they are hoping the Australian people forget this promise and the issue somehow goes away. Well if this Government won't act — Labor will. Australians support this change, the Parliament supports this change, and the Morrison Government claimed that it supports this change. Let's get this done before Christmas.
I want to note here that the overwhelming majority of religious schools have told a Senate committee which looked into this issue that they do not use these exemptions, and that they do not want them.
Labor wants to be clear — nothing in this Bill would compromise the ability of churches to continue to uphold their religious teachings, whether in the classroom or through the enforcement of school rules. The SDA protects that right. And I emphasise that this Bill would not affect the operation of the indirect discrimination provisions in the SDA, which would continue to protect the ability of faith-based educational institutions to impose reasonable conditions, requirements or practices on students in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of a particular religious or creed.
This Bill does not address the issue of discrimination against staff employed by religious schools. Given the short number of sitting days left between now and the election, we have to prioritise — and children are our priority. Labor is committed to removing exemptions which relate to LGBTI staff at religious schools. Mr Shorten has made that commitment to the Australian people, and we in Labor will continue to work on making that change happen too.
We in Labor are also committed to protecting religious freedom. Since the Ruddock Review was first announced, we have consistently made that clear. We are open for a debate about how this can be done — but until the Government chooses to release the report of the Ruddock Review, the nation is being deprived of that opportunity. When it does, Labor will work constructively with churches and religious schools to ensure they can continue to practice their beliefs. We do not believe anything in this particular Bill prevents them from doing so.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I move:
That the resumption of debate be an order of the day for a later hour.
Question agreed to.
I move general business notice of motion No. 1265:
That—
(a) the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018 be considered on Monday, 3 December 2018 from midday to 2 pm, at the time allotted for the consideration for private senators' bills*;
(b) if, by 1.50 pm, the bill has not been finally considered, the questions on all remaining stages shall be put without debate;
(c) paragraph (b) of this order shall operate as a limitation of debate under standing order 142; and
(d) the reference to 2 hours in standing order 142(4) shall be read as 1 hour.
[* Paragraph (a) reflects the order of the Senate of 13 November 2018 relating to the presentation of the address-in-reply.]
Question agreed to.
I ask that general business notice of motion No. 1262 relating to the Parliamentary Code of Conduct be taken as a formal motion.
Is there any objection to this motion being taken as formal?
Yes.
There is an objection.
Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion relating to the Parliamentary Code of Conduct.
Pursuant to the temporary order adopted yesterday, that motion is now put without debate or amendment. This is a motion to suspend standing orders to allow consideration of the motion that Senator Di Natale would like to move. The question is whether to suspend standing orders.
Question agreed to.
I move general business notice of motion No. 1262:
(1) That the Senate adopts the following Code of Conduct, for inclusion in the Senate standing orders:
Parliamentary Code of Conduct
Preamble
The (House of Representatives and the) Senate have reached agreement on a Code of Conduct which is to apply to all members of Parliament.
Members of Parliament recognise that they are in a unique position of responsibility in influencing the nature of civic conduct in Australia.
Members of Parliament recognise that their words and actions in the Senate (and the House of Representatives) influence issues in the public debate, and these include issues relating to multicultural affairs, migration and citizenship, gender equality and professional conduct in the workplace.
Members of Parliament acknowledge that parliamentary privilege protects the right of members to participate freely in debate in the Parliament without fear of prosecution.
Members of Parliament recognise the need to exercise their valuable right of freedom of speech in a responsible manner, and a failure to do so may have serious implications for individuals and groups of the Australian community and may diminish the social cohesion that is essential to our national character.
The Code
1. Uphold the honour of Public Office
(a) Members of Parliament will take all reasonable steps to represent public office in a manner that is consistent with the values of respect and inclusion; and
(b) this includes behaviour and language during parliamentary proceedings, including interactions with parliamentary and electorate officer staff.
2. First Peoples of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
(a) Members of Parliament recognise the value and contribution of the First Peoples of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; and
(b) Members of Parliament recognise that with the exception of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Australia is a nation of migrants.
3. Respect Australians ' diversity
(a) Members of Parliament recognise that Australia has been enriched by the diversity of colour, ethnic origin, culture and religious belief that exists within our nation; and
(b) Members of Parliament recognise that principles, including respect for religious and cultural diversity, tolerance and justice, should be upheld in parliamentary debate in a respectful manner.
4. Respect gender equality and diversity
(a) Members of Parliament recognise that women and LGBTIQ+ individuals are more likely to experience gender inequality and discrimination in the workplace;
(b) Members of Parliament recognise that the Australian Parliament, including the Senate and House of Representatives Chamber, is the primary workplace for elected representatives; and
(c) Female and elected representatives from LGBTIQ+ communities should be free from gender and sexuality-based bullying, harassment or abuse of any kind in their workplace.
5. Reject discriminatory or exclusionary statements
(a) Members of Parliament will not knowingly humiliate or degrade an individual or community based on their colour, national or ethnic origin, culture, religious belief, gender or sexual orientation; and
(b) this includes acts which are intended to incite hatred or create fear of a community.
(2) That this resolution be communicated to the House of Representatives for concurrence.
by leave—I move the following amendment to the motion:
Omit "That the Senate adopts the following Code of Conduct, for inclusion in the Senate standing orders:"
Substitute "That the Senate acknowledges the proposal for the following Code of Conduct:"
and,
Omit paragraph (2), substitute the following:
(2) That this matter be referred to the Procedure Committee for consideration and report by 14 February 2019.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Recognising that standing orders 193 and 203 already regulate conduct in this chamber, as we've seen this week, the opposition supports referring the proposed code of conduct back to the Procedure Committee for further deliberation. As Senator Wong said yesterday, the approach Labor takes is very clear. We will not tolerate sexist and abusive behaviour. We will not tolerate it in the Senate and we will not tolerate it anywhere. We also believe that parliament cannot function without respect for the presiding officers and the rules the parliament has agreed to regarding appropriate behaviour, but the Senate itself will not be respected if the behaviours exhibited here demean it. That goes not only to rules but also to standards and expectations. We fully support the comments of the President in his statements to the chamber yesterday and in August this year and welcome the response from the Leader of the Government in the Senate.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
In response to a couple of comments by Di Natale I refer to section 2(b):
Members of Parliament recognise that with the exception of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Australia is a nation of migrants.
I take offence to that. I was born here. This is my country as much as anyone else's, and I do not regard myself as a migrant. Also I'm asking for clarification on section 4(c), where it states 'Female and elected representatives from LGBTIQ-plus communities'. I need a 'please explain' on 'Q-plus', because I have no understanding of what that is about, to make a decision in the parliament with regard to 'Q-plus'. And I'd like to know why the men of this parliament are not included in this. It is sexist in itself to refer to females only. So, I will not be supporting this. I also refer to section 1(b), about the behaviour and language in the parliament. I draw attention to the fact that Senator Di Natale was the first one to be thrown out of this parliament for his behaviour. (Time expired)
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The less said about the most recent contribution the better. I'll just give a bit of history on this code of conduct motion. We introduced a code of conduct motion back in 2017 when a senator wore a burqa into the Senate. That code of conduct was referred to the Procedure Committee in December 2017, and the recommendation back from the Procedure Committee was that voluntary codes should be adopted by each party. We reject that. The Australian Greens believe there should be a compulsory code of conduct for all of us to support. I introduced a code of conduct motion back in 2018 in response to a previous senator talking about the 'final solution'. The reality is that the status quo is not working. We're continuing to see statements that are sexist and racist. We are continuing the see statements that are anti-Semitic. This is a workplace for many people. The current situation is not working. To defer this to the Procedure Committee is to say no to a compulsory code of conduct. We believe the parliament needs one. (Time expired)
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
I'd just like to address a few points that were raised over the last few days. Greens Senators Hanson-Young and Di Natale have accused me of making sexist and derogatory remarks. In the year that I've been here, I've never denigrated anyone in this place; nor will I. And I challenge them to point out when and where and to whom. Just because you yell a lie loud enough and for long enough, you expect it to be the truth. It's still a lie. Thank you.
I hasten to remind senators that there are restrictions on accusing other senators of lying. That's not a parliamentary term. If I misheard that, I apologise.
Question agreed to.
Original question, as amended, agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 1263, standing in my name and the names of Senators Singh and Di Natale, by omitting paragraph (a)(ii) and substituting: (a)(ii) that the national World AIDS Day theme for Australia in 2018 is 'Everybody Counts'.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes:
(i) that 1 December 2018 is World AIDS Day, which raises awareness about HIV and AIDS, supports people living with HIV and commemorates those who have died,
(ii) that the national World AIDS Day theme for Australia in 2018 is 'Everybody Counts',
(iii) that progress towards ending HIV in Australia is particularly urgent in Indigenous communities,
(iv) the importance of eliminating the discrimination and stigma faced by individuals with a positive HIV diagnosis in Australia and internationally,
(v) that the HIV epidemic remains one of the greatest public health challenges facing Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and the world, and
(vi) the critical role funding plays in research and development into finding better treatment methods and a cure for HIV/AIDS;
(b) welcomes the addition of the game-changing HIV prevention treatment pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme earlier this year; and
(c) recognises and commends the organisers of World AIDS Day 2018 in bringing together communities to raise awareness, and constructively work towards an end to this worldwide epidemic.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government has worked with the community to develop the Eighth National HIV Strategy 2018-2022. The strategy will be the road map to help further reduce new infections and improve health outcomes for all Australians, in particular First Australians and culturally and linguistically diverse Australians. Its goals include virtually eliminating HIV transmission in Australia by 2022. The $180 million listing of PrEP on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme will benefit up to 32,000 Australians. With this listing we will put Australia in reach of being one of the first countries in the world to end the transmission of HIV. A few short years ago, defeating HIV was seen as impossible. But today we're on the cusp of eliminating the transmission of HIV, and we continue to support those living with HIV.
Question agreed to.
I wish to inform the chamber that Senator Waters will also be a sponsor of general business notice of motion No. 1266 standing in my name and the name of Senator Siewert, relating to fracking. I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) on 27 November 2018, the West Australian Labor Government lifted a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (known as fracking) in all but the Perth, Peel and South-West regions of the state, meaning the practice will now be allowed on existing petroleum titles,
(ii) existing petroleum titles cover 5.1 million hectares of Western Australia, a vast area almost the size of Tasmania, and threaten the ecologically-fragile Kimberley region, the Pilbara and Mid-West,
(iii) the final report of the Independent Scientific Panel Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracture Stimulation in Western Australia 2018, handed down on 26 November 2018, stated: "Western Australia is the only Australian jurisdiction that has experienced a significant increase in GHG emissions since 2000, largely due to the predominance of the State's extractive industries (particularly conventional gas) ...",
(iv) a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we have just 12 years to halt the worst impacts of climate change and keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C, and
(v) on 27 November 2018, WA Greens MLC, Mr Robin Chapple, gave notice he would urgently introduce a bill to the Legislative Council to ban fracking in the wake of the WA Labor Government's decision to lift the moratorium; and
(b) condemns the West Australian Government for lifting the moratorium on fracking, and failing to acknowledge that development of this toxic industry will only further worsen the state's ability to mitigate and adapt to the damaging impacts of climate change.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The findings of Western Australia's independent scientific inquiry confirmed that hydraulic fracking is safe and that the risks are low and manageable, consistent with 17 previous inquiries around Australia. The government's consistent position, supported by the Chief Scientist and the CSIRO, is that unconventional gas can be extracted in an environmentally sustainable way if states adopt a scientific and evidence based approach. Unconventional gas from Queensland's CSG industry plays a vital role in supplying east-coast and southern gas markets. Unscientific bans lead to higher prices and lost manufacturing and cost jobs. This motion confirms that the Greens are an anti-science party, peddling fear and misinformation instead of facts and analysis.
The question is that motion No. 1266 be agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 1267, standing in my name for today, relating to ruling out public funding for MacMines' China Stone thermal coal project.
Leave granted.
I amend the motion in the terms circulated in the chamber, and move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) MacMines Austasia's 20,000-hectare China Stone thermal coal project in the Galilee Basin is one step closer to approval,
(ii) the Galilee Basin has 9 mega coal mines proposed, including the Adani Carmichael mine, China Stone mine, Alpha Coal Project, Kevin's Corner Project, Degulla Coal, Alpha West, Alpha North, Galilee (China First) Coal Project and South Galilee Coal Mine,
(iii) the China Stone project alone is estimated to export 38 million tonnes of coal annually, producing 128.4 mega tonnes of CO2 per year – which is equivalent to 23% of Australia's total domestic emissions in 2017, or about ten years' worth of Australia's domestic emissions over the lifetime of the mine,
(iv) there is undeniable evidence that CO2 emissions are driving dangerous global warming which is causing extreme weather conditions unlike any we have ever faced,
(v) unless we take urgent action to stop global warming by reducing CO2 emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels, bushfires, flooding, drought and heatwaves will become more frequent and increasingly severe,
(vi) these extreme weather events will also make it far more difficult for farmers to graze livestock and grow produce, resulting in food insecurity; they will also lead to increased danger of illness, especially among the elderly,
(vii) the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility was established on the premise of promoting infrastructure and projects to the benefit of Northern Australia, and
(viii) developing thermal coal mines, which drive dangerous global warming and increase the probability and severity of extreme weather events, threatens the infrastructure and economic security of both Northern Australia and all of Australia; and
(b) calls on the Federal Government to rule out giving publicly-funded finance, via the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility or any other source, to any part of MacMines' China Stone proposal.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The NAIF was established by this parliament as an independent statutory body. The government notes that it passed without opposition from the Greens. The government supports the independence of the NAIF. The NAIF should be able to assess applications on a case-by-case basis. The government believes that we should evaluate all cases equally based on how they will benefit northern Australia. The government notes that the resources sector is a key contributor to employment and the development of northern Australia. I do, however, understand that the minister responsible is not aware of any approaches to NAIF by MacMines.
Question negatived.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) on 26 November 2018, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs tabled its report, Breaking barriers: a national adoption framework for Australian children,
(ii) the rate of First Nations children in out-of-home care is almost ten times that of other children, and the numbers of children removed during the time of the Stolen Generations is comparable to current removal rates of First Nations children,
(iii) when considering adoption as a part of our out-of-home care system, we need to consider the legacies of past policies and practices with respect to the separation of children from families, as well as practices of forced adoption for many women, and
(iv) these policies and practices have had, and still have, lasting impacts on the lives, health and well-being of many Australians;
(b) acknowledges approaches that ignore the voices of First Nations families and communities will do little to reduce the growing number of First Nations children in out-of-home care, and that the new adoption laws introduced in New South Wales are a cause of great concern to many First Nations communities;
(c) is very concerned about the growing trend to see adoption as the first and only option for stable families; and
(d) calls on the Federal Government to make it a priority to adopt the major actions identified by the Family Matters Coalition, which includes a commitment to developing a National First Nations Children's Strategy.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
This government has been working collaboratively with state and territory governments to ensure that all children across Australia have access to a safe and stable home. We will continue to work together towards permanency reform for the 48,000 children in out-of-home care who cannot return to their families and ensure that they have a safe, stable and loving home. Wherever possible and appropriate, children should be supported to safely remain with their family through prevention and early intervention measures. The best interests of the child must always be paramount in permanency decisions.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Yat Yuen Greyhound racing track at Macau, known as the Canidrome, has been described by Grey2k as a "death camp for dogs" where tens of thousands of greyhounds have been killed over the last 50 years,
(ii) in 2013, Greyhounds Australasia blacklisted Macau on animal welfare grounds and stopped issuing 'greyhound passports',
(iii) between the start of 2013 and the end of 2015, at least 590 greyhounds were approved for export by the Australian Government to Macau, against the wishes of animal welfare organisations and Greyhounds Australasia,
(iv) following the closure of the Canidrome in July 2018, hundreds of dogs are waiting to be rescued, many of whom originated from Australia, and
(v) the Australian Government still allows the export of racing greyhounds to countries that are blacklisted by Greyhounds Australasia;
(b) recognises the Commonwealth Government's role in allowing the export of Australian greyhounds to Macau, and its obligation to assist in the rehoming of these greyhounds; and
(c) calls on the Commonwealth Government to cease issuing export documents for racing greyhounds without greyhound passports.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The greyhound industry is regulated by state governments. The Australian government's role is limited to issuing export permits and health certificates under the Export Control (Animals) Order 2004 for all breeds of dog. The Liberal-National government has progressed a legislative amendment to the Export Control (Animals) Order that will allow the sharing of information between jurisdictions for the purposes of ensuring animal health and welfare. The amendment will allow state regulators to request and receive details of greyhound export applications. This enables the state regulators to enforce their policy that registered greyhounds can only be exported if they have been issued with a greyhound passport.
Given that we have passed 12.45 and there are people seeking to make statements, this item of business will be carried over until Monday.
Debate interrupted.
If I can beg the chamber's permission, I neglected to put my motion in for the next day of sitting as I came into the chamber. Can I seek leave to quickly pass that to the Clerk now?
Leave not granted.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Leave was refused while a senator was in the chamber. I'm not required to name someone; I've checked this before. That is the way those matters are dealt with.
by leave—I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:
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 present the explanatory memoranda and 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—
OFFICE OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE BILL 2018
This Government's objectives in terms of national security can be stated simply. We want to keep Australians safe, to maintain our way of life, our values and our freedom.
It is important that all Australians can feel secure in their own country.
We also want Australia to be a prosperous nation with strong and resilient relationships.
Our intelligence and security agencies are a crucial part of government working to achieve these goals. Because these agencies are not just keeping us safe. They ensure the Government knows what it needs to know to make informed, strategically sound decisions that balance the many overlapping equities of security, budget, civil liberties and our international relations, to name just a few.
While our intelligence and security agencies are performing strongly, their resources and capabilities are constantly challenged. As our Foreign Policy White Paper emphasised, and developments globally — including in our own region — confirm, we live in an increasingly complex, contested and competitive world.
We face imposing challenges, challenges which will only intensify over coming decades, whether from great power rivalries, global extremism and its local reach, or the threats and opportunities posed by accelerating technological change.
To meet these challenges, we needed to take a holistic and systematic look at our intelligence and security communities. As the Prime Minister has emphasised many times, this Government was never going to simply 'set and forget' our approach to security and intelligence.
On 7 November 2016, the Prime Minister announced an independent intelligence review, to be conducted by Mr Michael L'Estrange, Mr Steve Merchant and their UK adviser Sir Iain Lobban.
On 18 July 2017, the Government released the unclassified version of the Review's report. The reviewers made 23 overarching recommendations relating to the intelligence community's structural, legislative and oversight architecture.
At the time we released the report, the Prime Minister announced that the Government recognised the Review's recommendations as a sound basis to reform Australia's intelligence arrangements, and at that time, and based on this Government's clear-eyed assessment of the challenges ahead, the Prime Minister announced the most significant changes to Australia's intelligence and security landscape in more than 40 years. This included establishing an Office of National Intelligence (ONI), transforming the Australian Signals Directorate into a statutory authority within the Defence portfolio, and restructuring the nation's cyber security architecture and boosting its capabilities.
At the same time, the Prime Minister also announced the establishment of the Department of Home Affairs, along with measures to consolidate and strengthen my oversight of our intelligence and security agencies.
This approach, as Alan Dupont most elegantly put it, represented 'best practice risk management, which is to anticipate threats, structure for them and build resilience'.
The Prime Minister has also agreed to the Review's recommendation that our six-agency Australian Intelligence Community [which was made up of the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO), the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) and the Office of National Assessments (ONA)]
formally be expanded to become the National Intelligence Community (the NIC). The NIC will now incorporate the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, and the intelligence functions of the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Defence.
The NIC reflects the Review's very important judgement, and the reality, that the lines between international, domestic and criminal security issues are becoming increasingly blurred.
As the Review recommended, ONI will be headed by a secretary-level Director-General who will be the Prime Minister's key adviser on matters relating to intelligence and the intelligence community.
ONI will lead the NIC with an 'enterprise management' approach, creating — as Mr L'Estrange has said — a 'whole greater than the sum of its parts' which will leverage the strengths of each agency and enable government to consider the NIC's efforts in their entirety.
ONI's job will be to make our intelligence agencies more integrated, better coordinated, and more accountable to the Government and, through it, to the Australian people.
These reforms continue Australia's well established tradition of periodically testing our intelligence and security architecture to make sure it is fit for purpose.
Indeed, it was through this very same process that the Office of National Assessments (ONA) was born.
Australia's first Royal Commission into its intelligence and security agencies was conducted by Justice Robert Hope from 1974 to 1977. Justice Hope went on to conduct a second Royal Commission (1983-84) and it's fair to say that, through these two Royal Commissions, he played a seminal role in shaping our intelligence and security community.
One of his key recommendations in 1977 was that Australia establish an independent agency that stood apart from policy departments to provide the Prime Minister with intelligence assessments on political, strategic and economic issues.
Hope also intended that this agency would 'assume responsibilities for the leadership and co-ordination of the Australian intelligence community as a whole'.
ONA was established by the Office of National Assessments Act 1977 and began its work in February 1978. As part of its establishment, ONA also assumed most of the foreign intelligence assessment functions of Defence's then Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO).
In his second Royal Commission (1983-84), Justice Hope recognised ONA had proven itself to be a 'valuable source of independent assessment for the Government'.
However, while ONA produced quality assessments focused on Australia's key interests, it never filled the leadership and coordination role that Hope had envisioned it should.
Successive intelligence reviews recognised, and tried to correct, two important shortcomings in relation to ONA.
First, ONA never had the analytical resources it needed to cover its ever broadening assessment remit;
And, second, it never had the authority or resources, despite its legislated mandate, to coordinate Australia's intelligence community, set national intelligence requirements and evaluate agencies' efforts against them.
Justice Hope's second Commission acknowledged ONA's need for more resources and stronger structures to carry out its coordination function, recommending that a National Intelligence Committee be set up to discuss intelligence priorities and requirements.
Philip Flood's 2004 intelligence review recommended ONA be doubled in size from 70 to 140 people and that its coordination and evaluation mandate be strengthened.
These recommendations have incrementally enhanced ONA's capabilities and taken it closer to where Hope had, from the very beginning, always envisaged it should be. But the enhancements in ONA's capabilities have not been enough to achieve Hope's vision.
Given the rapidly evolving threat environment, incremental changes are no longer sufficient. With the findings of the Independent Intelligence Review confirming yet again the shortcomings in ONA's resourcing and remit, this Government is determined that Hope's vision will finally be realised.
On 1 December 2017, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of Mr Nick Warner AO PSM as the new Director-General of ONA and Director-General designate of ONI. Mr Warner took up his appointment on 18 December 2017.
Mr Warner is one of Australia's most experienced public servants, with a distinguished career that has spanned DFAT, Defence and intelligence agencies. He has served as the Director-General of ASIS and the Secretary of Defence. The Government is confident he will ensure that Australia's intelligence agencies remain among the most capable, agile and effective in the world.
With this Bill, we will establish ONI.
While ONI is an idea born out of Hope, we have refined the Hope vision based on the models successfully adopted by our closest intelligence partners, the Five Eyes. They all have, or are moving towards having, what Mr L'Estrange referred to as 'a stronger centre'.
We have borrowed from their examples, but this Bill establishes a model for the Australian context, consistent with our system of ministerial responsibility and the statutory independence of our intelligence agencies.
Specifically, the ONI Bill implements the recommendations of the 2017 Review and builds on the foundations of the ONA Act by:
- Enshrining the role of ONI's Director-General (DG NI) in providing advice directly to the Prime Minister on intelligence community priorities, requirements and capabilities, as well as on the appointment of senior NIC office holders.
- Establishing DG NI and ONI's leadership roles in relation to the NIC, with ONI leading the NIC's integration, strategic planning and coordination, setting requirements to meet Australia's national intelligence priorities, and developing structured and appropriate responses to technological change.
- Giving the Director-General — in the context of this leadership role — the authority to issue directions and guidelines to the National Intelligence Community or its agencies to ensure the national intelligence effort is more integrated, more coherent, maximising capability investment and better focused on Government priorities.
- Providing for an expanded role in assembling, correlating and analysing information, recognising that security challenges ignore national boundaries.
- Including detailed requirements on both ONI's authority to access information and its obligations to protect it, through secrecy provisions and stipulating the need for privacy rules to protect Australians.
- Reinforcing ONI's mandate to evaluate the activities of individual NIC agencies and the NIC as a whole
- Establishing that ONI is accountable for their performance to the Prime Minister.
- Retaining the role and functions of the National Assessments Board in considering national assessments, whilst expanding its membership include representatives from the Department of Home Affairs and Treasury; and
- enhancing ONI's Open Source Centre as a centre of expertise for open source collection, analysis, tradecraft and training, in line with the Review's recommendations.
I want to emphasise that while DG NI and ONI will have prominent roles in coordinating and guiding Australia's overall intelligence effort, including the shared development of capability, the ONI Bill makes clear that DG NI and ONI will not be directing the operations of other agencies or controlling their budgets.
We are not creating an agency which will interfere with the good work other intelligence agencies are already doing. In fact, the Bill specifies that ONI may not do this. This also reflects the necessity of clear accountability for each of the agencies.
Recognising that Australia's safety and security are bipartisan priorities, the ONI Bill states DG NI must keep the Leader of the Opposition informed on significant intelligence matters.
The creation of ONI and the reshaping of our intelligence community into an enterprise mark a milestone in this Government's work to keep Australians safe, secure and prosperous.
Our efforts to do so will continue with our comprehensive review of security legislation and our broadening of oversight mechanisms in upcoming, ensuring consistency and strengthening the 'ecosystem of safeguards' that Justice Hope established.
This is a further demonstration that this Government knows how to balance the priority of community safety with individual freedoms.
Part of achieving that balance is having the right kind of accountable leadership for our National Intelligence Community and the establishment of ONI will put that in place.
OFFICE OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (CONSEQUENTIAL AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) BILL 2018
The Office of National Intelligence (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018 will make amendments to 19 Acts to support the proposed operation of the Office of National Intelligence Bill 2018.
In addition to repealing the Office of National Assessments Act 1977 in its entirety, the Bill will make substantive amendments to other legislation relating to the establishment of ONI, including to facilitate:
The Bill also includes transitional provisions and arrangements which will facilitate a seamless transition when the Office of National Assessments becomes the Office of National Intelligence.
I commend this Bill to the house.
Labor supports the Office of National Intelligence Bill 2018 and the Office of National Intelligence (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018. These two bills will implement a number of recommendations of the 2017 independent intelligence review conducted by Michael L'Estrange and Stephen Merchant by establishing the Office of National Intelligence, ONI, which is to be led by the Director-General of National Intelligence.
The Office of National Intelligence will be responsible for leading Australia's national intelligence agencies. While the new Director-General of National Intelligence will not be empowered to direct the specific activities of agencies, he or she will be able to direct the coordination of agencies to ensure there are appropriately integrated strategies across the suite of agency capabilities. The Director-General of National Intelligence will also be tasked with keeping the Prime Minister informed on matters relating to Australia's intelligence agencies.
Each of Australia's Five Eyes partners currently has a single point of coordination for their intelligence agencies. This is what the Office of National Intelligence will provide for Australia. In addition to its leadership role, the Office of National Intelligence will replace the Office of National Assessments and be responsible for preparing strategic assessments and reports in relation to international and domestic matters that are of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia. As is the case with the Office of National Assessments, those assessments and reports will be prepared on the basis of information that is collected from publicly available sources. This marks an extension of the ONA's existing assessment and evaluation function, which is currently limited exclusively to international matters.
Labor also supports the Office of National Intelligence (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018, which repeals the Office of National Assessments Act 1977 and makes a series of consequential amendments to other acts to reflect the proposed operation of the Office of National Intelligence. The bipartisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PJCIS, looked carefully at these two bills and recommended four improvements, each of which was accepted by the government. The government's amendments give effect to the committee's recommendations by ensuring, among other things, that the Privacy Commissioner is directly involved in drafting the ONI's privacy rules and that those rules are made publicly available on ONI's website.
Since 2014 the PJCIS has considered 15 substantive national security bills and made over 300 recommendations for amendment, all of which have been accepted by government. I commend my colleagues on the committee—Labor and Liberal—for their careful, considered and bipartisan approach to these bills and for recommending a number of improvements. That is how national security issues should be dealt with, and that is how national security issues have been dealt with in recent history. In that spirit, I urge the government to work with Labor to implement two of the other recommendations that were made by Mr L'Estrange and Mr Merchant in their intelligence review in relation to the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
Strong and effective oversight does not undermine our national security community. In fact, it enhances it. Public trust and confidence in our security and intelligence agencies are best secured through strong and rigorous oversight and scrutiny. Australia has a unique configuration of oversight, and it spans the parliamentary, judicial and executive branches of government. Institutions such as the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have complementary functions. Labor's existing proposal for reform of the committee recognises these arrangements. The proposal is embodied in the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill 2015, which is presently before the Senate. It arose out of the work done by Senator John Faulkner and others and contains a suite of measures designed to strengthen the power of PJCIS.
As it happens, much of the substance of these proposals was largely adopted in recommendations 21 and 23 of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review. However, despite receiving the review well over a year ago, the government has yet to act on these two recommendations, and no adequate explanation for this delay has been provided by the government. So, while Labor is pleased that the government has now acted on Mr L'Estrange's and Mr Merchant's recommendation to establish on Office of National Intelligence, there is more to be done to ensure that the oversight is appropriate.
The Office of National Intelligence Bill 2018 and the Office of National Intelligence (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018 relate to the Office of National Intelligence, which is part of Australia's security apparatus. We've seen multiple pieces of legislation come before this parliament in recent years that amend acts governing the operation of the intelligence apparatus in this country. One very big change we've seen is the consolidation of power into the new Department of Home Affairs, which—shamefully—Labor is yet to announce that it will dismantle when it wins government in six years time. I urge the Labor Party to have a close look at this and have a very good think about whether they want to be a party that goes down in history as maintaining the disgraceful arrangements that have been created whereby one minister has the level of power that home affairs minister Peter Dutton currently has in this country.
As I said, we've seen numerous pieces of legislation in Australia recently that amend acts that govern the operation of our intelligence agencies or our intelligence sector. In fact, over 200 pieces of legislation have passed through state, territory and Commonwealth parliaments in the last couple of decades that erode fundamental rights and freedoms in our country. It's worth reminding people that Australia is the last liberal democracy in the world without a bill or charter of rights enshrined either in legislation or in a constitution. Unfortunately, it's the absence of such a bill or charter of rights that has allowed the parties, in the policy lock step that they are engaged in in this area, to continue to erode fundamental rights and freedoms.
The previous speaker, Senator McAllister, mentioned the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and said that this is how these pieces of legislation ought to be dealt with. Well, no, that's wrong, because what happens behind the closed doors of the PJCIS is that the major parties, in policy lock step, are walking this country down the dangerous path towards a police state. That is what is happening in this country, and Labor are culpable for it as well as the Liberal-National Party.
Labor still do not have a policy of supporting a charter of rights or a bill of rights in Australia. When I see Mr Andrews, the Victorian Premier, come out and talk about how progressive Labor is, I just reflect on some of the things that we've seen happen this week. We've seen Labor vote with the Liberal-National Party to make it easier to put the Army onto Australian streets and use lethal force against Australian citizens. That's what we've seen happen this week. We've seen Labor refuse to commit to supporting a bill, notice of which has been given in the other place, to rescue the desperately ill children from Nauru—and I might remind Labor that it put most of them there in the first place, over 5½ years ago. We've seen Labor, just today, indicate its support for a piece of legislation which will throw many thousands of recent migrants who have arrived in this country onto the scrap heap by denying them access to Newstart for four years after they arrive in this country, a deal that has got the imprimatur of no-one other than Senator Hanson. Let's be clear about what we've seen here today. This so-called progressive party—
Senator McKim, while I'm happy to be very accommodating, or as accommodating as I can be, that bill has already been debated and voted on today—
No, it hasn't, Chair.
Well, then it's a different debate. The bill before us today is the bill you started off speaking to, and I'd ask you to address that bill.
All right. Just for clarity: that bill has not been voted on. It is still before this chamber. Again, Labor's policy lock step with the Liberal Party on national security issues—which is directly relevant to this legislation, Acting Deputy President—is responsible for the erosion of fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties in this country. We used to send the ADF overseas to fight wars to protect these fundamental rights and freedoms and liberties, and now, behind the closed doors of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—which, I might add, are closed doors which are locked to any single member of this crossbench—the dirty deals get stitched up. You could set your clock by it. You could set your clock by Labor colluding with the LNP, the control freaks over there, to erode fundamental rights and freedoms in this country.
One of those erosions of fundamental rights and freedoms that Labor have colluded with the LNP on this week is legislation to make it easier to send the troops onto the streets in Australia. Ben Chifley would be proud of that because of course it was Ben Chifley who sent the Army in to bust up the coalmine strikes, wasn't it, when he was Prime Minister? I'm enjoying giving the Labor Party some of their own history today and reminding them that it was actually Gough Whitlam who said, 'Only the impotent are pure,' when he was attacking the left wing of his own party.
We are, unfortunately, the only liberal democracy in the world without a charter or a bill of rights, and, unfortunately, Labor do not have such a bill of rights or charter of rights in their policy. In fact, federal Labor have previously had a bill of rights as an official policy platform. I refer senators to the ALP National Platform and Constitution 2004, chapter 7, No. 11 and 12. But, of course, then they got into government, as they so often do, and their policy was just left behind and kept in the back pocket, and they did nothing whatsoever to progress a charter or bill of rights. Unfortunately, despite repeated engagement, Labor to date are yet to support our calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the form and scope of a charter of rights in Australia.
So we're on very dangerous territory here in this country: 200 pieces of legislation slowly sleepwalking Australians down the road to a police state; a combined policy lock step between the major parties in this parliament; and no charter or bill of rights to act as a foundation to protect those fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties. Australians need to understand how poorly our laws protect their rights. The Australian Greens would love to see our Constitution amended to enshrine the fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties that so many Australians enjoy but too many Australians take for granted, but we understand that constitutional change is difficult in this country, particularly where there is political disagreement about a constitutional change being put to the people. So on that basis, while we maintain our view that our rights should be enshrined in our Constitution because that would make them much more difficult to take away, in the absence of that being a realistic option in the next decade or so, we want to see a legislated charter of rights in this place so that we can codify what rights Australian people want to see protected and make sure that we protect those rights in law. When people think about rights, they often think about things like civil and political rights, and of course they are extremely important rights, but there are many other rights that we could look at enshrining in a charter or bill of rights: rights to a home, rights to a particular level of income, rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water—broadly speaking, environmental rights—digital rights and privacy rights; the list goes on. But what we get from the policy lock step of the majors in this place is an ongoing erosion of those rights.
In regard to counterterrorism—and remember that that's the name or the badge that is put on all of these joint proposals, effectively, that are put forward by the LNP and the ALP; they're done in the name of counterterrorism—I want to remind people of one thing. Remember the metadata laws—again, a dual policy stitch-up behind closed doors by the LNP and the ALP. That was all about catching terrorists, remember? Remember how our metadata can be accessed without a warrant because the Australian Labor Party did a dirty secret deal with the Liberal and National Parties? I remember, and I'm well aware that my metadata and anyone else's—even senators' metadata—can be accessed by a range of authorities without a warrant. Well, do you know what metadata laws are being used for now? They're being used by local councils to figure out whether people have registered their pets or not. That's what they're being used for. If it weren't so serious, it would be absolutely bloody hilarious. Local councils are using metadata laws to bust people for unregistered pets. Thank you very much to the Australian Labor Party! Nice work! I hope Hansard can pick up sarcasm when it occurs in this chamber.
So, on counterterrorism, what we need is a white paper akin to the white paper we have on defence, because there is no doubt that we need to be wary and there's no doubt that one of the primary aspirations of any reasonable parliament is to ensure to the greatest degree possible, in the most reasonable way, that we do all that we can to keep the people that we represent safe. But what we need is a white paper on counter-terrorism so that we can pull together all of the disparate pieces of legislation, all of the over 200 changes to our laws in state, territory and Commonwealth parliaments, as we've seen over the last couple of decades, that erode fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties, and have a clinical threat assessment and a reasonable discussion, an informed discussion, in our community about whether we need to keep eroding rights, freedoms and liberties in the name of counter-terrorism.
If you want to look, on a dispassionate basis, at the threats to Australians, I'm here to tell you that the threat of violent men towards their partners or former partners is a far, far more serious threat to the safety of Australians than any terrorist act. Women who are either the partners or former partners of violent men are going down at the rate of about one a week, and yet, every time there's a tragic terrorist attack, out come the major party politicians, wrapped in Australian flags and trying to scare Australians, because they know that when people are scared they're more likely to roll over and allow their rights and freedoms to be given away by governments. This is a cynical game played for electoral purposes, driven in the main by the Liberal-National Party—a party that's under the control of the far Right racists and xenophobes and is acquiesced to by a compliant and cowardly Australian Labor Party. That is why you need the Greens in the Senate: to stand up against the kind of rubbish we are seeing delivered to us in policy lockstep between the major parties in this place.
It's well beyond time that we had a counter-terrorism white paper, or a counter-terrorism blue paper, if that's what you want to call it. We need that to investigate and inform a debate on a whole range of counter-terrorism issues. It's worth pointing out that, at the same time that counter-terrorism bodies are awash with new money, the Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor is running on a shoestring budget and continually assesses laws and reviews laws that are already in force. It's not good enough. We don't have enough checks and balances in this area in our country. The Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor needs a significant budget increase so that it can actually assess and review bills that are presented to this parliament before they come on for debate, so that the assessment can be used to inform the debate. I don't think either of the major parties in this place would take much notice of the findings of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, but I'll tell you what: the Australian Greens certainly would.
There is the incredible volume of legislative change being made behind the badge of counter-terrorism and national security—as I said, over 200 changes. It's worth pointing out that, in that time, while 200 pieces of legislation have passed in this country eroding rights, freedoms and liberties in the last 20 years, such laws have only been softened twice in that time and new oversight has been created just once in that time. These are unprecedented developments in Australian peace-time history, and we owe it to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to have a serious rethink. We need to create better overall laws in a more planned, informed and strategic way, where security is rightly and properly balanced with our deeply held Australian values of freedom, liberty and a fair go for everyone. In the same way, we have established white paper processes for tax, agriculture, defence and, would you believe, a white paper for northern Australia. I might add there: what about southern Australia? My home state of Tasmania wouldn't mind if the government were to get on board with a white paper for southern Australia, but that's not going to happen, because, of course, this is being driven by the Nationals, the agrarian socialists in this place, who are the pre-eminent pork-barrelers in Australian political history.
So, we're not going to see a white paper in southern Australia, but we are seeing a white paper in northern Australia, and if you can have a white paper into northern Australia you can have a white paper into counterterrorism and national security. Surely that's not a controversial comment. This area of public policy, just like defence policy, calls for deep strategic thinking and planning, rather than kneejerk reactive law-mongering. But that's what we see: stitched up behind closed doors in a process endorsed by Senator McAllister earlier this afternoon, saying, 'This is the way we should be developing national security legislation.' This is actually a blueprint for how not to develop national security legislation: in the absence of a charter of rights, behind closed doors in a secret committee where all the deals are done secretly, and then a fait accompli is presented to the parliament and voted through because the major parties have done a secret deal to agree on it. No matter how many times the Greens or other crossbenchers either here or in the other place stand up and point out that the crossbench is frozen out of this cosy arrangement and that we are seeing an ongoing erosion of rights, freedoms and liberties which constitutes a slow march down the road to a police state in this country, the major parties are determined to carry on on the current trajectory.
So, yes, we need to make sure that our legislation that governs the oversight of the Office of National Intelligence is considered carefully. But I make the point that the process that has led us to this bill today, rather than being exactly how we should do things, as Senator McAllister asserted earlier, is actually a blueprint for how not to do these things. So, the Australian Greens—the reason you need us in the Senate is to point out when Labor stitches up their dirty deals with the LNP, as they've done earlier today. They indicated they're going to support legislation that will throw thousands of recent migrants to our country into poverty, into destitution, into homelessness, by denying them access to basic social services for up to four years, saying to those migrants, 'We expect you to work and we expect you to pay taxes, but, no, you can't have access to the services that your taxes pay for.'
This is why you need the Greens in the Senate. If we're not in here, Labor will stitch up more dirty deals with the LNP that get the endorsement of none other than Senator Hanson, who today said how proud she was of the Labor Party for stitching up this deal with the LNP. I tell you what: a hug and a kiss from Senator Hanson says a lot more about the Australian Labor Party than anything I could say about it. You stand condemned today by the love that is being poured on you by Senator Pauline Hanson, who said in this place how proud she was of the Australian Labor Party for doing over migrants in this country.
Centre Alliance supports the Office of National Intelligence Bill 2018. This bill will carry through the government's restructuring of the Australian intelligence community with the establishment of the Office of National Intelligence, to replace the Office of National Assessments as Australia's peak intelligence assessment and coordination agency. Significantly, the new ONI will stand astride both Australia's foreign intelligence efforts and our domestic security arrangements.
The ONI will be the peak assessment agency but will also play a wider role in coordination, reflecting the complex overlap of both international and domestic security issues. This is a change that has been long contemplated and is arguably overdue. However, what I would like to do is highlight the continuing importance of parliamentary oversight over all aspects of the Australian intelligence community; I don't think anyone could argue other than that it is lacking that. That's not a poor reflection on the members of the PJCIS—very, very capable senators and members sitting on that committee—but the committee itself is restricted in what it can do in terms of oversight of intelligence. It's restricted not because the intelligence services have open slather and the parliament shall not look at them; it's because the parliament decided itself that it would carve that out from oversight.
We're in a situation where we have $2 billion being spent on the Australian intelligence community each year, with 7,000 people now engaged in this activity. We've also seen a number of pieces of legislation brought forward, and in some sense this bill serves to pull all of this together. With all of the new legislation, new powers and new responsibilities, we've seen nothing on the oversight side. The agencies that are involved are agencies such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO; the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS; the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the AGO; the Defence Intelligence Organisation; the Australian Signals Directorate, ASD; and now of course ONI, the new agency.
Most of these agencies—I make no criticism of this fact—necessarily conduct their operations secretly. They have significant powers that are exercised in secret. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is currently former Justice Margaret Stone, who I have every confidence in. However, there are some problems in respect of her jurisdiction. The priorities and objectives of all of our intelligence operations are set by the National Security Committee of Cabinet. Of course, ONI will feed into this and will no doubt have interaction in respect of that cabinet committee when it is making its decisions. Once the National Security Committee of Cabinet makes a decision, it is then transmitted or passed to the relevant agencies. The IGIS is limited in her jurisdiction at this present moment in that she can't examine whether or not the priorities and the operations set by cabinet are appropriate. All IGIS can do is look to make sure that, if an intelligence agency carries out an operation, it is done in accordance with those instructions.
I will give you a very practical example of a situation where a bit of parliamentary oversight may have saved the day, and that of course is in relation to the operations conducted by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service in East Timor back in 2004. Australia—it wasn't forced to—made a legally binding commitment to the East Timorese, shook their hands and said, 'We will negotiate the Timor Gap issue and we'll do so in good faith.' And I know people like to say there was an alleged operation, but we know in actual fact the operation took place. We know it took place because East Timor have argued this case in the International Court of Arbitration, and their arguments were made public because of a later operation by the Australian government to raid East Timor's legal offices, and, of course, to raid Witness K's house. That led to further action in the IJC, the International Court of Justice, where Australia had orders made against it. In fact, we ended up renegotiating the CMATS treaty.
I note Minister Ruston is sitting on the other side of the chamber listening to this speech. I know she is interested in this, because she was up in East Timor in the last week or two trying to repair the damage. There is no criticism of you, Minister—I know you're the A team for the government—
You don't know why I was up there.
Minister Ruston was up in East Timor trying to repair the damage that has been done from the decision that was made so long ago here in the ACT.
On a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President: Senator Patrick actually is not aware of why I was in East Timor. I'm more than happy—
There's no point of order.
to inform him of my trip to East Timor, but please don't put on the record things that you don't know to be true.
There's no point of order.
I say that very generally. If we're sending Minister Ruston somewhere, it's to do good and to make sure that, if there are any problems with relations, they disappear.
But, quite seriously, for the last decade or two, Australia has not been considered a friend of East Timor. That's because of what we did back in 2004. It's a disgraceful part of our history. I know a little bit about this, having asked the IGIS to have a look at that particular operation. The fact is that, when it comes to the issue of whether or not ASIS were acting lawfully, all that the IGIS can do is simply make sure that they followed the directions of cabinet, those instructions. No-one reviews those instructions. No-one looks and says: 'What are the impacts of those instructions? What are the impacts on our foreign policy, on our relations with other countries, in terms of the risk assessments?' Of course, once again, that ties back into the ONI. The ONI is that coordinating body.
Once again, I am just making it very clear. Centre Alliance support the bill, but we raise the issue again with the parliament, with the chamber, that, as we restructure this organisation for good, we're not dealing with the checks-and-balances side of things. I just want to make the chamber very aware of that. It's not as if the idea of parliamentary oversight of intelligence services is at odds with what the rest of our Five Eyes nations do. For example, we know that in the US Congress there are a number of committees that keep a watch on the activities of the US intelligence community. We know the situation is the same for Canada. We know the situation is the same for the UK. So we're in fact now becoming a bit of an aberration amongst our Five Eyes partners.
Of course, the Senate would be aware that I have a bill before the chamber. I don't want to verbal the Labor Party, but they have looked at it relatively optimistically and made some additional comments to the report that came back to the Senate. The government oppose the bill outright because they're simply shying away from any of that necessary oversight.
Once again, as we pull the intelligence service together to make sure we coordinate properly, through this office, both the domestic and the international situation, where we are lacking is that we have turned a blind eye to the oversight aspects of it. The purpose of me standing here is just to remind the chamber of that, and hopefully, if I say it enough times, we might get some progress in terms of that oversight. It's not intended to be intrusive in any way. There are sensible ways we can conduct that oversight. Noting the number of people now working in the intelligence field, noting the amount of money that we are spending in that domain and noting the powers that we give those agencies, for good use, it would be foolish not to think that from time to time some of those powers would be misused. We are not in a position, as the current oversight regime stands, to be able to deal with all aspects of intelligence operations. The IGIS will admit herself—and has done so in writing, actually, to me—that there's an area where she simply does not have jurisdiction, and it's an important area of oversight. So, once again, I just wanted to raise that with the chamber. Centre Alliance will be supporting the bills, and I commend them to the Senate.
I'd like to thank the senators opposite for their contribution, and I commend the bills to the Senate.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a second time.
As no amendments to the bills have been circulated, I shall call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bills be considered in Committee of the Whole.
I move:
That these bills be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a third time.
I move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
Introduction
Today I am introducing the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Student Protection) Bill 2018, which will provide a remedy for students who, due to the inappropriate conduct of their VET provider, incurred debts under the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme.
This Bill is all about cleaning up another mess left for Australian taxpayers from the previous Rudd/Gillard/Rudd Labor Government. The VET FEE-HELP loan scheme changes of 2012 has resemblances with other poorly designed Labor programs such as the disastrous pink batts scheme and the schools halls debacle, which resulted in Australian taxpayers being ripped off.
The 2012 changes to the VET FEE-HELP scheme by the former Labor Government allowed a number of unscrupulous training providers to offer bogus courses to Australian students, often with the inducement of a free laptop or tablet, without advising them they were incurring a debt to the Australian Taxation Office. This arrangement left vulnerable Australian students and ultimately Australian taxpayers with the Bill. It also had the potential to damage the reputation of the overwhelming majority of training providers who were doing the right thing.
VET FEE-HELP scheme
The VET FEE-HELP loan scheme operated from 2009 to 2016, with some continuing students accessing loans during 2017 and 2018 under grandfathering arrangements. The VET FEE-HELP loan scheme was originally designed to assist students with the cost of VET studies that led to a higher education outcome, such as a Bachelor's degree. The loan to students covering their tuition fees for the cost of their study had income contingent repayment arrangements.
In late 2012, the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme was changed and the requirement that the VET course provide a bridge to a higher education outcome was removed. This opened up the scheme to more VET students, but unfortunately because of the Labor Government's very poor design work, unscrupulous training providers took advantage of vulnerable students.
The Australian National Audit Office, in its 2016 audit of the VET FEE-HELP scheme, characterised this amendment as:
heavily… supporting growth in the VET sector…. (while providing) insufficient safeguards for students from misleading or deceptive conduct, and inadequate monitoring, investigation and payment controls for poor or non-compliant (VET) providers.
The abuse of the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme after the 2012 changes is well known, including that students at a number of unscrupulous providers incurred debts as a result of being signed up to courses they would never complete. The 2012 changes meant that VET providers would receive payment of the amount of the student's loan in accordance with the data they reported on students enrolled in units as at the census date for the course (that is, the time at which the enrolment is finalised and the debt is then incurred).
Opportunistic providers attempted to enrol as many students as quickly as possible so they could benefit financially. In doing so these providers and their agents targeted some of the most vulnerable Australians, including people with limited educational opportunities, people with disabilities, and Indigenous people. They employed deplorable tactics including aggressive marketing schemes, using brokers and cold-calling people. They offered inducements such as laptops and iPads in exchange for a person's agreement to enrol in a course. They provided inaccurate advice regarding courses and the consequences of enrolment.
In many instances, these students were not advised that VET FEE-HELP was a Government loan that had to be repaid based on the student's income, so that if they reached a particular threshold this would trigger a requirement for repayment through the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). These aggressive marketing techniques were targeted at people who were not looking for a particular field of study but were enticed by the rewards on offer rather than genuine students focused and prepared to complete their course of study.
I am aware of the case of one student, Gabrielle, who has bi-polar disorder. Under the VET FEE-HELP program, she was contacted by an education agent acting for a training provider and encouraged to enrol in a Diploma of Business course. The agent convinced Gabrielle that the course was 'free'. Gabrielle was also offered a 'free' laptop as an added incentive to enrol in the course. Before the course commenced Gabrielle realised that due to her condition she really wouldn't be able to undertake any course at that time. Gabrielle contacted the training provider to explain her circumstances and asked to be withdrawn. Gabrielle said that the training provider convinced her to change courses and she subsequently enrolled in a Diploma of Counselling course. Realising her mistake, Gabrielle contacted the provider again and asked to be withdrawn from the second course. The provider did not action either of her requests to cancel her enrolments and Gabrielle incurred VET FEE-HELP debts of over $20,000 for the two courses. Gabrielle submitted an unacceptable conduct application to the department to have the debts cancelled.
This legislation will help ensure that those students, like Gabrielle, who were ripped off by the unscrupulous providers that were allowed to flourish under Labor's poorly designed program, can have their debts cancelled by the Department.
Increased regulation of Commonwealth assistance to VET students
The changes in this legislation build on earlier work from the Government to clean up Labor's mess.
The Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Reform) Act 2015 and Higher Education Support (VET) Guideline 2015 commenced on 1 January 2016, and began the process of strengthening the safeguards within the VET FEE HELP scheme to address this exploitation. These reforms included introduction of the concept that the exploitative practices of providers amounted to 'unacceptable conduct'. Where a student successfully claimed unacceptable conduct occurred on or after
1 January 2016, the student's VET FEE-HELP debt was remitted. This went some way to limiting the most exploitive practices of VET FEE-HELP through 2016, but only applied to the 'unacceptable conduct' of providers post 1 January 2016.
From 1 January 2017, the VET FEE-HELP scheme was closed to new students, and no new applications to the scheme have been accepted from that date. It was replaced by the VET Student Loans program, which introduced greater regulatory controls and eligibility requirements to ensure that genuine VET students would benefit and unscrupulous providers would not.
VET FEE-HELP scheme oversight
Another essential reform was the establishment of the VET Student Loans Ombudsman on 1 July 2017 under the Education and Other Legislation Amendment Act (No.1) 2017. The Ombudsman is dedicated to receiving and addressing VET student complaints. The VET Student Loans Ombudsman and the Department of Education and Training have already identified a significant number of students who cannot have their debt remitted under existing legislation, even though they are clearly the victims of inappropriate conduct by VET providers or their agents. As these cases came to light it became clear that Government must address this inequity, which will continue to damage the reputation of Australia's VET sector if left unresolved.
VET FEE-HELP scheme remedy
This Bill aims to remedy the damage caused to these students and restore faith in Australia's Skills and Training system. The measures in the Bill also reaffirm the Government's commitment to the long-term viability of the VET sector. It is essential for the Government to ensure that there is no financial burden imposed on those who were unfairly caught up in the disreputable conduct that undermined the VET FEE-HELP scheme. While this measure will impose a cost, over the longer term the restoration of Australia's reputation in VET through ensuring we address this inequity will reap greater benefits.
Contents of the Bill
The Bill will provide a remedy for students who incurred VET FEE-HELP debt through the inappropriate conduct of their VET provider or their agents, by:
Whilst it is expected that all student complaints will be resolved by 31 December 2020, this is difficult to predict at this time. Therefore the Bill provides flexibility for the VET Guidelines to prescribe a later date, which also allows appropriate management of costs and resourcing.
This Bill is about cleaning up the mess of the former Labor Government, whose VET FEE HELP loans scheme saw thousands of Australian students ripped off. The Coalition recognises the valuable work of the Vocational Education sector who are training and upskilling Australian workers. We are ensuring that their reputation is not further damaged by the actions of unscrupulous operators who flourished under Labor's poorly designed scheme.
Most importantly, we are ensuring that the vulnerable Australians ripped off under Labor's program can have their debts cancelled.
I commend the Bill.
The Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Student Protection) Bill 2018 will provide a much needed remedy for students who have been burdened with a VET FEE-HELP debt due to the unconscionable behaviour of some unscrupulous registered training providers. The bill amends schedule 1A of the Higher Education Support Act to introduce a broad remedy for students who incurred a VET FEE-HELP debt as a result of inappropriate conduct by vocational education and training providers or their agents. The bill will also give discretionary powers to the secretary of the Department of Education and Training to recredit a person's FEE-HELP debt.
After five years of government, finally the Liberals have taken action, and it is absolutely overdue. There are too many students, many of them very vulnerable, who have fallen victim to scandalous behaviour by dodgy VET providers. The scheme's costs exploded under the Liberals—$1.8 billion in 2014 and more than doubling to $3 billion in 2015. In fact, before the government finally took action, a staggering $6 billion in loans was issued over the course of just three years. According to the government actuary, $1.2 billion of the loans has been inappropriately raised. It's unknown how many individuals have been affected by the rorting of dodgy private providers and now hold unfair debts, but it is highly likely that the 9,000 complaints currently lodged with the VET Student Loans Ombudsman represent just the tip of the iceberg.
The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has an abysmal record on vocational education and training. Australia's TAFE and vocational education system is under enormous pressure as a result of their poor and incoherent policy development and cuts. Since they were elected, the Liberals have cut more than $3 billion from TAFE, skills and apprenticeships and, in the last budget, as Treasurer, Mr Morrison cut a further $370 million from apprenticeship funding over the next four years. The scheme has been damaged by privatisation, poor regulation and unhealthy competition, which have diminished quality and damaged the reputation of quality providers in the system. Marketisation of vocational education has opened the way for the unscrupulous providers, the worst of which we have seen under VET FEE-HELP. As a result, we have seen an overall decline in outcomes for students. Enrolments are dropping, completion rates are low and costs are shifting back onto students as fees increase. Under the Liberals, TAFE courses have been cut back, campuses are closing, TAFE teachers are losing their jobs and dissatisfied employers continue to complain about skill shortages and skill gaps.
On this side, we understand the importance of vocational education, and we truly understand the importance of TAFE in our communities. We will restore public TAFE as the major provider of vocational education and training. We've now committed to ensuring that at least two-thirds of government funding for vocational education will go to TAFE. The balance will go to not-for-profit community and adult educators and only the very best of the private providers with demonstrable links to specific industry requirements. Labor will waive the up-front fees for 100,000 TAFE places and upgrade and refurbish TAFE campuses with a $100 million building TAFE for the future fund. Labor will fund 10,000 pre-apprenticeships and 20,000 advanced entry adult apprenticeships. Under a Labor government, at least one in 10 jobs on all major infrastructure and defence projects will be filled by an Australian apprentice.
We're living in a time of rapid technological change, and it's impacting on all aspects of our lives. Now more than ever we need a post-secondary education and training system that responds to those changes and works for every Australian. All Australians should have access through their working lives to the education, skills and training that they need for a decent job. Labor believes no-one should be excluded from access to vocational education and training as a result of financial disadvantage—course costs, fear of debt—or regional disadvantage. That is why Labor has made the commitment that, in the first 100 days of government, if elected, we will establish a once-in-a-generation national inquiry. It will examine all aspects of Australia's post-secondary education system and it will make recommendations about how our vocational and higher education systems address the country's economic and societal needs. The inquiry will build on the best of Australia's vocational education and training system. It will repair the damage that's been done to it by unscrupulous for-profit providers and the neglect of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government.
Labor supports this bill. It is essential that these unfair debts are expunged. But we also call on the government to take vocational education, TAFE and apprenticeships seriously and work with Labor to make the Australian VET system truly excellent.
I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Student Protection) Bill 2018. This bill provides a long-awaited remedy for students who have incurred debts due to the inappropriate conduct of their VET providers. For that reason, the Greens support the bill.
The Greens oppose public money going to private colleges. Government funding should not go to VET or tertiary education providers that operate for profit. We need to end public funding for privately-provided, corporatised models of VET and support public TAFE to provide the same educational and training outcomes as public education. The Greens are proudly the party of public education. We know that, for years, the privatised TAFE sector has been plagued by complaints of wrongdoing by victims of dodgy service providers. Both Labor and the Liberal Party must accept the blame for this. Public money should never have been handed over to for-profit VET providers. Public TAFE is where public money should be going. The Greens have fought hard to keep public funding for TAFE at both state and federal levels. TAFE is the cornerstone of the vocational and education training sector.
The bill in front of us amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to provide for a student's FEE-HELP balance to be re-credited where the student incurred the VET FEE-HELP debt as a result of inappropriate conduct by VET providers or their agents, including where that conduct occurred prior to 1 January 2016. In certain circumstances, the bill also enables the Commonwealth to recover from the VET provider an amount that is equivalent to the amount remitted. These include circumstances where a dodgy VET provider misled students and treated them as entitled to VET FEE-HELP assistance when they were not entitled to it. The bill also amends the Ombudsman Act 1976 to provide for the VET student loans ombudsman to make recommendations in relation to the re-crediting of FEE-HELP balances.
In short, the bill allows the federal government to waive up to $1 billion of debt owed to students ripped off by dodgy colleges in the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme. It also gives a new discretionary power to the secretary of the Department of Education and Training to waive student debts incurred as a result of the inappropriate conduct of a VET provider or its agents. The changes in this bill build on earlier legislation, which the Greens also supported. These bills included the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Reform) Act 2015 and the Higher Education Support (VET) Guideline 2015. These reforms included the introduction of the concept that the exploitative practices of providers amounted to unacceptable conduct, which it absolutely was. Where a student successfully claimed unacceptable conduct occurred on or after 1 January 2016, the student's VET FEE-HELP debt was remitted. This went some way to limiting the most exploitative practices of VET FEE-HELP through 2016 but only applied to the unacceptable conduct of providers post 1 January 2016. The VET FEE-HELP scheme was shut down to new applicants at the end of 2016 after being misused by colleges that enrolled tens of thousands of students in courses they were unlikely to complete and, even if they were completed, were unlikely to help them find jobs. But while the colleges kept the fees for the course paid through the government's VET FEE-HELP scheme, the students were obliged to repay the fee through the tax system. In effect, students are still carrying debts that were incurred as a result of this dishonest conduct by some VET providers. From 2009 to 2016, both Labor and Liberal governments paid private colleges $7.5 billion through the loan scheme, and payments peaked at $2.9 billion in 2015. However, as it stands we do not know what proportion of the payments went to dodgy colleges. We know that students at a number of unscrupulous providers incurred debts as a result of being signed up to courses they would never complete.
On 13 October 2016, the Senate referred an inquiry into a different set of bills that reflected on this and other issues in the VET sector. The VET Student Loans Bill 2016, the VET Student Loans (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016 and the VET Student Loans (Charges) Bill 2016 were referred to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry. The submissions to this inquiry really do provide some very interesting and very disturbing case studies to understand how we got to this point. The National Tertiary Education Union represents the industrial and professional interests of some 28,000 staff working in tertiary education. In their submission, they state:
There is no question that the existing market based arrangements for the regulation and funding of VET in Australia have been a complete failure. The NTEU welcomes the significantly enhanced funding and regulatory arrangements included in the proposed legislation and, as outlined above, if appropriately monitored and enforced, the new registration and compliance arrangements should minimise the capacity of dishonest providers to exploit students and/or rort public funding.
Education is not a commodity. It should never be treated as a profit-making exercise. Students are not clients, and education institutions should not be businesses.
Another interesting perspective is that of the Consumer Action Law Centre, an independent not-for-profit consumer organisation based in Melbourne. They work to advance fairness in consumer markets, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable consumers, through financial counselling, legal advice and representation, policy work, and campaigns. In their submissions, they state:
It is well documented and generally accepted that vulnerable and low-income consumers and job seekers were specifically targeted by VET providers and third-party sales agents. Unsolicited sales were common, either through door-to-door sales in lower socio-economic areas, or cold calling "leads" generated through job search or competition websites. Much of this activity was unlawful under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) due to practices involving misleading or unconscionable conduct. In response, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has taken enforcement action against individual providers or brokers.
These so-called education "brokers" and third-party sales agents wreaked havoc between 2012 and 2015 with enrolments surging from 55,000 to 272,000 during this time. Consumer Action's legal practice saw a similar spike in complaints about the enrolment practices of VET FEE-HELP providers and brokers over the same period.
A few years ago, triple j's Hack did an excellent expose of what was happening. It was called An insider's account of adodgy private college rorting student loans. I want to read some of the article onto the record. It is important that we don't forget the real impacts that these terrible changes that were brought on have had on people. The article reads:
For one year it was Megan's job to advise students enrolled at one of the many Australian private training colleges rorting the government and plunging thousands into severe debt. She was at the centre of one of the biggest blunders in government in recent years—the VET FEE-HELP affair.
The former employee told Hack what it was like working in the industry, and the kinds of aggressive stand-over tactics used to pressure the vulnerable into signing up to worthless courses.
Megan helped students access their online courses. This meant she was often the first, and only, person from the college to speak with the students after they had been recruited.
Many of the students she spoke with had been targeted by agents outside Centrelink offices or train stations in low-income areas and told they would never have to repay the student debt because they would never pass the income threshold.
Of the 1,000 students she had been assigned, some told her they had no idea they had even been signed up to courses that were costing them about $20,000.
"They didn't know where [the college] had gotten their details," Megan told Hack.
It was Megan's job to filter out the students who should not be enrolled, but she was sandwiched between the agents who made money out of each enrolment, and her bosses who were making money the same way. Her complaints were sidelined.
"We had a test ... that was meant to weed out the students who were not able to complete it, but often times the person signing them up for the course was actually doing that test for them, and when asked during orientation calls if they had done test they would lie and say 'Yes'.
"People would tell me, 'I don't even know what marketing is, can you tell me what marketing is? And they were signed up for a diploma in marketing.
Then there were the students who never answered when she called. If they did not answer, they were considered enrolled. She thinks many students were not even aware they were enrolled.
Earlier this year, Fairfax Media revealed that the Student Loans Ombudsman had been swamped by more than 5,000 complaints in just nine months from people who claim they've been ripped off by shonky private colleges or substandard vocational educational courses. The highest proportion of complaints came from people discovering loans issued by colleges without consent during one of the biggest rorts in the education history. We know that just 0.2 per cent of VET student loan complaints resulted in students getting cash back.
We need to support vulnerable students who have been cheated and scammed, and this bill is another step to enable us to do that. We can never undo the harm caused to so many students due to the decimation of TAFE and the handing over to private providers, in a complete neoliberal pursuit by governments, but this bill can at least right some of the wrongs.
I thank senators opposite for their contributions on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Student Protection) Bill 2018 and commend it to the Senate.
Question agreed to.
( Quorum formed. )
Bill read a second time.
No amendments to the bill have been circulated. Does any senator require a committee stage? If not, I shall call the minister to move the third reading.
I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Well! It seems that things have moved quite quickly! The Australian Labor Party cited FECCA as a reason to support this piece of legislation. They said that this legislation had the support of the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia. Yet I've just come across a publication from SBS from which it appears that FECCA are reviewing their position and, I understand, will be shortly issuing a statement saying that they do not support this piece of legislation. It appears that the only reason that FECCA initially indicated that they could live with this was that they feared that a worse bill was coming because we didn't have the support of the crossbench—or they were misled. They were clearly misled, because, had they spoken to members of the crossbench, they would have known that the majority bloc of the crossbench does not support this, or any other, legislation. So, if FECCA are going to be issuing a statement announcing that they do not support this legislation and the Australian Labor Party were citing FECCA as evidence of why this legislation was needed, I can only assume that the Australian Labor Party now will be reviewing their position.
As FECCA made clear through various submissions as the peak body for a number of different ethnic communities in Australia, this legislation rips a billion dollars away from those people who have come to Australia to make Australia their home and ensure they get access to the sort of support that Australians deserve. There was a time when Australia would have considered it part of the reason we have such a successful multicultural country that we support people when they come to this country and, as a result, they make better citizens in return for that support. Yet here we have the Australian Labor Party joining with the government in a deal to rip a billion dollars away from ethnic communities, from newly arrived migrants, and at the same time we have a government saying it wants to bring forward tax cuts to people on $120,000 a year. That's not what a decent country does.
Given we've now had this position from the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils that they are reviewing their support and are likely shortly to issue a statement indicating they do not support this piece of legislation, and given that the Australian Labor Party have based their support on representations from some of these peak stakeholder groups, I'm looking forward to the Labor Party now also reviewing their position and reversing their support for this bill. There was a time when the Australian Labor Party were a party that represented not only people who had been here for generations but people who came to make Australia their home and to contribute—the many millions of families from right across the world who have made Australia a better place. There was a time when they understood that the architecture for successful multicultural policy relied on supports for people when they first arrive here to help them find employment, get education, learn English language skills and, in the event that they might be unemployed for a short period of time, provide them with the income support that they need. Of course, we know that as a result of those supports—as a result of ensuring that Australians or people who are shortly to become Australian citizens receive that support—those individuals made an incredible contribution to this nation. The evidence shows that, as a result of migration, we've got greater economic growth, we've got more job creation and we've got greater investment. It's been a net positive for Australia. One can only assume that the Labor Party are fearful, in the lead-up to an election, that the government will run a campaign against them based on this anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, 'divide and conquer' approach. It's to the great shame of the Labor Party that they— (Time expired)
I rise to give a contribution on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018. I concur with the comments of my Greens colleagues already in the debate this morning and, of course, the comments of Mr Bandt in the House of Representatives as well. Make no mistake: this bill is an attack on multicultural Australia. It is an attack on the fair go in Australia. It is a bill that aims to create an underclass of migrants—an underclass of new Australians. Australia has built itself on the back of successful waves of migration over and over again. People from all over the world have come to this great country, contributed, helped build it, helped make it more vibrant and ensured that the notion of a fair go and justice—perhaps that phrase that the Prime Minister likes so much, a 'fair dinkum' go—is at the heart and soul of our national character and our social fabric. And yet here we have legislation being rushed through this parliament, with a wink and a nod from the Labor Party, that would rip the rug from underneath those when they need our help the most. What makes Australia a fair dinkum fair country is that we have a safety net that is meant to work. It's there for a reason: it's there to ensure that when people need help—need a helping hand when they're down on their luck—they're not pushed off to the never-never and are destitute forever and a day.
This is actually about having a safety net that ensures that we are able to look after people when they need our assistance because we're a community—that's what we do: we look after each other. It's why we pay taxes. It's why we have universal health care. It's why we have public schools and it's why we have a social safety net. But to suggest that, just because you come from somewhere else in the world, because you weren't born in this country, you don't deserve access to this safety net even though you've become a new member of the Australian community, is just plain wrong. It is a dangerous attack on the very heart of what makes Australia a wonderful multicultural nation but also a fair dinkum fair one.
What is the purpose of this piece of legislation that would cut off support to new Australians, if and when they need it? It's going to save the government, apparently, $1.3 billion over the next four years. Where's that money going to go? To tax cuts for those who are rich enough to look after themselves—until they're not? To tax cuts to corporate Australia because we know the government is desperate to look after big business in this country through a variety of different subsidies? To subsidising the building of new coal-fired power stations? We know the government is desperate to push through rules and regulations that would allow them to spend public money, by Christmas, on building new coal-fired power stations. Is that where this money is coming from: cutting off support to new Australians for a measly $1.3 billion over four years?
Basically what this is all about is a dog whistle in the lead-up to an election where this Prime Minister wants to run hard on race. This is a dog-whistle law. It is designed as red meat for the far right base of the Liberal and National parties and, of course, at a time when they're already losing votes—they've lost in Victoria, they lost in Wentworth and they're not hearing the lesson properly. Why on earth would the Labor Party cuddle up and side with the Liberals on this? Why are the Labor Party prepared to push a piece of legislation through that will destroy the social safety net for new Australians? It is an attack on multicultural Australia. It is an attack on the fair go of our nation.
If the Labor Party do this, if they push this vote through today, then we will know very clearly that they are not fair dinkum when it comes to fairness or multiculturalism. No: they're prepared to simply wink and nod as the Morrison government blows their racist dog whistle. That's what is going on here today. I don't understand, for the life of me, why we're not hearing more outrage from backbenchers in the Labor Party—or is it that people just don't know? Is it that members in this place simply don't understand that this is what the leadership of the opposition have signed their party up to? Because I tell you what: when you get back to your electorates, you will hear all about it. You will hear all about it. There is an opportunity today to take a bit of a pause and stop—
Order! Senator Hanson-Young, you'll be in continuation when debate resumes.
by leave—I advise the Senate that Senators Birmingham and Canavan will be absent from question time today due to personal reasons. In Senator Birmingham's absence, Senator Payne will represent the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Senator McKenzie will represent the Minister for Education, and Senator Fifield will represent the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Energy. In Senator Canavan's absence, Senator Cash will represent the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia and the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, and Senator McKenzie will represent the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Drought Preparation and Response.
My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann. I refer to the minister's explanation as to why Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cancelled at the last minute his planned trip to meet with his international counterparts at the G20. The finance minister said the Treasurer is 'the deputy leader and he's got some work to do domestically'. What domestic work is preventing Treasurer Frydenberg from meeting his international counterparts at the G20?
I'm always very pleased when I see that members opposite read my transcripts very carefully. If Senator Wong read my transcript carefully, she would have also seen my reference to the fact that this economic team in the Liberal-National government operates as a team. I pointed to the fact that over the last three years—well, for the last three G20 leaders summits—I have been supporting the Prime Minister in Turkey, China and Germany. The judgement was made as a team that in all of the circumstances, given that this G20 leaders summit will happen on a weekend in between sitting weeks, it was appropriate for me to do what I've done for the last three leaders summits. Indeed, given that this is a weekend in between sitting weeks, it's very important that, out of the leader and the deputy leader, one of them is in Australia.
Senator Wong, a supplementary question.
Does Treasurer Frydenberg's domestic work include dealing with the fallout from the now Independent member for Chisholm resigning from the Liberal Party and the threat of resignation by the Liberal member for Hughes, Mr Kelly?
The Treasurer, of course, every single day continues to work on making our economy stronger, making sure that more jobs are created across the Australian economy and making sure that the budget is in the strongest possible foundation trajectory for the future so families around Australia have the best possible opportunity to get ahead. We want to ensure, among other things, that we can secure the necessary funding for important government services in health and education—you name it—without the need to increase taxes. We know that, under the Labor Party, taxes will go up by about $200 billion, which will hurt investment, which will hurt growth, which will put jobs at risk and which will put the budget at risk. That is, of course, precisely what Labor did last time. So the Treasurer has a lot of domestic responsibilities in relation to implementing our plan for a stronger economy and more jobs and to repair the budget. Given my past experience— (Time expired)
Senator Wong.
This is my final supplementary question. Isn't Treasurer Frydenberg's cancellation at the last minute of his planned trip to meet his international counterparts at the G20 just another example of the chaos, division and dysfunction of the Morrison government damaging Australia's national interests?
Absolutely not. Under this government, over the last five years, the Treasurer and the finance minister have shared international and domestic responsibilities as appropriate. Earlier this year I attended the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Washington and Treasurer Frydenberg attended the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Bali. I have attended every single G20 leaders' summit with Prime Minister Turnbull over the last three years, and I'll be doing the same on this occasion, supporting Prime Minister Morrison, and I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health, Senator Scullion. Minister, how does a stronger economy enable this Liberal-National government to deliver record funding for Australian hospitals and Medicare without the need to increase taxes?
I thank the senator for that very important question, because as a Liberal-National government we have in fact been focusing on a strong economy, which enables us to guarantee the essential services that Australians rely on. Take Medicare, for example. In the last year of the former Labor government, the Commonwealth invested $19.5 billion in Medicare. This year, thanks to our strong economic management, we're able to afford $25 billion in funding to Medicare. Next year it will be $26 billion. By 2021-22 it will be $29 billion. We can afford that because we have the fewest people on welfare in 25 years and more taxpayers contributing to pay for the services that Australians rely on. We've been able to afford to end Labor's freeze on Medicare indexation, because they ran out of money by the end of their term in government and actually had to freeze Medicare. With bulk-billing there are now more Australians seeing their doctor without having to reach for their wallet than at any time since the inception of Medicare.
Take hospital funding. Funding from the Commonwealth for public hospitals has almost doubled under us since the last year of the Labor government—doubled! Since 2012-13, the Commonwealth has invested $13.3 billion in hospitals. Under our fully costed budget figures the Commonwealth will be investing $28.7 billion. Our new national hospitals agreement will also deliver an additional $30.9 billion for each state and territory. This is in stark contrast to those opposite, whose promises are completely unfunded and aren't worth the paper they're written on. The Australian people should never forget the con job Labor attempted at the last election. They promised $57 billion for hospitals but found only $2 billion in their budget figures—shameful! We should keep reminding Australians: don't listen to the rhetoric; compare our records. Without a strong economy, you cannot afford to make any of these investments.
Senator Gichuhi, a supplementary question.
Thank you, Minister. Minister, how does the government's strong economic management enable us to support patients by delivering affordable access to life-changing medicines without the need to raise taxes?
The PBS is an essential service that guarantees life-saving medicines that thousands of Australians rely on. It needs a responsible government that can manage an economy to ensure that we can afford the medicines that Australians rely on. Our record is simply to list each and every medicine that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee recommends. So, since 2013 we have listed nearly 2,000 medicines, an average of about one a day, and we've invested over $10 billion. In practical terms, 4,000 patients with severe inflammatory spinal arthritis will benefit from the listing of Simponi, which will save patients more than $15,000 a year, and 22,000 patients with rheumatoid arthritis will no longer have to pay $16,500 a year for Olumiant. Recently we announced the listing of a life-saving HIV medicine, Juluca, for more than 850 people, saving them $10,000 a year. These are all life-saving drugs that we could not afford if we did not have strong economic management.
Senator Gichuhi, a final supplementary question.
Thank you, Minister. Why is it so important to guarantee the delivery of these essential services to Australians in a reliable and sustainable way?
Being able to manage the economy enables the government to deliver affordable medicines to Australians who need them. This hasn't always been guaranteed. Who could forget the shameful mismanagement of the budget under the former Labor government and, of course, the impact on the PBS? The last Labor government reversed the coalition's policy to list all the medicines approved by the independent PBAC. That included medicines to treat the formulation of blood clots, deep vein thrombosis, severe asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, endometriosis, IVF treatments and schizophrenia. But you don't have to take my word for it. Labor's own budget papers: 'The listing of some medicines would be deferred until fiscal circumstances permit.' And then they outlined the government's new position that all listings with a financial impact will now be instead considered by cabinet. At the time, along with Australia's largest patient organisation, they all joined together to slam that policy. That's what happens when you run out of money. You cannot be providing essential— (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Mr Morrison voted against a banking royal commission in parliament 26 times. Last night the Prime Minister voted against increasing maximum jail sentences for the most-serious corporate crimes. Why does the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government always side with the big banks?
The first point I would make is that it was Mr Morrison who initiated the establishment of a banking royal commission. It was Mr Morrison who drafted the terms of reference. It was Mr Morrison who was responsible, with the Prime Minister at the time, for selecting the royal commissioner, who's been doing an outstanding job.
Labor over six years in government did nothing in relation to any of this. We have actually increased penalties in relation to relevant corporate offences and crimes—for example, from five years imprisonment to 10 years imprisonment for individuals; and we have increased fines from $210,000 to $9.45 million for corporations in relation to maximum civil penalties. We've increased penalties right across the board. But the Labor Party, as part of a little auction, tried to just push it that little bit further.
We actually are the ones who have taken action. We have increased penalties, and Labor is just playing political games. Over six years in government, you did nothing. During your period in government we saw the collapse of Trio Capital, which had 5,000 victims and is costing $176 million. We saw the collapse of Storm Financial, with 4,000 clients, which suffered losses estimated to be $3 billion. We saw the collapse of Opes Prime. This has led to the people who have committed misconduct being subject to penalties that are much lower than in other industries and financial systems in other Western countries under your government. So, you're Johnny-come-latelies, quite frankly, when it comes to this.
Senator Ketter, a supplementary question.
Whether it's the banking royal commission, a $17 billion handout to the big banks or tougher jail sentences for the most-serious corporate crimes, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government is always on the side of the big banks. When will the Prime Minister finally end this protection racket for the big banks?
The shameless dishonesty of that question is just breathtaking. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Bill 2018, which was passed by the House of Representatives, significantly strengthens the penalties for misconduct for banks, and we want to put it to the Senate next week. Labor have now told us that they don't want it in the Senate next week; they want to consider it next year. You are actually standing in the way of higher penalties for the banks for misconduct. You are standing in the way. So, don't come here misleading the Australian people. You could be increasing penalties from five years imprisonment to 10 years imprisonment for individuals and you could be increasing the penalties significantly right across the board for corporations. You are trying to stop us increasing penalties. You are the ones who are standing on the side of corporate crooks, as you did over the six years you were in government when you did nothing to increase penalties.
Senator Ketter, a final supplementary question.
This Prime Minister supported cuts to penalty rates, cut billions from schools and hospitals, voted against a banking royal commission 26 times, spent years trying to give the big banks a $17 billion tax handout and last night voted against tougher jail sentences for corporate criminals. Why does the Prime Minister only ever stick up for the big banks and the top end of town?
Every single assertion that was made in that question was a lie. Penalty rate decisions were made by the Fair Work Commission, established by the Labor Party with laws preventing the government from intervening—which were pursued by whom? Mr Shorten. And of course, funding for schools and hospitals is going up and up and up under our government, without the need to increase taxes because we are funding increased funding for schools and hospitals on the back of a stronger economy. Under Labor, the economy was weakening; under the coalition, the economy is strengthening. Under Labor, unemployment was rising; under the coalition, unemployment is coming down. That is the sort of track record that we are working on. I could go through the whole list, but let me just say: it is all just a pack of lies.
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. My home state of Queensland is on fire. After record-breaking heatwaves, more than 120 fires, at catastrophic levels unprecedented in Queensland, are wreaking havoc across my state. At the same time, Sydney is flooding and, tragically, three people have now died. Climate science tells us that this is the new normal, and it's going to get even worse. The Prime Minister brandished a lump of coal and said it was nothing to be scared of. Well, I'm scared. How much more of Queensland has to burn and Sydney drown before you take the science seriously and get a climate policy?
We stand with Queenslanders as bushfires continue to burn across the state, threatening homes and communities. Fortunately, there has been no loss of life, but these are, clearly, very difficult and distressing hours and days for Queenslanders. They have our thoughts and prayers, along with the men and women fighting these fires, many of whom have travelled from other states and territories to provide assistance. Our emergency services are, once again, showing their professionalism and dedication in the face of incredibly difficult conditions. We—and I'm sure that I speak for everyone in the Senate—thank all the career and volunteer emergency services personnel fighting these fires.
Queenslanders are known for their resilience in dealing with extreme weather, but these are unprecedented fire conditions for Queensland. The Deepwater bushfire has burnt more than 20,000 hectares, and multiple properties, sheds and assets have been destroyed. I urge everyone to stay aware of their surroundings and follow the advice from local emergency management authorities. Our advice to everyone is to listen to the radio and monitor emergency agency websites and social media channels for information. We echo the request of Queensland authorities and ask that those evacuating their homes move quickly and calmly and do not return home until they are advised it is safe to do so.
These are times when Australians come together, facing up to the challenge in front of us. There is always an appropriate time to have other conversations, and I'm sure that other conversations will take place in the days, weeks and months to come. But today we stand with all Queenslanders who fight these fires. (Time expired)
Senator Waters, a supplementary question.
Your government has approved every single coalmine that has ever passed your desk, including Adani's, and you just refused to rule out taxpayer funding for the latest Galilee Basin coalmine, China Stone. In completely unrelated news, you've taken $2.3 million in donations from resources companies since you formed government! Are you really willing to sacrifice our country for funding to try to keep yourselves in power?
I completely reject the premise of the question.
Senator Waters, a final supplementary question.
Insurance premiums are already going through the roof in North Queensland, and the insurance industry itself has said that premiums will increase 'massively' as the climate warms. If you won't act on climate change, will you at least agree to bail out the people who will lose their homes because of climate-driven disasters that your government is making worse?
I don't accept the premise of the question, and I think that today is not the right day to have this sort of debate.
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. This week the Morrison government has opposed the establishment of a national integrity commission, voted for the establishment of a national integrity commission, declared it a 'fringe issue' and indicated that they're considering it. Is this what Mr Turnbull meant when he promised Australians stable government at the 2016 election?
As I hear Senator Kitching not even contain her student laughter, I'm reminded of debates in student politics. You of course know that making a broad, generic statement in relation to a headline is very different than making a statement in relation to a detailed bill, which has serious ramifications. No doubt the reason Labor hasn't put forward a bill proposing a national integrity commission is that you yourself are having to grapple with some of the complexities that are involved in this.
The crossbench in the House of Representatives, to their credit, have gone though that work, but there are issues—there are problems, there are complexities—in relation to a bill that they have put forward. And I would suspect that the Labor Party are not ones to support the bill that was put forward by the crossbench. If you are supportive of the bill that was put forward by the crossbench, please let us know. Translating the question that Senator Kitching just asked—presumably it means that Bill Shorten is both in favour of a national integrity commission and against a national integrity commission. Unless you are not telling me here and now that you are supporting the bill put forward by the crossbench in the House of Representatives, in favour of a national integrity commission, then, on the basis of your logic, I put it to you that Mr Shorten is both in favour of a national integrity commission and against a national integrity commission. Is that the sort of wibble-wobble flip-flop we're going to get from Mr Shorten? That is the extension of your logic. We are saying that we support efforts to improve our anticorruption policy framework; absolutely we do. But we've got to act carefully to ensure that all the principles of natural justice, procedural fairness and the rule of law are appropriately reflected and that we don't have unintended consequences, and that is what we're focused on.
Senator Kitching, a supplementary question.
This week the Morrison government has lost almost one government seat a day: the seat of Wentworth on Monday, the seat of Chisholm on Tuesday, and now the threat of losing the seat of Hughes. Is this what Mr Turnbull meant when he promised Australians stable government?
I remember being involved in the federal government in a much more junior capacity back in 2001, and I spent a lot of time on the plane with Mr Beazley. Let me tell you: Mr Beazley and his team were getting very cocky. They thought they were going to surf into the Lodge. And Mr Beazley was much more electable than Mr Shorten.
Senator Wong, a point of order?
The question was about Mr Turnbull and what Mr Turnbull said about stable government—direct relevance.
You've reminded the minister of the question. He has 35 seconds to turn to his answer.
Let me answer the question directly. Firstly, the Morrison government's been a minority government from day one, but it's a government that continues to enjoy the majority in the House of Representatives, because if we didn't then the Labor Party would have long ago initiated a no-confidence motion. The fact that you don't means that you accept the fact that we enjoy the confidence of the House of Representatives. The next point I would make is that the last time the Labor Party was as cocky as you are now was when you thought you were going to surf into the Lodge. Mr Beazley and others were already measuring for curtains. (Time expired)
Senator Kitching, a final supplementary question.
This week the government released the 2019 sitting calendar, which will see the House of Representatives sit for only 10 days in eight months. With the government losing up to three seats to the crossbench this week alone, and incapable of providing stability, is it any wonder the Morrison government is running scared from parliament?
The first piece of advice I would give you is: don't always believe the Labor Party talking points, because they're not always accurate. If you look at the parliamentary sitting calendar that was put forward, what you will see is that, in the first eight months, we didn't schedule 10 days; we scheduled 11 weeks. Now, as it happens, everybody knows there's going to be an election due by the end of May, so the timing of the election will interfere with the parliamentary sitting calendar, as it always does every three years. Guess what else happens? Because the last election was a double dissolution election, we have to have the election in time to replace the Senate by 1 July 2019, which means that we've had to bring the budget forward by six weeks. When you bring the budget forward by six weeks, that also has implications for your parliamentary sitting calendar. That is all there is to it. Again, are these really the big issues for the nation? Why don't you ask questions about the economy and opportunities for Australian families to get ahead?
My question is to the Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education, Senator Cash. Minister, a couple of weeks ago I responded to a call from a New South Wales butcher, Darren Wilson, who was denied access to the new Apprentice Wage Subsidy trial despite his proud history of employing apprentices and supporting both his industry and local community. Mr Wilson, whose business is located in regional New South Wales, at Forster, on the New South Wales North Coast, was to be denied access to the scheme because he had employed apprentices over the previous three years. I have been assured that this was a bureaucratic error and would be corrected. Minister, can you confirm the steps the government has taken to ensure Mr Wilson and other hardworking small-business owners in rural and regional Australia can get access to this subsidy and not be punished for prior investment in apprentices?
I thank Senator Burston for his question. Senator Burston, I can assure you that my team has also spoken with Mr Darren Wilson. He is a proud small-business butcher in Forster. It was a very positive and productive discussion. I have to say, just by way of context, that I was delighted to announce, with our Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, on 31 October 2018 that the Liberal-National government are investing $60 million in a wage subsidy trial for apprentices in rural and regional Australia. The trial is going to commence on 1 January 2019. Mr Wilson is absolutely able to access apprentices. In fact, in the discussion with my team, he said he would welcome taking on a new apprentice.
This is all about the Liberal-National government recognising that those in rural and regional Australia face additional barriers to employment. In particular, all senators would be aware of the drought affected areas in Australia. We want to trial the wage subsidy. The wage subsidy is a significant incentive. It is 75 per cent of the apprentice's award wage in the first year, 50 per cent in the second year and 25 per cent in the third year to see the effect it has in rural and regional Australia. The trial is actually going to support, over the forward estimates, an additional 1,630 new apprentice opportunities in rural and regional Australia. That is why you have to take on a new apprentice. This is all about creating new opportunities for people in rural and regional Australia. In fact, Mr Wilson's business is the perfect example of the type of business— (Time expired)
Senator Burston, a supplementary question.
Minister, what performance measure is the government applying to this trial to assess whether it will become a permanent subsidy?
Thank you very much, Senator Burston. This trial is about testing the effect of wage subsidies as an incentive for rural and regional employers to engage more Australian apprentices in areas of skills need. This is actually the first time a wage subsidy has been trialled in this manner. The trial is all about helping us to better understand and better address the barriers that stop employers in rural and regional areas from employing apprentices. The subsidy will be in addition to other incentives currently available to employers through the Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Program. As such, the pilot will assess the interaction of wage subsidies and employer incentives. Assessment of the wage subsidy will include monitoring its performance in terms of apprenticeship commencement, retention and completion rates against baseline indicators. This is all about creating new opportunities for Australian apprentices in rural and regional Australia. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Fifield. Can the minister update the Senate as to how the Liberal-National government is supporting innovative welfare service delivery in communities around Australia, including in my home state of Queensland, without the need to increase taxes?
Thank you, Senator Stoker, for the question. Colleagues, it's a fact that the good economic management and good budget management of this government means that we can continue to provide the essential services that Australians depend on. Last week, for example, the government announced it had committed $35 million over the next five years to support 10 demonstration communities across Australia. Under the Stronger Places, Stronger People initiative, we will support community led efforts to provide a better future for kids. Following early successes with this place based initiative in Logan, the government is facilitating Stronger Places, Stronger People in 10 demonstration communities across Australia, including Logan, with the support of other funders and sectors who also believe that a strong local community provides the best opportunities to grow strong environments to support kids.
The goal of this program is to test the impact of this community led, resourced and supported approach in a range of communities, and to assess the difference that it can make to the futures of kids and families living in areas that experience high levels of disadvantage. This investment, which, I should point out, is in addition to the government's funding for programs and services in these communities, will be targeted towards the local community plan of action and the priorities identified by local leaders from 1 July 2019. The funding includes up to $3.75 million over five years for the Queensland community of Logan. These community led, place based initiatives involve governments working together with leaders, families, philanthropists and researchers to support and lead change. Children in Logan are already benefitting from this approach, and we look forward to seeing the results of these trials.
Senator Stoker, a supplementary question?
How is the government's strong economic management allowing it to better assist families and children by providing them with the social services, welfare payments and initiatives they need, without the need to increase taxes?
As I said, the government is building a stronger economy and a stronger budget so that we can fund the services that Australian families depend on. Through payments such as the family tax benefit, we are supporting families fairly and sustainably. The government spends over $18 billion on FTB annually, assisting over 1.4 million families.
When Australians need help, our social system is there in place. It's one of the most comprehensive and targeted in the world. We lead the OECD in means-testing welfare payments. Australians on the lowest 20 per cent of incomes receive the highest amount of social assistance benefits, at an average of $517 per week. This is more than 18 times the amount received by those on the highest 20 per cent of incomes, at an average of $28 per week. This government has the balance right.
Senator Stoker, a final supplementary question?
How is the government's responsible fiscal policy and improving budget position underpinning the sustainable delivery of social services and welfare more broadly?
As I've said before, you don't have to choose between a good economic policy and a good social policy. They're two sides of the one coin. It's like breathing in and breathing out. Good economic policy, good budget policy, is breathing in; good social policy is breathing out. As evidence of this, the government spends more than a third of the Commonwealth budget on the provision of social security and welfare. We can do that because of a strong economy. We've pursued economic growth not as an end in itself—and we haven't pursued good budget policy as an end itself—but in order to sustain the essential services that Australians rely on. Under Labor, in contrast, social security and welfare was growing at an average of 6.2 per cent per year, much faster that total tax revenues of 3.3 per cent per year. Under the coalition, social security and welfare have been growing at an average rate of 2.9 per cent per year, lower than the growth in total tax revenues of 5.3 per cent per year. This is sustainable. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Energy, Senator Fifield. So far in 2018, the coal and gas plants and the National Energy Market have experienced unscheduled outages a total of 125 times. That's just over one unscheduled outage every 2½ days. Importantly, these failures have not been limited to our older coal plants. Our newer, so-called high-efficiency low-emissions plants have been just as unreliable, with every single one having experienced an unscheduled outage this year. Each time these plants fail without notice, the price of electricity spikes, hurting consumers, and the risk of blackouts increases. Given how unreliable coal and gas powered plants are, why does the government continue to argue that they are the only form of 'fair dinkum' power?
What this government wants to see is a balance—a range of sources of energy—and we do have a balanced and sensible plan for affordable and reliable energy for families and small businesses. Our plan will lower power prices by stopping the price gouging. We have a legislative package which we're introducing. We have a price safety net, which will be in place by 1 July next year, with a down payment on 1 January. We're backing investment in reliable generation with a shortlist of projects by early next year, and from 1 July we'll require energy companies to invest in fair dinkum electricity generation years ahead to meet customer needs through a reliability obligation. We want to ensure that Australians can have power that is reliable and affordable, and that means having a mix of sources of electricity generation. That is what all the policies that this government has in place and is implementing are all about.
Now, I should point out to Senator Storer, in the kindest possible way, the experience in his home state of South Australia. If there is a jurisdiction which is a case study in what not to do when it comes to ensuring affordable and reliable power, it is South Australia. That's one of the many reasons why on this side of the chamber we're very pleased that the Marshall government is in office there to partner with us in making sure that, nationwide, we can have policies in place which will see the lights stay on and power be affordable for families and for businesses.
Senator Storer, a supplementary question.
Well, our coal and gas plants are also proving to be more unreliable on the hottest days, when we need them most. During the February 2017 heatwave across south-eastern Australia, an equivalent of 14 per cent of coal- and gas-power capacity in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland failed during periods of critical peak demand. With heatwaves increasing in frequency, intensity and duration as a result of climate change, why does the government continue to push for new investment in these old and unreliable technologies that are causing outages?
Thank you, Senator Storer, for the supplementary question. I should remind colleagues that the government is focused on attracting new investment in reliable generation, increasing competition and reducing electricity prices. The Underwriting New Generation Investments program is going to improve reliability and security by increasing the level of firm capacity in the system—that is, the amount of energy generation that can be available when needed—which goes directly to Senator Storer's point.
The ACCC recommended that Australia adopt a program to underwrite new-generation investment. The government shares the ACCC's concerns regarding current levels of competitiveness in the wholesale market and the impact it's having on increasing prices for consumers. That's why this government is unlocking new investment in reliable electricity generation. For the benefit of colleagues: we released a consultation paper on 23 October; submissions closed on 9 November; and round table meetings will soon commence.
Senator Storer.
Australia is blessed with world-class renewable-energy energy-storage resources. South Australia's Hornsdale Power Reserve, the world's biggest grid-connected lithium-ion battery, is showing how renewables coupled with storage can put downward pressure on electricity prices and allow for the successful integration of high levels of wind and solar energy.
South Australia has been a great case! They can't keep the lights on!
An unforeseen weather event. Is it the case that, as the Senate agreed on Monday, renewable energy coupled with energy storage can provide fair dinkum power that is cheap, reliable and clean?
Thanks, Senator Storer. On this side of the chamber, we want to do whatever we can to ensure that we have reliable power. What that means is that we don't turn our face against any type of power generation. We want to have the right incentives in place to ensure that all those modes of power generation that can make a contribution to reliability and to affordable power are deployed to the best benefit of the Australian people and Australian business. That's our approach. We don't point to a particular mode of generation and say, 'In some way you have particular demerits which rule you out.' We don't take an ideological approach.
My question is to the Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education, Senator Cash. In July this year, and contrary to all evidence, the former minister, Karen Andrews, claimed that the Australian VET system is better than Germany's, and Minister Cash has claimed that the system is world class. I refer to Prime Minister Morrison's decision to appoint Steven Joyce, a former New Zealand National Party minister, to conduct a review of the Australian VET system. If the Australian VET system is better than Germany's and world class, why is the review necessary? And why has the government appointed Mr Joyce, who was responsible for cutting funding to regional New Zealand polytechnics by up to 57 per cent?
I thank Senator Cameron for the question. Senator Cameron, unlike you, I will never talk down the vocational education and training system in this country. I will never talk it down.
Opposition senators interjecting—
Order on my left!
Every time you mention the word 'VET', every time you refer to the vocational education and training system in this country—
Senator Cameron interjecting—
Order, Senator Cameron!
Senator Cameron talks it down. Colleagues, you should have seen Senator Cameron at estimates when it came to the international reputation of Australia's vocational and education training system. It is a world-class system. And I am proud—
You're cutting the funding. You're defunding it!
Senator Wong!
I'm proud to be the minister responsible for vocational education and training in this country. But we need to at all times ensure—
Point of order.
Order! Senator Macdonald?
I'm sorry to interrupt the minister, but, after Senator Wong's pious words on proper behaviour, she again flouts the rules by constantly interjecting when Senator Cash is speaking, and she's doing it now. Is there one set of rules for Senator Wong and one set for every other senator?
I was calling numerous senators to order. There was way too much noise during that particular answer. I ask all senators to keep the standing orders in mind so we can hear the answer. Senator Hinch on a point of order?
Mr President, we could hardly hear a word of that answer back here.
Thank you, Senator Hinch.
I have to say, that is surprising. Senator Wong raises the issue of TAFE and defunding. Well, Senator Wong, you're actually wrong. If you look at what the states have done—in particular, the states of Queensland and Victoria—they've actually said no to hundreds of millions of dollars under the Skilling Australians Fund. In fact, colleagues, the governments of Queensland and Victoria turned their backs on the creation of around 100,000 new apprentices. Those of us on this side of the chamber are proud of our VET sector's reputation. We are proud of the qualifications that it gives to millions and millions of Australians.
Senator Cameron, unlike you, we understand that you should always look to make sure that your VET sector is delivering the skills that industry needs and ensuring that Australians have the skills that our employers want. Senator Cameron, wake up! We actually don't live in the dark ages. Industry 4.0 is upon us, and those of us on this side of the chamber will ensure that Australians are equipped with the skills of the future. (Time expired)
The OECD has found that Australia doesn't have the skills needed to engage effectively in global value chains, and the Productivity Commission has called the system 'a mess'. Given the Abbott-Turnbull government cut $3 billion from VET and training since taking office and cut a further $270 million in the last budget, isn't it clear that the mess is of your making? (Time expired)
Absolutely not. Colleagues, there was a piece of legislation that went through the House yesterday and the Senate today, and do you know what that legislation was doing? It was continuing to clean up the mess that you, Senator Cameron, voted for when you were last in government. Colleagues, do you remember the disastrous VET FEE-HELP scheme? Labor single-handedly put in place a scheme that destroyed the reputation of the vocational education and training sector in this country. When I meet with stakeholders, they despair at a future Labor government for fear that they may once again open up the sector to dodgy providers, to rorting providers—to providers who will take advantage of vulnerable Australians and sign them up to courses that don't even exist and saddle them with debt. Again, we have cleaned up your mess—we have done that on so many occasions now it's not even funny—and we have restored integrity to the VET sector. (Time expired)
Senator Cameron, a final supplementary question.
Why has it taken five years for the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government to realise the crisis of their creation in the VET system? Isn't this another example of the chaos and dysfunction of a government at war with itself?
Absolutely not. Again, Senator Cameron, you fail to understand: the VET FEE-HELP system was an absolute disaster for Australians' VET system. But we have progressively put in place policy, year after year, to clean up your mess. A piece of legislation had to go through the House yesterday and the Senate today, as we continue to clean up the disaster that was VET FEE-HELP.
What did we do? We stopped the dodgy providers from exploiting vulnerable students. We have invested heavily in apprenticeships. Senator Burston asked me about our $60 million investment. We have put in place the policies to clean up Labor's mess, to restore integrity back into what is an outstanding system in Australia. We put in place a substantial set of reforms. But we know that we can do more. As I said, we need to ensure that the VET sector in Australia responds to the employee's ultimate needs but also to the employer's needs. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Payne. Can the minister inform the Senate about how the Liberal-National government's policy agenda and strong economic management are ensuring that we are able to deliver essential services and keep Australia safe, without the need to increase taxes?
I thank Senator McGrath for his question. As the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have observed a number of times this week, we have a very, very strong economy. The economy is growing at 3.4 per cent—more strongly than at any time since 2012. It's growing at a stronger rate than the world's seven largest economies. We've restricted real spending growth to the lowest level of any government in 50 years, cut taxes for both workers and small businesses, and put in place the policies to continue that growth. We know that a strong economy is, in fact, a means to an end. A strong, balanced budget means that we can fund the essential services that Australians rely on. We're delivering record spending on health, on education and on disabilities, and there's a $75 billion infrastructure pipeline to ease congestion in our major cities. It also means that we can invest in keeping Australians safe and invest in our security.
On our government's watch, we are increasing defence spending and investment to two per cent of GDP by 2020-21—two years ahead of our election commitment—to keep our country safe and secure. The government has increased funding of our law enforcement, our intelligence and our security agencies by over $2 billion since August 2014, and last year the government provided the Australian Federal Police with an additional $321 million in increased funding over the forwards, which is the largest funding boost to that organisation in a decade. As a government, we've passed 12 tranches of legislation on national security to strengthen the ability of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate, monitor, arrest and prosecute home-grown extremists and returning foreign fighters.
Before I call you, Senator McGrath, I acknowledge that former Senator Heffernan has joined us in the public gallery.
Minister, in which ways is the government seeking to strengthen the ability of our security agencies to protect Australia and our national interest without the need to increase taxes?
I think it is important to remember that this government does not take a set-and-forget approach to national security. Today we have introduced the Intelligence Services Act Amendment Bill to increase the ability of the officers and agents of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to protect both themselves and others. Successive governments have asked ASIS to do more in response to national security priorities in new places and in new circumstances which were unforeseen 14 years ago when the legislation concerning ASIS was last amended. These legislative changes introduced today will enable the minister—in this case, the foreign minister—to specify additional persons, such as hostages, who may be protected by an ASIS staff member or agent, and will allow an ASIS officer to be able to use reasonable force in the course of their duties. The changes mean that officers will be able to protect a broader range of people and use reasonable force if someone poses a risk to an operation. (Time expired)
Senator McGrath, a final supplementary question.
Given the success of the government's policy agenda and strong economic management, what are the risks posed by other approaches?
That is a very important question from Senator McGrath. We do know what happens when you lose control of spending and lose control of your own budget. Under those opposite, defence spending was slashed by $18 billion to the lowest level since 1938. As this chamber knows only too well, Labor also failed to place a single order at an Australian naval shipyard for a single ship in six years, while Australia's defence industry shed more than 10 per cent of its workforce. Under Labor's management of our border protection policies, as Minister Cash has often reminded this chamber, more than 50,000 people arrived on over 800 boats and, tragically, there were 1,200 deaths at sea. The result of Labor's border protection failures was a cost estimated at $16 billion to clean up their mess. This side of politics is committed to responsible fiscal management so that we can ensure we are able to continue to invest in the essential services that we require to keep Australians safe.
My question is to the Minister for Regional Services, Sport, Local Government and Decentralisation, Senator McKenzie. The minister described the decision by the ABC to end shortwave radio services in the Northern Territory as 'wrong and ill-advised'. Does the minister stand by her statements?
Yes, I absolutely stand by my comments about the ABC board's decision in December 2016, on the advice of their former managing director, to shut down the short-wave services that communities in the Territory needed, that Pacific nations relied on, that fishermen in the waters around the Northern Territory relied on, and that the truckies who went from Adelaide to Darwin relied on to stay informed. It was an appalling decision by the ABC, and I absolutely stand by those comments. But I do find it a little cute by half that your team is lecturing our side of politics about ensuring that the ABC is independent. That is something that we are very cautious about.
We want the ABC to retain their independence, which means we can't direct the board or the managing director where to spend their money. But I will always urge the managing director—and, indeed, I've even written to the new acting chair about this issue to say that the board needs to revisit that decision and that it also needs to look at the advice that the ABC is giving rural and regional people in the NT about how they can access ABC services. They say, 'Just use VAST.' Do you know what? That would require you to put a satellite on your ute so that you can get to listen to ABC services. They do not understand what it means to live out in the regions. They think everybody has amazing connectivity. It's an appalling decision, and I stand by my comments.
Senator McCarthy, a supplementary question?
Yesterday the shadow minister for regional communications, Stephen Jones, wrote to the minister, inviting her to support Labor's commitment to provide the ABC with $2 million in capital funding to assist them to reinstate ABC short-wave radio services to the Northern Territory. Has the minister responded to the shadow minister for regional communications? If so, did the minister accept his invitation to join Labor in securing this essential service?
As I said, in instigating a Senate inquiry into this very decision at the time and questioning the then managing director in Senate estimates over and over again about this appalling decision, they need to reinstate it; they need to revisit the decision. The ABC itself, in evidence to the Senate inquiry, which is in Hansard, stated that budget cuts were not the reason that the board made that decision. We had Ms Guthrie saying that resources were to be redirected towards better technology because they thought that short-wave was century-old technology and that we needed to get with the times. Well, it's century-old technology that's simple and that works. It's a very typical Ultimo view from the ABC when it comes to essential services for rural and regional Australia.
Senator McCarthy, a final supplementary question?
The minister's colleague Senator Scullion has said, 'Short-wave radio transmission is an essential service, especially in times of emergencies such as cyclones and floods, for people in rural and remote areas of the Territory'. Given the impact on remote communities and First Nations peoples, why has the minister failed to act to reverse this wrong and ill-advised decision?
This is the height of hypocrisy. Last week it was: 'Hands off the ABC! Independence of the ABC! Do not get involved in the ABC!' Now, here you are saying, 'Why don't you, as the minister for regional communications, tell the ABC board, tell the acting managing director, how to spend the billion dollars that the Australian taxpayer gives them?' It is outrageous—and you don't even blink. You come in here and spruik coal in Queensland but not in Victoria. Last week, 'Hands off the ABC,' and a big song and dance; this week, 'Minister, can you intervene in budget decisions of the ABC?' It is absolutely outrageous. So, again, I call on the ABC board to get serious about its charter and get serious about delivering essential services to rural and regional Australia.
Nice work, Senator McKenzie! My question is to the , Senator Cash. Can the minister update the Senate on what the Liberal-National government is doing to assist small and family businesses, particularly when it comes to the Australian Taxation Office?
Thank you, Senator Smith, for the question, and how fabulous—in the last question time of the second last week of parliament, we get to talk about the achievements of the Liberal-National government when it comes to small and family business. Well, colleagues, guess what we have done: we have lowered their taxes to 25 per cent five years earlier than planned because of our strong economy. That's an achievement. We are ensuring that small and family businesses get easier access to finance with our $2 billion securitisation fund. That's backing small and family business. We are, of course, giving small and family businesses access to the $20,000 instant asset write-off. We've made the business activity statement easier to fill out for them, because we understand that any bit of their time we can give back to them is precious. We've cut nearly $6 billion in red tape.
Last night the Prime Minister announced at the ACCI dinner that we are going to ensure that small and family businesses get a fair go when it comes to the Australian Taxation Office. We will ensure that a small business that has a dispute with the Australian Taxation Office will have better access to dispute resolution. Why? Because all of the feedback that we have received is that the existing tax disputes mechanism is complex; quite frankly, it's probably scary for small and family businesses; and it is not sufficiently fair. So the Prime Minister has announced a new Small Business Taxation Division outside of the Australian Taxation Office. This is very important, because we need the independence. It will be located within the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. What we've also announced is streamlining. You need a decision within 28 days, because we understand small businesses need a decision so they can get back on with doing what we want them to do best, and that is, of course, to prosper, grow and create more jobs for Australians.
Senator Smith, a supplementary question.
Minister, why is the government prioritising assistance for small and family businesses, and what does their success mean for Australia's economic growth and fiscal position?
As the Prime Minister has constantly said about small and family business, they are out there having a go. On the Liberal-National side of politics, we believe that, if you have a go in this country, you will get a go. That is what fairness means. Of course, what do small and family businesses do? They take a chance. They take a risk. Sometimes they put everything they have into their business. Why? Because they want to be self-sustaining. They want to have the great privilege of potentially growing their businesses and offering another Australian the opportunity of work. That is why all of the policy levers that we pull and the policies that we put in place will always look to create further opportunities for small and family businesses in Australia—in particular, our free trade agreements. Why? Because so many of our small and family businesses—in particular, in regional Australia—want to take the fantastic products that they have to the global market, and, at the end of the day, when small and family businesses prosper, they create more jobs. (Time expired)
Senator Smith, a final supplementary question.
Given the government's strong record of prioritising support for Australia's small and family businesses, what would be the consequences of alternative policies that fail to back them?
As we were talking about yesterday, there is a clear choice at the next election: if you want to pay higher taxes, vote for Mr Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, but if you want lower taxes, if you want a government that will back you every step of the way, if you want more money in your back pocket, then vote for the Liberal-National government, because, at the end of the day, the only plan that the Labor Party have for the Australian people is tax, tax and more tax. And not only that—when I talk to small and family businesses about their electricity bills, they tell me they are horrified at the prospect of a Shorten Labor government, because they know the only party that will put downward pressure on their electricity bill is the Liberal-National side. They are petrified of seeing increased electricity bills and increased taxes, because all that means is that they close their business. A business that has to close employs no-one.
What a great way to end question time. I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Senator Macdonald, are you seeking the call for a point of order?
Mr President, I seek your ruling on the earrings that Senator Waters is wearing, which say 'Stop Adani'. Does that mean that I can wear into the chamber next week my coal hi-viz jacket? If Ms Waters is allowed to wear 'Stop Adani' earrings, will I be allowed to wear the jacket?
I will take that away and think about it. The ruling on your jacket has already been made by former President Parry. We had a discussion on this matter in your absence, where I made a ruling with respect to badges—that if badges have slogans or political statements on them they are not appropriate, but lapel badges and ribbons were in order. In the meantime, I'll offer you the opportunity to wear some earrings of your own before I make a ruling!
Honourable senators interjecting—
It's a Thursday. Can we have a little bit of brevity on a Thursday afternoon, Senators? I will seriously look at the issue, because slogans in the Senate, as I made very clear, have no place. Thank you for raising the issue, Senator Macdonald.
Thank you for that. The Greens are putting up this code of conduct to follow your ruling, and this seems to be classic Greens hypocrisy.
I will take it away and consider it and make it consistent with my previous rulings with respect to badges.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and the Public Service (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Wong today relating to the G20 Leaders' Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This is a government now so divided, so chaotic and so riven by hatred and personal interest that it's actually no longer able to govern. It's a government that's unable to act on climate change, unable to agree on energy policy and unable to put the interests of the nation ahead of its own self-interests. Do you know what? The Liberal-National Party: trashing good government; that's what it's doing. It's a government that can barely go 24 hours without someone resigning or threatening to bring down the government. It's so lacking in confidence and purpose that it's not even prepared to let the parliament sit for fear its divisions will be exposed on the floor of the House. It's a government where a Prime Minister cannot even announce something as simple as the date of the budget without having the announcement wrecked by yet another member abandoning his team. And it is now increasingly apparent that the chaos and division that we see played out in this place and in the House of Representatives is damaging Australia's standing overseas and is damaging Australia's national interests.
During the Wentworth by-election we saw a Prime Minister so desperate to cling to power he was prepared to trash decades of considered bipartisan foreign policy on the location of our embassy in Israel. We know this was a decision that wasn't taken to cabinet and was contrary to advice. We know this was a decision of which the foreign minister was given less than 48 hours notice and the media was briefed before the head of the ADF. It was a decision that is now risking the free trade agreement with Indonesia, risking our economy, risking jobs and, as important, damaging one of Australia's most important relationships. And now we learn that the government is so divided and so chaotic it cannot even risk sending the Treasurer out of the country for a few days for fear the government will fall.
There are few more important events on the international calendar than the G20. It was a forum Australia helped create. In fact, Mr Costello was involved in establishing it as a meeting of treasurers and finance ministers in the nineties, before what the Obama administration's most senior US official on Asian policy, Kurt Campbell, describes as Kevin Rudd's decisive role in developing the G20 into a leaders' summit in the wake of the global financial crisis. In that process, Australia got a seat at one of the most influential and important tables in the world. The first leaders summit in Washington in 2008 and the follow-up in London some five or six months later was crucial to rebuilding confidence in the global financial system. And now the Treasurer can't go because the absence of a single MP for even a day might cause the government to fall, and instead we have the finance minister going in his place.
As people know, I have great respect for Senator Cormann, and I'm sure he'll do his best. But the explanation he gave for why the Treasurer withdrew says it all. He said, 'He's got some work to do domestically.' Well, he certainly does. Do you know what that's code for? It's code for dealing with the mess. It's code for dealing with the division. It's code for dealing with minority government. It's code for managing the fallout from the disastrous result in Victoria. It's code for trying to deal with the consequences of trashing good government, which is what this government is doing.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is heading off. But we're advised that he doesn't have any meetings with the President of the United States or the President of China. I very much hope the absence of these meetings does not signal that the chaos that has engulfed this government is now further risking Australia's national interest. And I genuinely hope this position changes before the weekend is out and Mr Morrison is able to secure these meetings with the leaders of these two nations—two nations that are so important to Australia: the US, our ally, and China, our biggest trading partner. The G20 provides a vital opportunity for Australia to advance our interests. It's disappointing that the meeting has not yet been secured. I hope it is. I equally hope that it is not because the Prime Minister has taken his eyes off the ball that a meeting has not been secured.
But, regardless of what happens in Argentina, there is no escaping this fact: good government in this country has been trashed by the Liberal and National parties—their division, their chaos, their dysfunction—and their desperate bid to cling to power is now damaging not only the interests of all Australians but also the national interest. That is entirely clear from not only what we have seen this week—an extraordinary spectacle of government voting against and then voting for a national integrity commission, losing government members, losing the seat of Wentworth earlier—but also creating the part-time parliament. (Time expired)
It's always good to follow Senator Wong in a spontaneous debate about answers given by government ministers to questions without notice, without warning in this chamber. Most of us don't know what answers the ministers are going to give, but it's great to follow Senator Wong, who read every word of a written speech that she couldn't deliver by herself but had to read every word of to show the spontaneity of the motion to take note of Senator Cormann's answer! So, well done, Senator Wong—well read!—for a spontaneous response to Senator Cormann's answers. You should have just tabled your speech and saved us all five minutes of our day.
On the substantive issue Senator Wong raised, as Senator Cormann says, every time the G20 has met, for the last four times, who's gone to it? The Prime Minister and the finance minister. And what is happening this time? The Prime Minister and the finance minister are going, exactly as they have done on the last four occasions at least. And suddenly the ALP, with their huge hypocrisy, make an issue of this. Why didn't they make an issue of this the last time it happened, or the previous time it happened, or the previous previous time it happened? They didn't make an issue of it then because they show their rank hypocrisy by raising this matter today—raising as an issue something that has happened as a matter of course on the last four occasions. It shows the desperation of the Labor Party to get into government, to measure for curtains this afternoon. They are so arrogant. The hubris is just reeking, and you heard that prepared 'spontaneous' speech by Senator Wong then as an example of this. Every time on the last four occasions, Australia has been represented by the Prime Minister and by Senator Cormann as finance minister.
Senator Wong made some issue about Mr Frydenberg—who is the Treasurer, in case she hadn't realised—having to do some work. We all know the budget has been brought forward by more than a month. Those of you who have been in government—and I can't see any over the other side who ever have been—would appreciate that the work on the budget actually starts now. The Expenditure Review Committee has already met on several occasions, I understand. Ministers and their departments are working on it now—not on the week before the budget, as Senator Wong thinks might happen. The hard work is done several months before the budget.
Mr Frydenberg, as the Treasurer, will be working very hard, as Senator Cormann said, to get the budget in order, because we want to continue the sorts of budgets that we have brought down in the last five years. We want to deliver a budget that will take us into surplus next year, for the first time in years, including the six years of the Labor government and the five years for which we have had to try to correct the mess that Labor left us. Those of you who have been here for a while will know that when Labor took office there was $60 billion in credit. When Labor left office there was a debt that was approaching, and would have got to, $800 billion if there hadn't been a change of government.
Mr Frydenberg has a big job to continue the economic success that has been displayed by coalition governments over the last five years, and he's determined to do it. He will be working day and night from now until 2 April to make sure that we continue a budget that enables our Australian economy to move ahead. As Senator Cash said during question time, if you have surpluses, if you make a lot of money and your budget runs in credit, you can buy for hospitals, you can buy for schools, you can buy roads and you can buy infrastructure. You've got to have the money to do that, and that's what Mr Frydenberg will be working on over the next six months. (Time expired)
Well, what an extraordinary contribution—a contribution that was in complete denial of the shambles that this government is. It was a complete denial of exactly what is happening in their caucus room. We have seen a member of the government leave and sit on the cross bench and we've seen another threaten to leave and sit on the cross bench. That contribution from Senator Macdonald completely ignored what was happening. But, unfortunately for Senator Macdonald, the Australian people are not ignoring the shambles that is this government.
Senator Cormann has obviously lost his mojo. He was very fond of his mojo. He used to talk about his mojo all the time, but now he doesn't because he's obviously lost his mojo. He has no idea what to do. He was a part of the group that got rid of the former Prime Minister. He picked the wrong side. He backed his friend, Mr Dutton. Since that time, the government has completely turned in on itself, with infighting and disagreements not only in their caucus rooms but also out in the public. I'm not even talking about the government's inability to handle policy or its inability to agree on energy policy or on climate change; I'm just talking about the fact that this government is more interested in itself.
If those opposite were fair dinkum in their contributions, they would say that Senator Cormann's response to Senator Wong's question today in question time was weak. He made no real attempt to say why Minister Frydenberg was no longer going to the G20. As I understand it, he was going but he is now not going, because he has to stay at home, batten down the hatches and try to keep a government going so the Prime Minister has one to come back to. All this is happening without any regard for the Australian people. This is what is actually happening. This government has lost its way. It lost its way on policy quite a long time ago, and it has now lost its way in attempting to have some semblance of a stable government.
They're in minority government. They do not know from one day to the next what next emergency is going to happen. We've had, as I've said, the member for Chisholm jump ship. We have had threats from other members to jump ship. We've also had a former minister calling a current minister an L-plate minister—one of their own caucus. What is not happening is good governance.
The adults are certainly not in charge No matter how many dorothy dixers they come in here and start sprouting, saying what they're doing, it's not the reality at all, and the Australian people know it. They know that this government has no focus on policy. They know that this government cannot control themselves. They know that this government is not interested in the concerns of ordinary Australians. What they see is instability, infighting and conflict. That is what this government is showing. So what do we do? What's their next plan to try to stop people jumping ship? They put out a sitting program that has 10 sitting days to the next budget. That's all they want to work on behalf of their constituency. The Prime Minister is saying: 'We're only coming here for 10 days, because we don't know what's going to happen when we get here. We're not in charge. That's all the work we're going to do for the Australian people.' Well, this government has to go. (Time expired)
There's a saying that those in glass houses should never throw stones. I must say, I find Senator Carol Brown's comment about Ms Julia Banks leaving the Liberal Party to sit on the crossbench disappointing, but I wonder where Ms Emma Husar will be sitting next week? I wonder what's going to happen there. The responses to questions in question time was unbelievable. The minority government—yes, I prefer a majority government by far, but what about 2010 when former member for New England, Tony Windsor, and former member for Lyons, Mr Robert Oakeshott, formed a multi-party climate change committee? They were going to change the planet. What did the Prime Minister of the day, Ms Julia Gillard, do? She said, 'There'll be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' And what followed? Nine billion dollars a year of tax growing and growing to change the planet. How outrageous!
Let's get back to the subject of Senator Wong's question. I'll look at some of the facts; I'm sure those opposite will be very keen to hear them. Minister Cormann attended the G20 meeting with his international counterparts in Bali in October. Okay? The Prime Minister will attend the G20 leaders meeting in Argentina, as one would expect for a leaders-level meeting. Finance minister Cormann will accompany the PM, as he did in 2015 in Turkey, as he did in 2016 in China and as he did in 2017 in Germany. Our Prime Minister has attended every G20 leaders meeting while we've been in office. I'll repeat that for those over there in case they're hard of hearing: our PM has attended every G20 leaders meeting while we've been in office.
We're talking about hypocrisy and those living in glass houses, so let's look at Labor's history. When they were in government they didn't even send the Prime Minister to the G20 leaders meetings in June 2010. They sent the Treasurer, Mr Wayne Maxwell Swan. Remember him? He was going to give us all those budget surpluses that we never ever saw. In September 2013 Labor didn't send the Prime Minister. Who did they send? They sent the foreign minister, Bob Carr. Why didn't you send the Prime Minister? This is just amazing. It's any wonder the public says, 'The hypocrisy of politicians.' You've got it all here again today from this question from Senator Wong to Minister Cormann. They're saying, 'Let's throw stones at the other side, but don't look at our side.' Senator Brown was talking about the economy and government's disarray. I'm very proud of the jobs that have been created since this government has been in place and how we support small business.
There were interjections in another question during question time, about the royal commission. I backed the royal commission for many years. I remember a great Western Australian senator by the name of Mark Bishop, but the factions kicked him out, of course. He chaired an inquiry we did into ASIC. We recommended a royal commission. What did Labor do then, in 2014? 'No, no, no, no, we're not having a royal commission.' When the Greens moved a motion in the Senate to have a royal commission into the financial sector, where were Labor? They were sitting over there with Senator Dastyari at the time: 'No, no, no, we're not having a royal commission.' They all teamed up as one. Finally, you did see the light, and the rest is history. Let's hope the royal commission fixes the mess that has been created over many years.
Can I say that it was the government that brought on the royal commission. There's no question about that. I'll tell you why: Nationals member Llew O'Brien said publicly he would back a royal commission, and so did George Christensen, another Nationals member for Queensland. The banks came forward to the government and said: 'Bring it on. The numbers are clearly there.' So the government brought on a royal commission. In that royal commission, we put the terms of reference to include life insurance and superannuation. You would never go near superannuation. You talk about doing the right thing about fines, penalties and criminal charges. When superannuation came in, there were no criminal charges for trustees in superannuation. When we tried to bring those penalties in last September—stiff fines and jail terms—what did you do over there? The Greens and Labor opposed the criminal charges for superannuation fund management and trustees who were stealing and doing the wrong thing. You wouldn't even support that, and you stand up here, holier than thou, saying, 'Where are the penalties?' The penalties are coming forward. We've got them through the House, and you're delaying them here in this chamber. Talk about that word 'hypocrisy'! It's unbelievable. Is it any wonder the public are so cynical? They can see now what you're really made of.
I rise to take note of the answer given by Senator Cormann to questioning by Senator Wong regarding the Treasurer's last-minute cancellation of his planned trip to the G20 in Buenos Aires. The G20 is one of the most important leaders meetings in the world. Instead of taking the opportunity to meet with heads of state and central bank governors, for example, from the world's largest economies, our Treasurer has instead chosen to insert himself in the unfolding drama within the Liberal Party in his home state of Victoria following the crushing victory of Labor's progressive agenda over the fear campaign run by the Liberal Party.
Senator Cormann can choose to keep his head firmly in the sand all he wants, but this is not going to change the fact that this week his government was thrown further into minority. You would think that, following the historic swing against the government in Wentworth, some lessons might have been heeded, but oh, no. That would be asking too much from this government. There's been a wave of denials all morning. 'Nothing to see here; move it along,' they say. Indeed, Craig Kelly, the member for Hughes, tipped to be the next to go to the crossbench, when asked if the decision of the Treasurer to cancel this trip was a reflection of a government that had lost control, replied, 'Not at all, not at all.' There would be some beautiful synchronicity if they lost one from their left flank on Tuesday followed by one from their right—a visual representation of former Prime Minister Abbott's arch-conservatives at war with former Prime Minister Turnbull's moderates. They are destroying everything in the process. Of course, the Liberal Party is in existential crisis, with the member for Higgins throwing petrol on the fire. She is reported as saying in a meeting of Victorian parliamentarians with the Prime Minister on Monday—the details of which, of course, were leaked almost immediately—that the Liberal Party is seen as homophobic, antiwomen and riddled with climate deniers.
Just when we all thought that this government couldn't get any worse, this week has unveiled the depth of the shambles that this government is in. The inside of a butcher's slaughterhouse might be a prettier sight than that of the coalition party room this week. This Liberal government isn't working. It's not just damaging the reputation of the main conservative party in Australian politics. Canberra is sneeringly called the coup capital of the democratic world. Ministers of the Commonwealth are so busy worrying about the internal stability of the government that they are not able to participate in international discussions vital to the stability of the world. This is utterly ludicrous.
Of course, it is some politicians' instinct to hang on to office, but Australians are entitled to expect more than just self-interest to motivate those who position themselves as our leaders. The G20 is important, and this decision proves that this is a government that should be put out of its misery. It has proven itself incapable of governing its own affairs and scarcely interested in governing the nation's affairs. Scarcely interested in parliament sitting more than the barest minimum, they've made this into a part-time parliament—and this from a party whose MPs, like Andrew Laming, dared suggest hardworking teachers worked part-time hours. This is a go-slow government trying to eke out every last day in the ministerial wing, every last day of hearing public servants say to them, 'Yes, Minister.' Meanwhile, they have doubled federal government debt, failed to address climate and energy policy, brutalised so many Australians with Centrelink robo-debt calls—remember that cruelty, that debacle?—allowed wages to flatline and penalty rates to be shredded, made deep cuts to health and education, and allowed a whole generation of young people to be cut out of home ownership, all on their watch.
One of Labor's and one of Australia's great prime ministers—and probably our most party-reforming opposition leader, as he purged our party of destructive extremists—was Gough Whitlam, and the words from his famous 1972 campaign speech echo through the ages to this day and to this place. He said:
My fellow citizens‚
I put these questions to you:
Do you believe that Australia can afford another three years like the last twenty months?
He said this in 1972. He asked:
Are you prepared to maintain at the head of your affairs a coalition which has lurched into crisis after crisis, embarrassment piled on embarrassment week after week? Will you accept another three years of waiting for next week's crisis, next week's blunder?
(Time expired)
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Wong to take note of answers be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and the Public Service (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Waters today relating to climate change.
I pointed out the tragic fires that are burning across Queensland as we speak, and the minister refused to really even engage with the substance of my question. He did say some commendable words to support our emergency service personnel, which, I am sure, all of us in this chamber would support, and I myself have put that on record and will do so again. But he then completely refused to engage with the premise of my question, which is that climate scientists are telling us that these extreme weather events are going to get more damaging, they are going to get worse and they are going to get more frequent. Yet this government and, frankly, the opposition as well have been waving through every single coalmine that has gone over either of their desks. The environment minister has to tick off on those things, and, so far, we have not had a single environment minister at the Commonwealth level that has ever said no to a coalmine.
We have seen, this last week, that there is another coalmine in the Galilee Basin that now wants to try to steam ahead. In fact, just in the last half an hour we have seen an announcement by the offshore coalmining company Adani that it's going to put its hand in its own pocket to fund its own mine. I think that's supposed to be news, even though this is actually about the sixth time they've announced that they've got funding, and it's kind of not really surprising when a billionaire announces that they've got money to fund their own project! But I suppose they did have their hand out for taxpayer dollars the year before last. So who knows whether or not this announcement actually means anything or is just yet more PR spin.
What we do know is that that mine doesn't have all of its approvals yet, and, in particular, the groundwater management plan still needs to be ticked off on by the Queensland government and the federal government. So this is a final opportunity for both sides of politics—Labor at the Queensland level, and the coalition government at the federal level—to actually finally heed the very clear warnings of scientists and the desperate cries of Queenslanders who are watching their communities burn, and finally step in and refuse to make this problem worse by ticking off on new coal.
The link is perfectly clear. I don't know why people here still don't get it. You dig the coal; you burn it; you worsen climate change; the weather gets worse; people die; the reef dies. It's actually not that complicated. I think the only thing I've left out there is that the coalmining companies put the money into the pockets of the big parties. It's $2.4 million, in a three-year stretch, to both sides of politics. Is that really all it's worth? Is that really all it takes to buy off climate action? A few million in your re-election coffers, and you're happy to ignore climate science? It's an abomination.
I know there are many good people in this place who probably feel pretty uncomfortable about that situation and probably are equally saddened by what's happening in Queensland. Please listen to that inner voice and please speak to the folk in your party and please get them to change direction. It's not some big racket where the scientists just want more research funding. They're actually begging us to take notice and to not add more fossil fuels to the system.
The world's climate scientists have come together, and the latest IPCC report could not be clearer. And here we have half of Queensland on fire and Sydney in flood. This is not a joke. This is not something that is going to happen in the future. This is something that is affecting the safety of our communities now. It's not just affecting the safety of our environment, which obviously we Greens care a bit more about than the rest of you do. It is affecting communities and people, something that we're all meant to care about.
The minister didn't engage on that at all. I then asked him whether he would rule out giving taxpayer dollars to this latest coalmine. No, he doesn't accept the premise of that question; he isn't going to answer it at all. Great. We might be fighting another battle to say: not only should you not be approving these climate-destroying and lifestyle-destroying mines but you actually shouldn't be giving taxpayers' hard-earned money to them for free.
I mentioned the fact that insurance premiums have already increased and are verging on unaffordable for so many North Queenslanders already. The insurance industry, which has been at the forefront of climate science for many, many years now, has itself acknowledged that the difference in premiums between 1½ degrees and two degrees, which we are well on track for, is massive. They are saying that premiums will continue to go up. People's homes will be damaged. They won't be able to afford insurance. They're going to be left with nothing, all because this government and this opposition are in the pocket of the mining industry, take the dirty money and have absolutely no policy position. You need to step up and save our community.
Question agreed to.
I present additional information received by committees relating to the following Senate estimates:
Education and Employment Legislation Committee—
Additional estimates 2017-18—Additional information received between 11 April and 23 May 2018—
Education and Training portfolio.
Jobs and Small Business portfolio.
Budget estimates 2018-19—Additional information received between 9 July and 17 October 2018—
Education and Training portfolio.
Jobs and Small Business portfolio.
Budget estimates 2018-19 (Supplementary)—Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.
I present the report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and I move:
That the Senate take note of the report.
I rise to speak on the report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, a committee I co-chaired with the member for Berowra, Mr Julian Leeser, and I offer my thanks and respect to him as the co-chair. Labor welcomes this report. I place on record my thanks to the members and senators on the committee for their thoughtful contributions to this most important challenge to our country. The committee members carried out the primary task of the committee with dutiful care and consideration. They listened to the First Nations peoples in hearings across Australia. They considered what they heard, and they have arrived at some shared understanding on a way forward for the parliament to consider.
The committee was established in March, presented its interim report in July and held 27 hearings in communities around the country. In June and July, the committee had hearings in Kununurra, Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Broome, Canberra, Dubbo, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. The committee also attended a meeting of the four Northern Territory land councils at Barunga. Barunga commemorated the 30th anniversary of the promise of a treaty by the then Prime Minister, Mr Hawke. I was there 30 years ago when that promise was made. I was working for the Central Land Council. In September and October, the committee conducted additional public hearings in Canberra, Wodonga, Shepparton, Melbourne, Thursday Island, Townsville, Palm Island, Brisbane and Redfern. The committee received nearly 500 submissions and 47 supplementary submissions, and I acknowledge with gratitude the work and good humour of the secretariat in managing a significant workload and major logistic challenges. Labor recognises that differences exist between the parties on these nationally-significant issues, and we appreciate the efforts of committee members to find common ground, which will enable the parliament to go forward if we are of the will.
In its interim report, the committee considered the proposal coming from the Statement from the Heart for a voice to parliament in detail, and since July the committee has continued to seek the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and others about how best to achieve constitutional recognition. In this report, the committee endorses the proposal for a voice. The committee recommends a process of design between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to work through the detail of the voice during the term of the 46th parliament. The committee also recommends that the legal form and role of the voice should be determined through a process of co-design. We see these recommendations as significant steps for the parliament to discuss and consider in the hope of moving towards a more cross-party and agreed approach for constitutional recognition. The committee also makes important recommendations in relation to truth-telling about Australia's history. Seeking a fuller understanding of Australia's history will lead to a more reconciled nation. One important recommendation of the committee is the establishment of a national resting place in Canberra for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander unknown remains that cannot be returned to any of our own people. It will be a place of commemoration, healing and reflection.
Unfortunately, while we achieved common ground in support of the recommendations, we ended up with two members taking different views on the options for the way forward. Senator Siewert and the Greens, in their minority report, take the view that a referendum should take place before any co-design process, subject to First Nations peoples' views. Senator Stoker, while agreeing with the recommendations that the majority supports, also supports the establishment of regional entities to get greater outcomes than a national voice or a constitutional amendment can deliver. Those members may, of course, speak to their positions and correct me if I've made a misinterpretation of their views. Their views are important and should be considered and weighed, and, as the co-chairs, we respect their opinions.
As co-chairs, Mr Leeser and myself had to do quite a bit of political shoe shuffling within our own parties as well as within the committee. We took very seriously the concerns and issues raised by all parliamentary parties and the independent member, the member for Indi, Ms Cathy McGowan. We particularly thank her for her efforts to encourage community members from her electorate to participate in the work of the committee.
I'd like to make some remarks from a Labor point of view now, as it seems that public comment has been made already in the press about the report and about Labor. Labor will be guided by this committee's report. As a party we remain committed to using this report as one step towards the future of a reconciled Australia which recognises First Nations people in our Constitution, values the history of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contribution to modern Australia, and entrenches recognition in our nation's birth certificate, the Constitution. Labour remains committed to all elements arising from the Statement from the Heart and will continue to work with First Nations peoples for a voice to parliament, for constitutional entrenchment of the voice and for a truth-telling and agreement-making process. These are high-order issues for Labor.
There was some quite intense discussion in the committee about what should come first: a referendum, legislation or some co-design form of legislation. In some ways, this is a matter of political judgement, working through all the legal consequences that words bring to constitutional considerations to achieve a successful outcome for First Nations and the community. The challenges of new words in the Constitution have their own tyranny, and we didn't have the time to do all the constitutional checking.
As a matter not covered in this report, the matter of the republic, has arisen in the pre-press before the tabling of this report, I want to make some comments about that. Labor is also keen to hold an important conversation with the Australian people on the issue of the republic and holding a plebiscite. The republic will be an important conversation, but I make it clear that we have committed to a constitutional change for the First Nations voice as our priority and our clear focus. If Labor were ever returned to government, clearly we are committed to working with First Nations leaders in the development of a national voice to the parliament and at the regional levels, as well as other elements of the report and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Labor will take up the challenge of enabling regional and local voices in this process of establishing a voice to the national parliament. Labor will begin the co-design process with legislation to set up the voice early in the first term of a Shorten government. Labor will also consult nationally and regionally on the appropriate words for the voice to be included in the Constitution, an issue on which the committee received some 19 different, competing suggestions and on which there were different and diverse views from First Nations leaders themselves.
Simultaneously, Labor will be consulting with Australian people in the broader community about the referendum and the way to entrench the voice. Labor understands the general desire to get on and to get things done quickly but thoroughly and to push forward for an early referendum. It will take the government of the day passing a law to make possible any constitutional change. Then it will take the opposition of the day and the parties of the crossbenches to support the question and the process for any referendum. Then it will take a majority of the voters nationally and in the majority of the states in favour of the question that has to be put to the nation. This is where we, as politicians and our parties, come in, and an interest of the parliament of the whole— (Time expired)
I wish to stand in support of Senator Dodson's statements and the tabling of this report. I would like to just remind the Senate that, this time 12 months ago, the issue of a voice to the parliament was an issue that was almost destroyed when the then Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said no. He said no to the First Nations people of Australia. He said no to the people who'd gathered at Uluru and recommended, through the referendum council, a voice to this parliament.
I would like to commend in particular the work of both the co-chairs on this committee. Julian Leeser MP, a coalition member, despite the movement of his own leadership and the opposition of his own party, has navigated a very respectful, considered journey with this committee, along with Senator Patrick Dodson, as co-chairs.
It's very important to put on the record the work of this parliamentary committee.
People may say that there are so many parliamentary committees—maybe too many parliamentary committees—but I have to put on the record that the work of the Greens, the work of Independent Cathy McGowan and the work of other members, along with Julian Leeser, in the coalition has been important work. It is important work for this parliament. It is important work for democracy in this country. We may all come from different viewpoints but the real challenge here has been about staying together on this journey. Where I come from, as a Yanyuwa woman, we call that journey 'kujika'. It is our songline, when we travel and walk together. That's what happened over these past six to eight months, where people who come from different ideologies and backgrounds firmly believed in the importance of what was said at Uluru and wanted to make sure it was revived and kept alive in the Parliament of Australia.
Many people who read this report being tabled today will reach different opinions—and that's okay; that's what a democracy is about. As Senator Dodson says, the Greens will have something to say and Senator Stoker will have something to say, but that is our democracy. The challenge here for every single politician in this place and the other place is to find the one common thing that we have to hold onto to bring us to what I firmly believe is the voice to the Australian parliament for First Nations people. That is what we have to hold onto. We have to hold onto it in a way that respects the cultural differences of every single person in this place but rises above those differences to acknowledge the importance of First Nations people in this country and the lack of their voice to this place.
In moving forward from here, I say to all members and all senators that moving forward means that we do so with respect. We are not going to agree on everything. We are going to come from different geographic spaces and different philosophical ideas. But I call on you to believe in the fundamental importance of First Nations people needing a voice to this parliament—and needing it in the right way. We want constitutional recognition. We want to have the First Nations voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution. I believe that there are enough people in this country who will make that happen. I believe that our country will be swept up in the goodwill, the good hearts and the graciousness of so many Australians who see way too much injustice, compounded by the lack of empowerment, compounded by the lack of sincere consultation and dialogue over policies and compounded by poverty and extreme disadvantage, whether by geography or just due to financial situations.
I want every senator and every member of parliament to know that this is what the First Nations people want. We want a voice to the Australian parliament, in an advisory capacity. I challenge you, as you go on your Christmas break and you look to your New Year's resolutions, to rise above your fears of the First Nations people in this country. I challenge you to be unafraid. I challenge you to allow our country to be the best that it can be. The only way we can do that, Senators, is when we allow First Nations people to take our rightful place in democracy in this country.
We stand in this place each day and we talk about the Westminster system of governance and we talk about procedural matters, and then we ask every February, when Close the Gap comes in the statement to the parliament, why are we not making a difference to the lives of First Nations people? Every year for nearly 10 years we have been asking that question in the parliament of Australia every February. Well, as you go away, as you reflect on this year and as you prepare for next year, I urge you, senators and members of parliament, to think about First Nations people. We've been here for over 60,000 years, and guess what? We ain't going away.
I also rise to make a contribution to the discussion on the report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. I was a member of the committee, and, as Senator Dodson pointed out, the Greens tabled a minority report. There were a number of reasons for that, but, first off, I want to make a few introductory comments.
I very strongly concur with Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy that through this committee process we heard very, very strong—in fact, I would say overwhelming—support for the voice. There was support for a voice to parliament that is advisory, not a third chamber, and I think the report comprehensively deals with that issue. But we heard comprehensive support for the voice. What I also heard was that people wanted it in the Constitution. They've seen their institutions that were set up before taken away with virtually the stroke of a pen, and they don't want that. That was one of the reasons I felt compelled, after much thinking, to table a minority report.
A number of us in this place have been involved in the debate around constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, our First Nations peoples, for a long time. Some have been involved a lot longer than I have. But in the time that I have been involved—when there's been a formal process through this place and also as a member of the expert panel with not Senator Dodson but Professor Dodson at the time—we've been on a journey of learning about constitutional recognition.
The Referendum Council were asked to consider constitutional recognition. They went through an extensive consultation process and came back and said: 'We actually don't want what you've been talking about. This is what's important: the voice.' It was the most comprehensive process of consultation that had been undertaken with our First Nations peoples in a very, very long time, and that's what they said. I have urged members of this place many times to read it. I urge you again to read it. It so eloquently describes what the aspirations of First Nations peoples are. Every time I read it, honestly, it brings tears to my eyes because it is so powerful. That was another reason I felt compelled to do a minority report. It was because we have been on this journey, because we have been trying to reach a consensus on an approach.
Every report that I've signed onto I have agreed with, even though I might have wanted to go further, even though it might not have exactly represented the Greens' views or my personal views. I come from a political party that prides itself on consensus, particularly the Greens Western Australia. That's what we were founded on, and we continue to try and practise that at all times. I can't say we're perfect at it. But that's why it took me a great deal of heart searching to come to this decision, in that I couldn't honestly sign up to this report knowing that many members of First Nations communities actually don't support the approach—the fact that the design should come first—and that we in this place still cannot come to a mutual agreement that the voice and constitutional recognition should be enshrined in our Constitution. And I thought it was time that we acknowledged that, that we acknowledged that we're not there yet. Signing up to the majority report signals that we are still on the journey to get there, when some of us are already there. I thought that it was more honest for me to articulate that I think there are these differences that we still need to address.
That's not to say that the recommendations—in particular recommendation 3, on truth-telling, and recommendation 4, on a national resting place—are not extremely important. Senator Dodson made a point about the national resting place. Of course we support a national resting place. We strongly support the concept of the voice at the local, regional and national levels, or however that then looks.
I put a lot of weight on hearing from everybody, all members of our community, but in particular I paid a lot of attention to the very late submission, I will acknowledge, from the First Nations members of the former Referendum Council. They outlined putting in place a process—they suggested a legislative process—that would lead to the design of the body. The argument they make is that other institutions that are enshrined in our Constitution, such as the High Court, were not designed before they were in the Constitution, and I take that very much to heart. They articulated and in fact drafted some legislation. They also have some very simple words that could go into the Constitution in terms of enshrining the body. A lot of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are concerned that constitutional recognition could undermine sovereignty and treaty, and I think the words that we could put in the Constitution, as outlined in that submission particularly, are very simple and I don't believe they would do that. The majority report outlines, I think, 19 different options for what the body could look like and how you could word the Constitution. The committee, in its interim report, actually asked people to give us their suggestions, so of course people are going to come forward with different views and potentially different models. It's not beyond the wit of this place to come up with a way forward through those particular models and suggestions.
We strongly support the voice being enshrined in the Constitution. We are deeply concerned about moving to a legislative model articulating the body for the voice, for a number of reasons. One is that I heard very strongly that people wanted the voice to be in the Constitution. We are deeply concerned that there will be a lot of expectations put on a body set up through legislation. Of course, bodies take quite a long time to get going. Any institutions take a while to get going. We are deeply concerned that that would then be reflected on many years down the track before we got to then enshrining the voice in the Constitution. A lot of people questioned whether we would in fact ever get there.
We are deeply committed to continuing the national dialogue. Our minority report does not mean, 'We are out of here; we don't want to discuss it anymore.' We are very keen to see an ongoing discussion of the voice. We are deeply committed to its enshrinement in the Constitution and we want to be part of the national, respectful conversation.
I remind senators that we have a 4.30 hard marker today. I am aware that a number of senators may wish to speak on reports.
I will be brief. I too would like to place on record my thanks and appreciation to the co-chairs, Senator Dodson and Mr Leeser, who I'm pretty sure, through this process, developed a special affection for one another, herding the cats as they did. It was a huge process with a great many hearings. Many of these I couldn't attend myself, but it did mean there was a lot of reading to do. Both Senator Siewert and Senator McCarthy, also members of the committee, have already alluded to the notion of respect. Given the process that was gone through, taking into account the very different and divergent views about where we should end up, I think we did get a fairly reasonable outcome with regard to the road map forward from here. The fact that we were able to sit around a table many times over and go through our differences, working out where we could meet and mapping out the way forward, was a good thing to do.
I think all of us who participated in the work of this inquiry did take note—and I think I heard Senator Siewert refer to this as well—of the differences of view from different witnesses and submitters to this inquiry as to how best to structure things with regard to what we were setting out to achieve, and that is the notion of constitutional recognition. There were very many different views about how best to do it—from the bottom up, from the top down, different models, different proposals. I will turn a little later on to the submission from Mr Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, the only submission from Tasmania, just to highlight the differences of view that came into the inquiry, which is why I think where we landed is exactly where we wanted to go.
I don't think anyone who was a member of, or participated in the work of, the inquiry wouldn't have a passion for getting the best outcome for our Indigenous people, including on this particular issue. Having been a former member of the community affairs committee with Senator Siewert, and having worked with both Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy as well, this is something we have spent a bit of time talking about. It is a very deep and complex issue, and dealing with this particular issue is only a part of it—an important part, but, as Senator McCarthy pointed out in her contribution, it is one of a great many issues that, as a country, we do need to properly take on and get to the bottom of. Of course, my background, my context, as a Tasmanian senator means I have a very limited perspective on these things, and that's why it's valuable working with colleagues like the ones I've already mentioned.
Turning to the points of difference, my colleague Senator Amanda Stoker provided some additional comments which I think provide a good explanation of why, from a coalition point of view, it was important to reach consensus as best as possible and provide that road map for future members of parliament—future governments, oppositions and crossbench members as well. The one thing that I really want to highlight is the notion of parliamentary inquiries engaging only a very narrow audience. The issue we're talking about here, of changes to the Australian Constitution, is a very important one and one that impacts on every Australian. While it is focused on addressing and supporting a particular part of our community, removing some discrimination and providing better recognition, it is something that relates to every Australian, and we need to take everyone on that journey. That's why the final report does set out a road map which, I think, gives us a chance of actually doing that.
Going finally to those points of difference from witnesses and submitters, I refer to the comments of Mr Michael Mansell, who leads the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. He was the only submitter from Tasmania, which I think is regrettable on such an important issue. Homing in on comments that have been made by previous contributors, no doubt there will be people disappointed in this report in that it doesn't recommend specific, hard-and-fast actions, which they were calling for in their submissions, but we went as far as we can. As Mr Mansell said in his contribution:
The biggest weakness in the race relations debate in Australia is the absence of a roughly agreed goal. The Committee cannot be expected to impose its own agenda but it can take note of stated indigenous sentiments ... and declared aspirations.
Mr Mansell went on to say:
Symbolic gestures such as constitutional recognition have had plenty of time to make a difference. Recognition has been going on since 2004 with no visible benefit Aboriginal people.
That's a point that many submitters would not agree with, but it does paint the picture that there are individuals in our Indigenous communities across the country who have a different view compared with many others.
I conclude where I started. I again want to put on record my thanks to the co-chairs, to my colleagues on the committee and to all those submitted. I commend the report to the Senate. I seek leave to continue my remarks.
Leave granted.
On behalf of Senator Sterle, I present the report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on the integrity of the water market in the Murray-Darling Basin, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. I move:
That the Senate take note of the report.
I seek leave to continue my remarks.
Leave granted.
I present an interim report of the Red Tape Committee on the effective red tape on private education, together with the Hansard report of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. I move:
That the Senate take note of the report.
The Senate Select Committee on Red Tape was established to inquire into the restrictions and prohibitions on business, the economy and community. It has produced interim reports on the sale, supply and taxation of alcohol, tobacco retail, environmental assessment and approvals, pharmacy rules, health services, child care, occupational licensing, and now private education. The inclusion of private education arose out of a meeting I had with the private education sector in Parliament House at which I heard a litany of complaints about excessive and inappropriate regulation. Despite not being constitutionally responsible for education, the Commonwealth government is deeply involved and spends a lot of money on it. In fact, you'd have to wonder how much more it would cost if it did have constitutional responsibility.
Total Commonwealth expenditure on education is currently $34 billion, rising to $39 billion by 2021-22. Among its main responsibilities is funding of non-government schools—$11 billion this year, rising to $14 billion by 2021-22. On higher education, the Commonwealth is involved via various policies, programs and funding. It registers education providers and accredits their courses of study, regulates the provision of education services for overseas students, provides income-contingent loans to eligible students, funds state and territory governments to support their training systems and provides certain specific interventions and support. Its involvement in higher education costs $10 billion, and in vocational and other education it costs $2 billion.
The private education sector unanimously described to the committee high levels of regulation that are negatively affecting providers, students, industry and the Australian economy. The Council of Private Higher Education described the high regulatory burden and red tape as 'the new reality'. The Australian Council for Private Education and Training said that regulatory measures are 'crushing' private providers in the higher education and VET sectors, and, in the latter case, is pushing students towards the less regulated university sector. Open Colleges said there has recently been an 'upsurge' in red tape with consequent impacts on private VET providers. They said:
In 2007 the regulatory framework for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) was articulated in the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) via the Essential Standards for Registration. This suite of standards encompassed three Standards, 14 Elements and supported by nine Conditions of Registration, all packaged in a 12-page document (including covers, definitions, introduction and an appendix). The nuts and bolts of the regulatory obligations for registration were explained in plain English over five pages.
In comparison, the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015 consists of 8 Standards, 59 Clauses, over 100 sub-clauses and six Schedules, packaged in a 33-page legislative instrument.
The Catholic Education Commission of Victoria submitted:
… schools are caught in a massive web of regulatory requirements that burden principals and staff with administrative tasks.
The Independent Education Union of Australia said its members are 'reeling under the burden of red tape and administrative demands'. Its submission cited ABS data, showing that, over the ten years to 2017, school staff working in administrative and clerical positions increased by 71 per cent while the number of teachers increased by just 15 per cent. Some submitters made the obvious point that this burden comes at the expense of educating students, enriching students' school experiences or having the capacity to pursue improvements that better support better outcomes.
Open Colleges referred to the increasing distance between the relevance and timeliness of nationally recognised training and the needs of employers and the workforce in a global economy, with training packages out of date before they are released. Open Colleges said the trajectory of education regulation is clearly failing to meet the current and future needs of employers and students, with the National Training Framework at risk of being discarded by its core stakeholders in favour of more innovative, responsive and flexible options offered by education providers operating outside the national framework.
Some red tape is attributable to duplication. For example, the National Catholic Education Commission noted that private providers report financially to both the Department of Education and Training and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, with the data required not being the same. Some of the red tape can be traced to a specific source. For example, the Council of Private Higher Education, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training and Open Colleges all attributed overregulation in the VET sector to the recent VET FEE-HELP scandal.
Some of the regulation of private sector providers does not apply to the public providers. Independent Schools Council of Australia referred to the need for each private school to be a registered provider, whereas a single registration covers all public schools in the jurisdiction of state education departments. Independent Schools Victoria noted that independent schools are significantly affected by town planning processes that do not apply to public schools. It gave the example of a school on the urban fringe of Melbourne where traffic lights are being installed following an accident. The school is being asked to put up $2 million to pay for it. The Council of Private Higher Education described higher education policy settings as enforcing a system that preferences publicly funded institutions at the expense of private education, with public institutions heavily subsidised, lightly regulated and free to pursue market and product development without external approvals. By contrast, private educations operate without public subsidy, are extremely heavily regulated and effectively require government approvals for new sites, new courses, new delivery modes, permission to grow international student numbers and change of ownership.
The committee believes it would be beneficial for federal and state governments to undertake an audit to determine the volume and quality of regulation currently affecting the private education sector to identify opportunities for deregulation and red tape reduction. The committee also recommends that the Department of Education and Training review the findings and recommendations of the 2013 Review of Higher Education Regulation Report to assist in the identification of deregulation opportunities for higher education.
The committee is concerned that, unless there is a renewed focus on red tape reduction, the private sector will be substantially inhibited from achieving its potential as a contributor to the economy through education, and the burden will unnecessarily fall on taxpayers via public education. The committee recommends that Australian governments, state and federal, consider whether a 'one size fits all' approach to regulation of education is appropriate, and suggests that governments explore options to implement better risk based regulation. The committee supports a five-year review of the Regulator Performance Framework to identify opportunities to improve Commonwealth regulators' performance.
The committee believes there is inequity in the provision of FEE-HELP to VET and higher education students who choose to enrol in courses offered by private providers. The committee considers that the policy rationale underpinning the 25 per cent loan fee cannot be sustained. It received no evidence regarding the Commonwealth's costs to show that students enrolled with private providers are more likely to incur doubtful and ultimately bad debts. In fact, the committee recommends that the Australian government remove all forms of discrimination against private education in its funding and support programs.
This is an excellent report and should be of substantial benefit to the government policy process. I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their involvement and assistance in this inquiry—in particular, Senators Griff and Anning. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I seek leave to lodge with the Clerk a late notice of motion.
We haven't seen what the notice of motion is. It is beyond the time for lodging, so it would be appropriate for us to see that before agreeing to leave being given.
Leave not granted.
I move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
SOCIAL SERVICES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (HOUSING AFFORDABILITY) BILL 2017
Introduction
The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017 contributes to the Australian Government's Comprehensive Plan to Address Housing Affordability, announced in the 2017-18 Budget. This Bill implements the Automatic Rent Deduction Scheme (ARDS). ARDS allows rent and utilities to be deducted from income support payments and Family Tax Benefit for occupants living in social housing. The Bill also makes amendments to the National Rental Affordability Scheme Act 2008 (NRAS Act), to streamline and simplify the administration of the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) until it ceases operation in 2026-27.
Automatic Rent Deduction Scheme
Australians living in social housing who get behind in their rent, including families with children, can face eviction.
Social housing is often the most affordable housing option available for many Australian families. If evicted, these families can find themselves in crisis. Some become dependent on friends and family for a bed and roof over their heads.
ARDS is scheduled to start from 1 January 2019 and will reduce the risk of Others may turn to homelessness services, and if they cannot find an alternative in time, in some cases they might sleep rough.
homelessness. It will also improve the financial sustainability of the social housing system and will support greater investment in social housing.
The current voluntary Rent Deduction Scheme allows social housing tenants to have rent and other costs automatically deducted from their payments. However, as it is voluntary, tenants can cancel their deductions at any time and those tenants often go on to build up rental arrears, increasing their risk of eviction.
We have been working with the states and territories to come up with a new system that addresses these matters.
ARDS will build on the current voluntary Rent Deduction Scheme by ensuring that social housing providers receive rent from tenants and other household members on time, in particular from those who consistently fail to pay. It will work alongside other available supports, to ensure that tenants and their families continue to be housed safely and affordably while they get the help they need to sustain their tenancies.
ARDS will help prevent high levels of arrears and reduce evictions and property abandonments from social housing. By helping more people to maintain their home, less pressure will be placed on other crisis services, including homelessness and child protection services, freeing up resources to help other vulnerable people.
The Bill will also be a significant step towards ensuring a stable rental income for social housing providers and will lead to a more efficient social housing system.
State and territory housing authorities are best placed to understand the individual circumstances of their tenants. Therefore, they will keep responsibility for all aspects of tenancy management, including decisions about tenancy agreements.
The former Minister for Social Services, the Hon Christian Porter MP, introduced the Bill in the House of Representatives on 14 September 2017.
On 19 October 2017, the Senate referred the Bill to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee (the Committee) for inquiry and report. The Committee recommended that the Bill be passed but raised some issues for further consideration.
The Government considered the Committee's findings in consultation with participating states and territories, and has introduced amendments to the Bill in response.
Amendments to ARDS
The Government's amendments to ARDS provide additional protections for welfare recipients.
The amendments introduce a new precondition —the relevant State or Territory Minister must write to the Commonwealth Minister for Families and Social Services setting out the social housing policies of the State or Territory, in order for an authority or body in that jurisdiction to be able to use ARDS. This will include information on how their policies apply limits to the amount that tenants can be charged. These letters may be published to ensure transparency and provide assurance that tenants will be protected from financial hardship.
The Government has also made amendments to further reduce the risk of tenants facing financial hardship. ARDS will now be restricted to rent and household utilities. In addition, any arrears incurred due to the suspension of an income support payment cannot be deducted from a single payment, when the payment recommences.
The amendments also clarify how ARDS interacts with income management and the cashless debit card. Social housing tenants who are on income management or the cashless debit card will only have ARDS deducted from the income managed or restricted portion of their payments.
Other amendments provide flexibility about the form of agreements between tenants and social housing providers for ARDS, and clarify that ARDS is available to community housing providers that are registered under a law of a state or
territory. These amendments better align ARDS with state and territory policies and procedures and respond to state and territory concerns.
National Rental Affordability Scheme
Amendments to the NRAS Act
The Government's amendments clarify and expand the power to make regulations under the NRAS Act, by removing any doubt that the NRAS Regulations can provide for protections and rights for investors in NRAS, and for the tenants of NRAS rental properties. The amendments will allow the making of regulations that will require approved participants to pass on annual State and Territory contributions to investors within a reasonable time.
The amendments also clarify and expand the power to make regulations about the transfer of allocations from one rental property to another rental property, the imposition of additional conditions and changing conditions on existing allocations, and the transfer of allocations to another approved participant.
The NRAS Act requires the NRAS Regulations to prescribe that the rent charged for an approved rental dwelling must be at least 20 per cent less than the market rent 'at all times during the year'. The expression 'at all times during the year' has been subject to different interpretations over the years, including a view that the requirement is satisfied if the rent charged over the course of a year is at least 20 per cent less than the market rent. This amendment confirms the intended interpretation, which is that each time rent is charged, it is to be at least 20 per cent less than the market rent. There may be circumstances where a specific charge for rent is higher than permitted because of a mistake.
The amendments to the NRAS Act will permit the NRAS Regulations to provide for the Secretary of the Department of Social Services to have a power of dispensation for a breach of the requirement in a specific instance, where it is established that the excessive charge for rent occurred because of inadvertence and the tenant has been fully compensated for the error.
The NRAS Act requires the NRAS Regulations to prescribe maximum vacancy periods for approved rental dwellings. The prescriptive nature of the current vacancy provisions has been amended to allow greater flexibility for the NRAS Regulations to prescribe permitted vacancy periods. This flexibility will assist in the future administration of NRAS should changes be required on how the maximum vacancy periods are to operate.
The Commonwealth relies on a number of heads of legislative power under the Constitution to support the NRAS Act. The amendments set out these Constitutional powers and give the NRAS Act operation within the scope of these powers.
While most of the approved participants in NRAS behave appropriately in relation to investors, a small number of approved participants do not treat investors fairly. Examples of poor behaviour include delays in passing on incentives to investors, and the provision of misleading communications to investors. The amendments will allow the Secretary of the Department of Social Services to accept and then, if necessary, enforce a voluntary enforceable undertaking from an approved participant. This compliance tool will assist the Department of Social Services to modify the behaviour of some approved participants. In some cases, accepting an enforceable undertaking may be a
more appropriate compliance response than transferring or revoking an allocation.
There will be no further new allocations in NRAS. The amendments to the NRAS Act will allow the NRAS Regulations to be simplified by the removal of provisions relating to the issue of new allocations.
Conclusion
The Government is committed to putting in place measures to reduce the risk of homelessness for social housing tenants, and to reduce rental costs for low and moderate-income households. This Bill will assist people living in social housing to maintain their tenancies, and lays the foundation for improving the NRAS legislative framework to support the efficient administration of NRAS.
Debate adjourned.
I table documents relating to the order for the production of documents concerning financial sector entities tax information, order 1225.
I table documents relating to the order for the production of documents concerning Gretals Australia Pty Ltd, order 1229.
I rise to speak on the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018. Just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the first anniversary of the yes vote in the marriage equality postal survey. Australians, of course, voted overwhelmingly for marriage equality. Australians voted overwhelmingly for the removal of discrimination against LGBTIQ Australians. In doing so, the country sent a powerful message of inclusion and acceptance to LGBTIQ Australians. More importantly, Australians demonstrated that ours is a nation that remains committed to fairness and to equality. But it did reflect a sad fact: that this parliament and a number of its members and senators lagged decades behind the Australian people. For too long, the laws of our nation failed to reflect the values of the vast majority of Australians, and this bill before the chamber is another example of this parliament actually catching up with the Australian people.
Since its introduction in 1984, the Sex Discrimination Act has included exemptions for religious schools. In 2013, the Labor government protected the attributes of sexual orientation and gender identity—it extended protection before the law to ensure that Australians were able to gain protection against discrimination for sexual orientation and gender identity. The exemptions which pre-existed those amendments were applied to these newly protected attributes as consequential amendments to the expansion of protections.
In recent years, there has been growing concern in the community about the appropriateness and the relevance of these exemptions in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. There has been growing concern about whether or not they in fact reflect contemporary Australia. And of course the leaking of parts of the Religious Freedom Review expert panel report in October, and the public reaction to it, made it clear that the current law does not reflect the views of the vast majority of Australians.
The government continues to refuse to share the report of the Religious Freedom Review expert panel with Australians and with their representatives. It was a report promised by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during the parliamentary debate on the bill to legislate marriage equality. It was delivered to the government in May, and it appears to have sat on Mr Turnbull's desk for months. Of course, we're not quite sure on who else's desk it has sat. It has now sat on Prime Minister Morrison's desk for months.
To sit on this report and to deny Australians a mature and informed debate really does show contempt for the people we are supposed to be representing. The government is seeking to hide this report. Why? Because of its internal division. The sole and primary reason the government is hiding this report is that it is so divided it fears the impact this report will have on its own unity, or lack thereof.
The news that the Morrison government was actually considering legislative change to entrench discrimination against LGBTIQ students was shocking to a large number of Australians. Perhaps even more shocking was the realisation that many people had that laws around our nation already allowed for such discrimination. Labor and Bill Shorten committed to amending the law to remove the exemption allowing discrimination against LGBTIQ students. We welcomed the announcement by Prime Minister Morrison that his government, too, was committed to ensuring that amendments were introduced as soon as practicable. So, too, we welcomed the Prime Minister's commitment to use the October sitting fortnight to ensure that this matter was addressed. Together with the Greens and other crossbenchers, it did seem that the vast majority of the parliament was ready to update our laws to reflect the view of the vast majority of Australians.
But the Morrison government has not acted on their promise. What we continue to see, in so many areas of policy, so many areas of legislation, so many areas of government activity, is that we have, in this country, a government so chaotic, so divided and so dysfunctional it simply cannot govern. It's trashing good government. It is so divided and so dysfunctional, it can't even focus on keeping the Prime Minister's commitments—or maybe he just doesn't want to.
Well, if the government won't act, Labor will. Australians support this change. The parliament supports this change. And the Morrison government of course claimed that it supported this change. We can get this done before Christmas—just as we got marriage equality legislated before Christmas.
I want to note here that the overwhelming majority of religious schools have told a Senate committee which looked into this issue that they do not use these exemptions and they do not want them. Labor wants to be clear: nothing in this bill would compromise the ability of religious institutions to operate consistently with religious teaching, whether in the classroom or through the enforcement of school rules.
This bill does not, however, address the issue of discrimination against staff employed by religious schools. Given the short number of sitting days left between now and the election, we do have to prioritise—and children are our priority. Labor is committed to removing exemptions which relate to LGBTI staff at religious schools. That is a commitment Bill Shorten has made to the Australian people, and we in Labor will continue to work on making that change happen. We know there is broad support across parliament to deal with the issue of staff. We are dealing now with the issue of children. We accept that there are complexities in relation to the issues of teachers and staff, and we intend to continue to work with relevant stakeholders on this. However, we are not prepared to hold up the change for students while that work goes on.
Today, this Senate has an opportunity to take the next step towards equality for LGBTIQ Australians. We have the opportunity to not repeat that mistake of delaying action, to not repeat that mistake by baulking at legislative change that reflects the expectations and hopes of the Australian community. This parliament has the chance to walk with the Australian people on their march towards equality instead of racing to catch up a decade later, as the parliament did with marriage equality.
This Saturday is World AIDS Day. This morning I had the privilege of speaking at the parliamentary breakfast with various colleagues, but relevantly Senator Smith, who has been one of the co-conveners of the parliamentary friends group for some five years. It was a reminder of our nation's relative success in battling the scourge of HIV/ AIDS, and it was a reminder of the reason behind that success. We in Australia succeeded because we worked together. We succeeded because government, non-government agencies, civil society and the private sector worked together. But perhaps more importantly, we succeeded because we proceeded on the basis of inclusion, non-judgement and because we were prepared collectively to tackle prejudice and discrimination along the way.
That is what this bill is about. It is about tackling prejudice and discrimination. It is about making LGBTIQ students feel accepted and loved—something we want for all Australian students, for all our young people. It's time to ensure our laws ensure that happens in all our schools.
I seek leave to lodge with the Clerk a late notice of motion as circulated.
Is leave granted?
An opposition senator: No.
Leave not granted.
The Labor bill before us, the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, completely removes the ability of religious educational institutions to maintain their ethos through what they teach and through the rules of conduct they impose on students. This is because such teachings and rules of conduct will now expose the religious schools to litigation under the Sex Discrimination Act, to which they were previously not exposed. Labor's bill is thus contrary to the basic human rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
Labor's bill opens up religious education institutions to claims of discrimination merely because they teach religious doctrine. For example, teaching passages in the Bible might be argued to subject certain students to detriment, which is the basis for a claim under section 21 of the SDA. Labor's bill opens up religious schools to claims of discrimination merely because they impose reasonable school rules. For example, a student might now claim to be discriminated against because of a school rule that requires the student to attend chapel where the service may subject certain students to 'detriment'.
Labor's bill would require churches, synagogues, mosques, monasteries, prayer centres, theological colleges and seminaries, if they were engaged in education activities, to admit activist students who have no intention of upholding the ethos of the body. If they refuse to admit the student, these bodies would be subjected to expensive litigation. Labor's bill would also require churches, synagogues, mosques, monasteries, prayer centres, theological colleges and seminaries to permit student behaviour that is diametrically opposed to relevant religion. Again, if they did not permit this behaviour, they are opening themselves up to being subjected to expensive litigation.
On 26 November I presented the dissenting report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee. That reference included consideration of the very issues that are included in the bill presented by Labor. Our report particularly focuses on certain distinct considerations which arise in respect of students within faith based schools. This was summed up in evidence by Christian Schools. As presented in the dissenting report, they:
… have no desire to expel students on the grounds of sexuality orientation or gender identity. However, in the absence of exemptions, schools have no adequate legal protection to:
1. Teach in accordance with widely held Christian beliefs regarding sexuality, gender and relationships;
2. Manage the school community and student behaviour in ways that are appropriate to the faith of the school; and
3. Employ only people who share their beliefs and manifest those beliefs in their own lives.
I have to state that current public discussion has been built on a lie. Faith based schools have made it very clear that students are not being expelled simply on the basis of their sexual orientation. Again, this was made very, very clear in the committee inquiry.
The same reasons that underpin the dissenting report which I presented are directly relevant to Labor's bill. First and foremost, the Senate committee report demonstrates the need for positive and standalone protection of religious freedom in Australia. To do otherwise puts us in direct contravention of international law. This bill that we're considering today is confined to the applicable rights of equality and nondiscrimination, and does not recognise the equally applicable right to religious freedom. Unless we legislate to equate these rights, as is required by international law, we will continue to fail in balancing appropriate equality of rights.
The explanatory memorandum to this bill wrongly states that an overwhelming majority of schools told our Senate committee inquiry that they do not use these exemptions and do not want them. This is not only wrong but a total misrepresentation of the evidence provided. As we noted in our dissenting report:
… witnesses were asked to provide examples of cases in which the legislative exemptions 'have been involved or invoked'. Due to the sensitive nature of the matters, several submitters provided confidential examples.
The majority report wrongly concluded:
… if it is the case that the exemptions are not being used against students, there is no reason to maintain them.
However, the report itself acknowledges that examples were provided in camera by schools where reliance was placed on those exemptions.
Without disclosing the particular circumstances, several submitters opposed the passage of that bill on the basis of various practical circumstances that they said would arise were the bill to pass into law. Time precludes an examination of those circumstances, but there are real and viable examples that raise complex and difficult questions that need to be considered. As the dissenting report says:
In concluding that as 'the exemptions are not being used against students, there is no reason to maintain them', the majority report appears to misunderstand that, in certain circumstances, even the mere making of a request that a student or staff member respect the school's values could be an action that requires reliance on the exemptions to be lawful (at least on the law as it currently stands). In light of the foregoing examples, it cannot be said that the 'committee did not hear any satisfactory examples of cases in which a school might need these exemptions in order to uphold its religious ethos.'
I say this because of the comments that were made by Senator Wong in her speech. Clearly the evidence before that committee totally contradicts what Senator Wong had to say.
Both Christian Schools Australia and the Australian Association of Christian Schools, in our inquiry, set forward four broad principles for legislative reform—which we cite in our dissenting report—that they assert would reflect the notion of a positive right of religious freedom and would find the appropriate balance that we need in this circumstance:
1. The ability of religious educational institutions to both act in accordance with and teach their beliefs in respect of students should continue to be lawful, and thus should apply to both direct and indirect discrimination.
2. If the requirement that the school act in the 'best interests of the child' is to be employed, the legislation should acknowledge that the school, having regard to the appropriate factors, is the institution that is best placed to make the determination of what is in the child's best educational interest. Those factors may include the obligations of the school to other students, the maintenance of the religious ethos of the school as a component of the educational offering provided and the relevant professional advice.
3. The amendments should extend beyond primary and secondary schools to tertiary institutions. To fail to do so would mean that tertiary faith-based institutions (with the exception of bible colleges exempt under section 37 of the SDA) would not be able to teach or act in accordance with the applicable doctrines.
4. Explicit permission should be given to religious educational institutions to act in accordance with their beliefs regarding marriage, gender identity being biologically determined, and the proper expression of sexuality (including through the form of teaching provided by such schools).
Our dissenting report said:
CSA also emphasised the need to ensure teaching within faith-based schools can continue to conform to the relevant belief systems: 'The changes that have been proposed would also make it unclear whether a school could teach a historic, Biblical view of sexuality and relationships.'
97. Contrary to the recommendations of the majority, these four principles may indeed provide a suitable framework for reform. However these are matters that require detailed consideration … The committee's processes have made it abundantly clear that there is a pressing need for protection of the right of individuals to have the freedom to practice their faith, including when they come together to form schools and other religiously-based organisations. It has brought into the fore the desirability of legislation that protects this right, along with the need for several Commonwealth acts to be amended consequentially.
Our dissenting report said:
We reject the majority committee report, for the reasons outlined above, and instead recommend that the Government give further consideration to legislation that would enshrine and protect the right of religious freedom that would make it clear that religious schools and religious universities are permitted to operate in accordance with the doctrines, tenets and beliefs of their particular faith. To do any less would have the practical effect of depriving religious institutions of the ability to teach their beliefs and operate consistently with their ethos. It would also assist for there to be a nationally consistent approach to the issue of discrimination of this kind.
99. The existing exemptions for schools in the SDA should not be eroded unless adequate protections for religious freedom are afforded in their place.
These are rights that go alongside each other, and therefore it is vitally important that they be recognised. Clearly, something as complex as this needs to be the subject of serious and intense consultations with schools, religious leaders, parents and teachers and all other stakeholders, and it just cannot be adequately dealt with in a piecemeal fashion. Our dissenting report recognised that the coverage and the leaks from the Ruddock review, or purporting to be from the Ruddock review, caused considerable concern in the community. Our committee inquiry made it very clear that, in practical terms, schools have been focused on the pastoral support of all students irrespective of their gender and sexual orientation. Our focus as a Senate and as a parliament must be to ensure that we set the appropriate conditions and parameters that will ensure that schools remain able to do so in accordance with their religious ethos. As I said, further consideration of positive legislative protections of the right to religious freedom would assist with achieving this objective.
Any changes to the SDA should await the release of the Ruddock review and the government's response. To do otherwise now would not do justice to what is a very complex issue with both national and international considerations. Any amendments to the SDA would need to ensure that the act is fit for purpose and strengthens the current protections for students against discrimination from religious educational institutions. That is accepted. Currently, section 38(3) provides a complete exemption from section 21 of the SDA for religious educational institutions to discriminate against students in connection with the provisions of education and training on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or relationship status or pregnancy. The only limitation on discrimination under section 38(3) is that the conduct is in good faith in order to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of the religion. Therefore, any repeal of section 38(3) in its entirety must be balanced by preserving the freedom for religious institutions to teach according to their doctrines, tenets and beliefs and for educational institutions to maintain reasonable rules of conduct that protect their ethos. In this way, the fundamental right of freedom of religion that is enshrined in article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights would be preserved. We would also need to ensure that religious educational institutions are able to impose reasonable rules of conduct on students. Again, this would protect the ability of the religious educational institutions to impose rules in relation to the conduct of students.
Under the SDA, unless it is reasonable in the circumstances, a condition, requirement or practice will unlawfully discriminate against a person on the basis of a protected attribute—for example, sexual orientation—if the condition, requirement or practice has or is likely to have the effect of disadvantaging a person with that protected attribute. A clarification of the operation of section 7B of the act could set out criteria for determining whether a condition, requirement or practice is reasonable in the circumstances and clarify that religious educational institutions may continue to impose rules regarding student conduct consistent with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of that institution. The reasonableness of a condition, requirement or practice imposed in relation to a student by a primary or secondary school that is conducted in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of a particular religion or creed is to be determined in accordance with existing criteria in section 7B of the SDA, and its parameters would need to be set out. Given the evidence before the Senate committee last week, this would include elements going to ensuring that these parameters are imposed in good faith and are consistent with the policy of the educational institution, and possibly that these parameters and the religious educational institution have regard to the best interests of the child and the children in the school community.
It is important to provide certainty to the Australian public, particularly students and their parents, and those attending or sending students to institutions, that no student should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. We heard that in the evidence to the committee last week. But, obviously, providing the appropriate legislative framework goes very much that one step further. It is vital that an educational institution, if is established for religious purposes, does not contravene the SDA in relation to various parameters if, as I have said, that teaching is done in good faith. At the same time, it's important that the SDA does not prevent religious schools and universities from teaching in accordance with their religion.
We have to ensure that, when the Human Rights Commission and courts decide whether a rule imposed by a school or religious or tertiary institution is reasonable and therefore legal, they have regard to the religious nature of the institution. Of course, the reasonableness of a condition or a parameter that is imposed should be, and continue to be, determined in accordance with the existing criteria of section 7B of the SDA. We need sensible changes that, as I said, protect the ability of religious schools to impose reasonable rules in relation to behaviour and conduct.
We also, of course, would need to remove item 1 of Labor's bill which would add the new provision to section 37 of the SDA. That item of the bill would extend to all bodies established for religious purposes such as churches, synagogues, mosques, monasteries, prayer centres, theological colleges or seminaries. That item of the bill would require these institutions, if they are engaged in education activities, to admit activist students, as I've said before, and to otherwise do so would potentially subject them to expensive litigation.
Can I just conclude by saying that the removal of section 38(3) will remove religious freedom protections for the provision of education and it will have a far broader impact than has been claimed. As I said, section 21 of the SDA includes imposing any other detriment within the scope of prohibited actions, and claims have been made that teaching a traditional, biblical view of marriage, sexuality and sexual conduct could potentially impose, and has been said that this could impose, a detriment on LGBTI students. Therefore, removing the protections of section 38(3) will remove the protection for faith based schools to teach in accordance with the beliefs; and the courts have made it clear that the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination is not as clear as is claimed and the reasonableness of a school's action may be irrelevant. Therefore, removing the protections of section 38(3) will remove the protection for faith based schools to act in a reasonable way in accordance with their beliefs in managing, for example, transgender students.
International law, to which Australia is a signatory, recognises religious freedom as a fundamental human right and accords it its highest possible protection, not just holding— (Time expired)
Let me share a heartbreaking story with you. I came out as a lesbian to myself, my closest friends and family members in 2010. At the time, I was working in a Christian school—I'd been there since 2005. Keeping my orientation a secret, whilst living my private life with my girlfriend, was very stressful. Hiding who I was, I ended up in hospital with cardiac issues later realising it was stress and anxiety. I worried I would be found out and sacked, given I knew I'd signed documentation stating that I'd be living my life in accordance with the Christian ethos and being gay was not allowed.
I chose to resign with no work to go to. I feared never finding work again. Months went by—and nothing. I was so desperate I went back to the faith based school to do some contract relief teaching, CRT. They were still unaware of my sexuality and happy to have me back. They even offered me a short-term contract which I accepted because financially I couldn't afford not to. The day before I commenced my contract, I was doing a day of CRT. After period 1, I was summoned to the vice principal's office. He had a very one-sided conversation with me where he stated that he had been made aware of my choice of sexuality and that I could no longer work there as what kind of message would that be sending to the school community? Then they essentially marched me off the premises. The most dehumanising experience I have ever experienced was to be told I couldn't work somewhere just because of who I am.
This devastating story, which has been shared with me, is the human cost of allowing religious schools to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex teachers and staff. It's unacceptable, it's wrong, it cannot be allowed to continue.
For LGBTQ Australians and our families, the last month or so has been a bit of a replay of this time last year. We were in the midst of the marriage equality postal survey. It has been a replay of the national debate, playing out again with politicians, media, commentators and lobbyists debating the rights of LGBTQ people in this country. It has been a replay in the worst possible way, in that once again who we are is being debated, who we are is being criticised, and who we are determines whether or not we deserve to live our lives free from discrimination.
Here we are again, almost exactly a year later, debating whether young LGBTQ people deserve to be safe and respected and debating whether young LGBTQ people deserve not to be expelled from their schools, separated from their friends, taken out of their studies and school community, simply for being who they are. And here we are again with the vast majority of Australians opposing this discrimination. An opinion poll showed that 74 per cent of voters oppose these laws that allow religious schools to select students and teachers on the basis of their sexual orientation, their gender identity or their relationship status.
The Greens support Senator Wong's bill before us today, the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, to remove the ability of religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students. This is an absolutely essential and long-overdue reform. What's proposed in this bill parallels some of the measures to remove discrimination that were included in our Discrimination Free Schools Bill 2018, which we debated just a month ago. But this bill does not protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer teachers and other staff in school communities.
The Greens have circulated amendments that would remove the provisions in Senator Wong's bill that allow for the continuation of discrimination against teachers and other staff in the provision of education on the basis of their sex, their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their marital or relationship status or their pregnancy status.
As senators know, we have just considered these issues in our inquiry into the legislative exemptions that allow faith based educational institutions to discriminate against students, teachers and staff. In their submission to the inquiry, both the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Human Rights Law Centre made it crystal clear how simple the changes can be. First, the provisions in sections 38(1) and 38(2) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 need to be repealed. These sections act as a specific carve-out to allow discrimination in the employment of staff and contractors by educational institutions as long as that discrimination is in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of a religion or is done in good faith to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion.
Senator Wong's bill acknowledges that section 38(3), relating to exemptions for educational institutions in the provision of education or training, needs to be repealed to remove discrimination against students. We are simply proposing the same for staff and contractors.
Secondly, we are proposing to remove the new carve-out that Senator Wong is proposing in the proposed new section 37(3)(b). This provision highlights how legislatively simple it actually is to remove discrimination. Labor in fact have had to add a new provision into their bill that explicitly allows discrimination against teachers and staff. Labor's bill adds a new provision that explicitly allows discrimination against teachers and staff. By removing the ability of bodies established for religious purposes to discriminate in the provision of education, as Senator Wong does in proposed section 37(3)(a), these bodies would also no longer be allowed to discriminate against staff. It's only by adding in 37(3)(b), a clause that limits 37(3)(a), that bodies established for religious purposes will be able to discriminate if the act or practice is connected with the employment of persons to provide that education. Labor is adding discrimination in, allowing discrimination, not because people are failing in their jobs as teachers but simply because of who they are.
The Greens' amendments propose to remove this unnecessary, harmful and discriminatory clause. The changes we are proposing are minimal. They actually simplify the bill by removing the carve-out for discrimination in employment related to the provision of education. They are straightforward. They mirror the language and the mechanisms proposed by Senator Wong, and I call on this chamber to support them.
The Greens amendments will give every child and teacher in Australia the comfort to know that they will be respected and loved and treated equally, simply because of who they are, not because of some outdated legislation that sends a message, not just to them but to all people, that somehow the way they are is wrong or different. The Greens are here to ensure that this parliament does the right thing and ends discrimination once and for all in our schools—discrimination against LGBTQ students, discrimination against LGBTQ teachers and discrimination against other LGBTQ staff. We don't need any further consideration before removing discrimination. Schools should be discrimination-free zones for all LGBTQ people, regardless of whether they are students or teachers.
This is very simple. Our schools should be teaching our kids about respect and equality, not that LGBTQ people can be expelled or fired because of who they are. No school should be able to tell a young person who may be trans or gay or lesbian or bi, or still figuring out their sexuality or gender identity, that they're not welcome. There's no place for a school to tell a teacher who might be in a same-sex relationship or going through a gender transition, 'We're firing you from the job you love because of who you are.' It's not acceptable in our schools; it's not acceptable in any area of our community. Discrimination against LGBTQ people has no place in our society, full stop—no ifs, no buts.
This push to enable a school to discriminate on the basis of their religious ethos is nothing but discrimination wrapped up in a more acceptable word. We support religious schools' ability to teach in accordance with their religious beliefs, but to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexuality or their gender identity—yes, their very identity—is not religious ethos; it's discrimination. We don't want, 'don't ask, don't tell' in our schools. Underlying this desire to continue discriminating against LGBTQ people is the belief that same-sex-attracted and gender diverse people are broken and need fixing and that, at the very least, they must repress or deny their sexuality or gender identity if they are to continue being part of the school community.
I found evidence to us as part of our inquiry from Christian Schools Australia particularly chilling. They said:
We have got staff in our schools who have indicated to the school leadership that they're same-sex attracted, but they take the view that it's not what God's best plan is for them. It's a struggle they have, but they don't accept it, they don't try to live it out, they don't try to be or identify as gay. They're struggling with same-sex attraction.
… … …
And we'd say, for those staff—
who are same-sex attracted—
that there are lots of other schools that they can seek employment in.
In other words, they have to deny their sexuality or their gender identity. They have to deny things about them that are intrinsic to who they are.
As anyone who's read the recent report of the Human Rights Law Centre and La Trobe University into LGBT conversion therapy and associated ideology in religious institutions and communities knows, attempts to convert people who are sexuality and gender diverse just don't work. These harmful attitudes, made acceptable to some in the guise of religious ethos, effectively destroy LGBTQ lives. I call upon these churches to recognise this, to acknowledge that they actually have devout people in their churches who are same-sex-attracted and gender diverse and to let them know that they are loved for who they are—not tolerated at best, and rejected at worst, and told there are lots of other schools they can seek employment in. The simple fact is that no student should be expelled and no teacher or other staff member fired just because of who they are. Freedom of religion should not be a licence to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
If we look to other countries that have similar legal systems and similar values and cultures, what do we find? We have Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. None of these countries have such broad based exemptions that allow religious schools the egregious ability to expel LGBTQ students, to fire LGBTQ teachers and staff or to tell lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people in their community that they are not okay, not welcome, not worthy of respect. Lo and behold, the sky in New Zealand hasn't fallen in. Canadian churches have not collapsed because they cannot tell LGBTQ people that they are not worthy of respect. Oh, and guess what? In Tasmania, their state laws mean that these exemptions actually don't apply, and faith based schools are coping just fine with not being able to expel LGBTQ students and fire LGBTQ teachers. There is no issue there.
The Greens have fought for year to change our laws and end this damaging discrimination. It's hard to believe that it has even been suggested that these discriminations have any basis for being upheld. Right now, these exemptions to Australia's anti-discrimination laws serve only to harm and to threaten LGBTQ people who attend and work at religious schools or who wish to do so. Labor's bill, as it stands, would condemn LGBTQ teachers and staff to continued, unnecessary and harmful discrimination.
Time and time again, LGBTIQ Australians have been treated like political footballs by conservative politicians and their supporters, who have put us in the firing line in order to shore up their conservative base. Well, I'm sick of hearing my community being talked about as if we're some kind of 'other'. I'm sick of my community being told that we are not worthy of respect, that we don't deserve to live our lives without discrimination. We can make this country a better and more inclusive place right now, but only if we work together to remove discrimination in our schools against all LGBTIQ people, whether student, teacher or other staff member.
Australia's schools should be no place for discrimination. The Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018 is a proud step forward in making Australia a nation of equality, a nation of fairness, a nation that accepts and celebrates differences and diversity in our nation. In 1984 Labor introduced the Sex Discrimination Act, and we strengthened those protections back in 2013 by including sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex characteristics. I note that religious exemptions have existed ever since 1984. But legislation must keep pace with community sentiment and expectations. This is why we must look at the place of religious exemptions in all our legislation and how they apply today. We've done this before. We've wound back religious exemptions before. Back in 2013, when we introduced LGBTI attributes, we also wound back religious exemptions that applied to faith based aged-care facilities because we didn't want LGBTI Australians in aged care to experience discrimination when all they wanted was appropriate care. The sky did not fall in, nor will it do so with this bill today.
As we know, the catalyst for this conversation and change in this legislation was the Ruddock review into religious freedoms, with over 15,000 submissions from lots of different sides of the debate. That report was handed to the government back in May. There was such a voracious public debate about those leaked recommendations that it sparked our Senate inquiry. It was that public discussion around religious exemptions that highlighted the fact that people were not aware of the extensive discrimination in our legislation. Indeed, much hurt was caused by recommendation 7: 'Religious schools should be able to discriminate in relation to students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status.' The recommendation also talked about sex discrimination enabling religious schools to discriminate in the employment of staff. There was a massive community reaction to those statements, and the response to that community debate was that this nation's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, promised to ensure that faith based schools would not discriminate against LGBTI students. He went so far as to say that these laws were not necessary in this day and age. Our Prime Minister said:
Our government does not support the expulsion of students from religious non-state schools on the basis of their sexuality. I also know this view is widely shared by religious schools and communities across the country.
I implore the government not to turn its back on these students for the sake of its own internal dysfunction and division. Please do not forget this commitment to those for whom you govern.
We haven't seen any movement from the Liberal Party to remove this discrimination against children. I'm pleased and proud that Senator Wong has introduced this bill today. We in the Senate inquiry confirmed that, overwhelmingly, faith based schools talked about not wanting to discriminate against lesbian and gay students. One of the principals from a Christian school gave us evidence that he felt that, once a school enrolled a student, it was making a commitment to that child forever. That's really comforting to me, because we know that the relationship a child has with their teachers and their school community is among the most significant and influential relationships they will have growing up. It is indeed unfortunate that some Australians and some Australian children have had to experience discrimination in schools prior to us arriving at this place in time where, hopefully, this parliament is prepared to do something about it.
Some of the stories that were submitted to the Senate inquiry were from Rainbow Families, and I thank them very much for their ongoing visibility and positive contributions to debates on behalf of LGBTI parents and children. One of the examples given was about a child at a private school:
I worry about the impact on my eldest son as he is in a private school that is currently supportive of us as queer parents and him a queer child. If the principle or school council changes it may not be the case.
Another story, from the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, highlighted the situation for teachers. May—not her real name—a lesbian woman, was employed by a Christian welfare agency for two years. Before that she was involved as a volunteer, and she attended church in connection with the welfare group. She said:
I was asked to resign due to my relationship with my partner. I was directly told they were concerned with my involvement with primary and secondary school aged children. I resigned and fell apart after having served that community for four years. The fall out also meant I had to leave my church community. All of this resulted in mental health challenges, isolation, loss of faith, friends, purpose … I can't express the devastating impact being asked to resign due to my sexuality had on my life. I lost everything—my vocation, faith, community—and had to rebuild myself from a very broken place.
We need to make sure that this kind of discrimination is removed and stopped. Labor supports the removal of discrimination against teachers. While we note that this bill does not address the issue of discrimination against teachers and staff by religious schools, Labor is committed to removing exemptions which relate to LGBTI staff at religious schools. Our leader, Mr Shorten, has made that commitment to the Australian people.
We do believe that it's important to balance all rights in our nation, which means working with communities to protect religious freedom too. Isn't it ironic that, in our nation, religious freedom is largely protected by these exemptions—exemptions that give you a right to discriminate against someone else but do not give you protection in your own right. It is extraordinary that that is the state of the laws in our nation.
So we do believe that we must stop discrimination against teachers, but we know that protecting students is something that this place can do today, because the rights of our young people shouldn't have to be balanced against complicated other rights. All our children deserve our protection. The right to practice religion and to teach religious doctrines is, indeed, important to many Australians, but I know, from talking to people from Christian schools, that they don't feel as though the right to practice their religion should come at the expensive cost of discrimination against others.
This is really quite simple in nature, and it is, frankly, beyond me why some on the hard right in the coalition have sought to complicate this debate in this way. I state again that, in their evidence before our committee, faith based schools didn't consider that they wanted to be places of discrimination. They overwhelmingly said they did not want to discriminate against LGBTI students or pregnant students or to discriminate on any other attribute in the Sex Discrimination Act.
It is simple, but it means a lot. I'll tell you what it means to young people. Colin Pettit, who is our wonderful children's commissioner in Western Australia, engaged with young Western Australians, and one told him this:
Having the religious exemptions in place gives a message that LGBT people are second class citizens. It makes people feel like a freak—it tells a kid they're an outsider and don't belong there.
Another said:
Where I live, the only school that offered ATAR subjects was the religious school, so you had to go there if you wanted to go on to university. … if you were excluded there, you couldn't go on and continue your education and achieve your goals.
So let's be clear: this bill does not affect the rights of faith based schools to impose reasonable conditions, requirements or practices on students in accordance with the school's religious tenets, beliefs, doctrines or teachings.
I highlight that, while it would be great to have enough time to balance rights in relation to school ethos and teachers, it is important that, while we have the opportunity, we get this job done for students. I highlight that the issues for teachers are very real. Mr Odgers from the Independent Education Union made an excellent contribution to the inquiry, and he said this:
All staff and students in schools deserve safe workplaces and learning environments. Staff and students shouldn't be discriminated against on the basis of their private expression of their sexuality. In our view, faith based schools have both the capacity and resilience to continue to operate in the absence of discrimination exemptions.
Let me be very clear about the evidence that Mr Odgers gave. This is the union that represents independent schools. They are the industry body, if you like, that represents the staff in such a fantastic diversity of schools. The last thing that union wants to see is things that undermine that diversity. Everyone might as well be in state education if that's the case. The Independent Education Union understands very well the importance of school ethos and the individual culture and diversity of the teachers and the schools. They are very clear about the fact that ethos and upholding ethos can be separated from direct discrimination against people who happen to have a particular attribute covered in the Sex Discrimination Act.
So it is time in this chamber today to really ask ourselves what kind of nation we want to be and what kind of schools we want our children to go to. They should be places of equality, participation, inclusion and fairness. If you're bullied or discriminated against at school, it impacts on your education. The stories that I've heard over many, many, years, including from people in my own family, have highlighted to me how homophobic bullying and discrimination has caused young people to leave school and not finish their education.
Finally, in closing my remarks today, I want to remind this place about the nature of the debate we were having. The postal survey was a very hard time for a great many LGBTI Australians. I certainly felt that way about it myself. When this place debates these issues, you need to remember that there are young people who might be gay, lesbian or trans and are at school, in a state school or a religious school, and haven't yet told anyone about who they are or what they are struggling with in terms of their sexuality or gender. Equally, there will be a girl at a religious school who has found out today that she is pregnant and has to work out how to tell that school and work out with that school community whether she has a right to continue her education. So please, I implore you, consider the needs of the most vulnerable in our society, the needs of all the students in our nation's schools, be they religious or not.
When I think about some of the most important principles that motivate me to contribute in this place, I think of freedom, strong institutions and fairness for all. Then I look at this bill, and it's devastating. It represents the biggest single blow to religious freedom this nation has seen in all of its history. Of course there has been, through the quite aggressive use of existing discrimination laws, a chipping away at freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion in recent years. But in a sense that was slow. This bill works fast. Labor will tell you that this bill just makes sure that gay kids don't get discriminated against. That's a profound mistruth. Everyone in this chamber thinks gay kids shouldn't get expelled simply for being gay. The PM is on the record saying just that. But this bill does so much more. By removing all protections that previously existed in the Sex Discrimination Act for religious schools to operate according to their ethos, the bill will hollow out the religious school sector to being nothing more than privately funded schools with the same values as public ones. In doing so, we deny parents a real choice about how their children are educated.
Why do parents send their children to a faith based school?
Well, there are many parents who want a schooling for their child that reflects their personal faith and the values by which that family has chosen to live. So, if we take away a school's right to shape its own culture according to the values of the faith that family has chosen, we take away its character. We take away the different offering it can give to that which is available in the public sector. Now, of course, that's precisely what those opposite would like. Not only would they happily squeeze every person of faith out of the public sphere; they also want to squeeze it out of our institutions until all that is left is a big government which is more easily directed to adopt the tenets of political correctness and the causes of the Left.
So, let's step away from the politics and talk principle. What are the principles that should underpin the way we look at the balance between ensuring freedom of religion in this nation and ensuring that all students, no matter their attributes, are treated fairly? Let's start at the fundamental rights of Australians. Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the gold standard of human rights law, expressly protects freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It's a right of the highest order—core to what makes a human human. I don't trivialise the other rights we protect in international law—rights like equality and freedom from discrimination—but the problem with this amendment is that it doesn't engage in a balancing exercise of those rights. It simply extinguishes religious freedom, and that's never been how competing rights are meant to be managed.
Human rights law stipulates that strict conditions must be satisfied in order for the manifestation of freedom of religion or belief to be limited. It is a well-known principle of international law that not every differentiation of treatment will constitute discrimination, if the criteria for that differentiation are reasonable and objective and if the aim is to achieve a purpose which is legitimate. In this context, the right to manifest religious belief at article 18.3 of the ICCPR may be limited only to the extent that it is necessary in order to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. As now set out, the bill completely fails to comply with this requirement. It is in no sense proportionate.
The Siracusa principles—that is, the principles by which we resolve the conflict between competing rights at international law—also state that, in applying a limitation, we should 'use no more restrictive means than are required for the achievement of the purpose of the limitation'. The complete removal of the religious freedom of a school in how it deals with students is clearly more restrictive than is required in order to progress the right to equality. In fact, the bill actually discriminates against religious believers as it imposes a burden upon them that they alone encounter on the basis of their religious conviction.
For this parliament to determine that religious educational institutions have no claim to act according to their beliefs in relation to, for instance, sexuality, gender and relationships is to carve out an area of religious conviction and to say that religious schools can no longer lawfully manifest those convictions. It raises the very real concern that religious institutions and believers are being subjected to detrimental actions solely on the basis of their religious belief, and that's in contravention of their right to equality. It's a strange irony.
There is also a hypocrisy in the parliament trying to apply standards of anti-discrimination that they'd never apply to themselves. As the Institute of Civil Society, one of the submitters to the recent committee inquiry on this issue, so clearly explained it:
Our society would not expect the ALP, the Liberal Party, or the Greens (also voluntary associations), to have to employ and retain persons who consistently spoke or acted against core party policy. So why should a law force a religious school to justify to a human rights commission or a tribunal—
why it should have to accommodate people who consistently spoke or behaved in a manner that defies the core values of that religion? And they make a good point. Adjunct Associate Professor Fowler from the University of Notre Dame put it this way:
Why should believers—be they Islamic, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu or any other faith—be prevented from coming together with their fellow believers to act upon the dictates of their faith that encourage humanitarian concern? No similar limitation is proposed for persons who are motivated to humanitarian acts absent religious compulsion. It's a bizarre conclusion, and it represents a form of discrimination on the basis of religious belief.
Now, you might say to me, 'This bill doesn't prevent religious people from forming a religious organisation, like a school.' Well, that's true in a superficial sense. But look a little deeper and you'll see that the bill guts schools of the ability to operate according to their ethos. And if schools can't operate according to the values, to the ethos, that is reflected in their faith, then why have them at all? For what reason would parents select a religious school if it is not permitted to teach and expect compliance with the tenets of that faith? How will the school develop or maintain the culture that flows from the values of that faith? And why would parents who have children in these schools continue to subsidise the cost to the public of the provision of education—as they do—when they wouldn't be getting anything different for their money?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics notes that nearly a third of Australians, 30 per cent, reported in the census that they had no religion in 2016. It's a statistic often cited by those who say this exemption has to go because we're a secular society. However, such calls for a secular society often overlook the logical extension of the subsidy argument—that the 70 per cent of people who profess a form of religious belief are also subsidising non-religious persons through the proportion of the taxation they provide that is applied to public schools for all. There's nothing wrong with that, but they should be entitled to get what they pay for. It should go without saying that a truly neutral, democratic and pluralistic society would seek to most accurately reflect both the religious and non-religious sentiments that are exhibited within a society. In this context, this is most properly acquitted through the ongoing presence of both public schools and private religious schools in their true and meaningful sense.
You might also say, as I've heard a number of the senators who have spoken on this bill so far do, 'Religious schools don't use these exemptions much.' Again, in a superficial sense, that's true. But, contrary to the way it's been painted by those opposite, that doesn't mean they're not needed and that they aren't wanted by many in the education sector. It is the fact of the existence of clarity in the legislation about the exemption for religious schools that is the reason there is so little litigation in this area. Take the exemption away and that changes dramatically. It's a little bit like saying, 'No-one has drowned in our swimming pool, so we don't need the fence anymore.' It just doesn't work.
That's the reason why so many submitters—the Australian Association of Christian Schools, the Institute of Civil Society, Christian Schools Australia; I could go on—all pleaded for the retention of this exemption. Yet all submitters were at pains to explain how pastorally, how caringly, they approach the issue of helping students who are same-sex attracted or who struggle with their gender, how these students are cared for and included within the framework of the world view of that religion. But each retained their concern that, if the exemption were removed, they'd have no way to deal with the situation of activist students or activist parents who, with absolutely no intention of attempting to live according to the values of the faith of the school they have asked to be a part of, demand that the faith change to accommodate them. These are faiths that are thousands of years in the making, and we could, in this place, with less than four hours of debate, take away the ability of a school to deal with those who do not want to be a part of the value system of that religion.
Of course no-one has to be religious. You don't have to have a faith or to choose to go to a religious school. Indeed, there are plenty of independent private schools that are not faith based, and there are even more public schools that willingly and happily accommodate these qualities in a student. But that's not enough for the activists. They demand that all bend to their preferences. It's not enough that the public school or the grammar school or the non-religious private school would happily give them a great education. No; they require that even religious schools be deprived of the ability to teach and live the values that underpin that faith.
Let's talk about what we need to do to fairly balance the rights of students who are homosexual or transgender with the rights of parents and students who want the benefits of a religious school and the approach to education and values that it provides. Here are four ideas that would help a great deal in getting the balance right—and I suggest they form the basis of quality amendments to the bill that is before this chamber. The first is that we need to make it very clear that religious educational institutions need to be able to both act in accordance with and teach their beliefs in respect of students. That needs to continue to be lawful in a way that means that it can't constitute either direct or indirect discrimination. To say to a religious school that the faith they have had for thousands of years can no longer be passed on to the children of that flock because, within the last decade, we've decided that it contravenes modern principles of antidiscrimination, is absolutely contrary to the idea of religious freedom.
Here's a second principle we should apply. We should be acting in the best interests of the child at all times and we should require schools, in their approach to dealing with students who struggle with these issues, to have regard at all times to the best interests of the child. It is the school and the parents involved who understand that student best. They are the institutions, rather than, say, the courts, that are best placed to decide what is in the best interests, in terms of welfare and education, of an individual student. But, when we consider the best interests of the child, we should consider those matters in the context in which that student lies. That means we need to have regard to the obligations of the school to other students. We should have regard to the maintenance of the religious ethos of the school as a component of the educational offering that's provided, and there should be regard to any relevant professional advice that has been provided to assist that student.
Here's another principle we should use to try and get the balance right in dealing with these matters. These amendments should extend beyond primary and secondary schools and should include tertiary institutions. To fail to do so would mean that tertiary faith based institutions, with the exception of Bible colleges, which are a different category under the act, wouldn't be able to teach or act in accordance with the applicable doctrines. One thing I noticed that's interesting about the bill that is currently before this chamber is that, in item 1, the provision of education is framed in the broadest of terms. That means that it doesn't just encompass primary school and secondary school; it also encompasses kindergarten and faith based playgroups. 'Education' would also encompass the Sunday sermon or youth group of a religious organisation. If you're going to tell a church that they can no longer give a sermon or offer a youth group that operates according to the tenets of their faith, then you might as well shut it down altogether.
Another principle we should have in mind is that, as we take away the exemptions in section 38(3), as I think most in this chamber would want to do, there needs to be explicit permission given to religious educational institutions that they can act in accordance with their beliefs regarding marriage, gender identity being biologically determined, and the proper expression of sexuality, including through the ways that it is taught in those schools. If we do anything less than those four principles, we will have irrevocably changed the nature of faith based education in this country in a way that unduly, unfairly and rather undemocratically will shut down religious freedom in this country.
In conclusion, let me reiterate: the expression of all these views doesn't detract from the fact that of course we need to be kind and inclusive and helpful to people who are same-sex attracted or people who have transgender notions. Of course we need to be compassionate, but our desire to offer them compassion cannot come at the expense of all other students in a religious school, it cannot come at the expense of faiths that have been thousands of years in the making and are deeply held in the hearts of so many Australians, and it cannot come at the expense of the value that these institutions provide to our community as a whole as they educate so many students around this country. It's for that reason that I oppose the bill in its current form and hope that there will be amendments of this nature brought before this chamber.
I rise to speak in support of the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, as moved by Senator Wong. This legislation is very straightforward. The amendment would remove exemptions for religious schools in the Sex Discrimination Act. Those exemptions did, of course, allow religious schools to discriminate with regard to student admission on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.
The legislation is not only straightforward but is, or at least it should be, uncontroversial. The leader of the Labor Party, Mr Shorten, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Wong, support the amendment and pledge the Labor Party's support. The leader of the Greens, Senator Di Natale, is on the record supporting the removal of these exemptions, and several Green senators, such as Senator Rice, who just spoke in this debate, also have expressed their support for these amendments. The leader of the government, the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, said before the Wentworth by-election that he supports removing the exemptions that permit religious schools to discriminate against students. Here's what Mr Morrison said on 13 October 2018, a week before the Wentworth by-election:
Our Government does not support expulsion of students from religious non-state schools on the basis of their sexuality.
That is an unambiguous statement from the Prime Minister. He is very clear: 'Our government does not support expulsion of students from religious non-state schools on the basis of their sexuality.' The Prime Minister went on to say:
I will be taking action to ensure amendments are introduced as soon as practicable to make it clear that no student of a non-state school should be expelled on the basis of their sexuality.
I welcome this statement from the Prime Minister. The community welcomed this statement from the Prime Minister. I dare say even the voters of Wentworth, although they did not vote for Mr Morrison's Liberal candidate, nonetheless welcomed the Prime Minister's commitment and took him at his word.
The Labor Party has sought to work with the government to progress these amendments that the Prime Minister himself said he wanted to introduce as soon as practicable. We are willing to work with the government. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the government on this legislative change, but we will not wait for the government. Before us today are straightforward, clear, unambiguous and uncomplicated amendments that achieve the very legislative change the Prime Minister says he wants and will support, and this is the opportunity for the parliament to make this change.
Here in the Senate, we all know that the community supports and wants this change. We know this because the previous Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, ordered a review into religious freedom, which was conducted by former Liberal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock. A distinguished panel of Australians assisted in that work. That review took some 15,000 submissions and conducted dozens of face-to-face meetings. Despite the fact that that report was handed to the government in May, the government has not yet released it. However, that doesn't mean the Ruddock report isn't already prompting change. It's precisely because somebody leaked sections of the Ruddock report to the media that the community became widely aware that these exemptions that allow discrimination against students on the basis of their very identity still exist in Australian law. In 2018, these exemptions are no longer accepted by the Australian community. The significant and welcome shift in our understanding and acceptance of all Australians, regardless of their gender identity, sexuality or intersex status, was cemented in Australian law just a year ago when the community overwhelmingly voted yes in the marriage equality plebiscite, and this parliament followed suit by passing amendments to the Marriage Act to legalise marriage equality.
We also know that the overwhelming majority of religious schools do not want or see the need for these exemptions. We know this as a result of the recent Senate inquiry, where Catholic and other religious school systems gave evidence that these exemptions are not used or relied upon. We know this because the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, told us so—again on 13 October, before the Wentworth by-election. When speaking of his government's support for the removal of these exemptions, the Prime Minister said:
I also know this view is widely shared by religious schools and communities across the country
As the mother of two children educated in and now graduated from the Catholic high school system, I know that modern Catholic schools teach their students that everyone is created in God's image and that what sits at the core of the Gospel is a call to love one another as God has loved us. So I agree with the Prime Minister when he says his government doesn't support these exemptions. I agree when he says that religious schools don't support these exemptions. I welcome the religious schools having spoken out in this debate in support of removing these exemptions, and I am pleased that Labor is putting forward this amendment. This legislation can and should have bipartisan support. This legislation can and should be passed by the parliament by the end of this year.
I note that Labor also believes that no employee at a religious school should face discrimination on the basis of their gender identity, relationship status or intersex status. The time has come to remove these exemptions. Relationship status, sexuality and intersex status have no place when it comes to employment law in relation to religious schools. However, Labor also accepts that teachers and staff are employees. They are adults, not children. Additional complexity exists for them where it does not for students—for example, potentially in relation to the Fair Work Act or other areas that cover employment.
Labor respects the decision taken by thousands of Australian parents who, like my husband and me, chose a religious school for their children. Labor also supports religious freedom and supports religious schools in their expectation that their staff will act in ways that uphold the values and ethos of the school and its faith and not act in ways that undermine it.
If I may say so, in listening to some of the Liberal senators who have participated in this debate so far, I have heard them say that no student should be discriminated against because they are same-sex attracted, gay or lesbian, yet they seem to mistake the difference between identity and action. That is, while they give lip-service in this debate to the notion that nobody, of course, should face that discrimination, they then go on and make assertions that this change that is before us will somehow 'gut schools' ability to teach according to their ethos' or 'no longer allow schools to teach according to the tenets of their faith'. They seem to somehow misunderstand the difference between identity and actions.
What Labor is arguing here is that no school should have the basis to discriminate against a student based on their identity. We also believe that no school should have the ability to discriminate against teachers or staff on the basis of their identity. But we understand that religiously affiliated schools need to have the clarity that they are able to require their staff to act in ways that uphold the values and the ethos and the tenets of the faith and not to act in ways that undermine it. It is the distinction between identity and action.
When it comes to students, I listened very carefully to Senator Stoker. What she seems to misunderstand is that right now, today, religious schools, when they enrol a student, have the ability to ask parents to sign up to a set of values and expectations and rules. Already today religious schools can ask parents to agree that their children will attend chapel or that their children will take religious instruction whether they are part of that faith or not, and, in choosing to enrol their child in that school, the parents have to agree to accept that. I feel that Senator Stoker's speech misunderstood the very nature of the debate that we are having.
I could make a tongue-in-cheek observation that, as a female who attended a Catholic school from year 1 through to graduate school, I note that my mere presence in the place did not stop that patriarchal faith that I am a part of from teaching specific gendered identity around women and what our roles could and couldn't be in the church. It's a tongue-in-cheek observation, but my point is this: when we hear claims that removing these exemptions will gut the ability of religiously affiliated schools to teach their faith, there is no evidence that that is the case. There is no evidence that supports this. There is nothing in this legislation that would bar schools from continuing to teach the tenets of their faith to the students who enrol in them.
Labor will work with religious schools and the LGBTIQ community in order to ensure that, when it comes to teachers and staff, we get the balance right to remove those discriminations in employment based on who people are but ensure that the religious values of a school are upheld and protected. But, given the lack of sitting days available to us in this year, we must prioritise what we can achieve legislatively, and we prioritise children.
It is clear that many in the community want to consider how we progress removing exemptions from discrimination that exists for teachers and staff in religious schools. Not only do we know this from the public reaction to the Ruddock review but we know it from evidence given at the recent Senate hearings. We know there is more work to do, and we call on the government to release the Ruddock report. It would aid in this next phase of discussions when it comes to religious schools and the Sex Discrimination Act.
But today we can and we should, as a parliament, make a clear and unambiguous decision. We can and we should take a decision—which enjoys widespread support—that no child in an Australian school, be it a public institution or a religiously affiliated school, should face discrimination based on who he or she is. The public expects us to do this. The government and the opposition have both said they support this. The Greens support it. It is time for all of us in here to keep faith with the community and pass this legislation.
I'm pleased to contribute to this debate on the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018. In doing so, I might begin by responding briefly to some of the claims that were made by Senator Keneally in her contribution. In relation to what Senator Stoker had to say, Senator Keneally made a pretty dishonest contribution in claiming Senator Stoker somehow didn't understand these issues. Senator Stoker's contribution showed a much greater understanding than Senator Keneally or anyone else in this debate. But I'd go to Senator Keneally's claim that all of the schools are on board and that they don't see any issue with this. That is simply not true. I'll go through the senior leadership of some of our biggest school providers who have said, time and time again, that they don't expel students simply because they're gay. They've said that, despite the clumsiness of some of these exemptions—in fact, that's the exact words that Anglican leadership used—they said:
The current exemptions, however clumsy, in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 are really the only significant legal protections available to schools to maintain their ethos and values with regards to core issues of faith.
So Senator Keneally can dismiss the Anglicans, and she can dismiss the Catholics, but just yesterday Peter Comensoli, on behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, said:
Catholic schools do not use these exemptions to expel students simply on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity.
… … …
… schools want to maintain the capacity to teach a Christian understanding of sexual ethics and marriage according to our faith tradition. Our right to continue to teach Catholic beliefs is threatened by proposals to repeal existing faith-based exemptions for religious schools and institutions.
We've got senior Anglican leaders, we've got senior Catholic leaders, and we've got Islamic leaders. Adel Salman of the Islamic Schools Association of Australia makes a similar point, saying:
… with students, the association is not calling for students to be discriminated against or in fact to be expelled from the school because of their particular sexuality, but by the same token the students and their families need to understand that the school will be teaching the particular values and principles of the religion.
There were a number of other contributions, including from the Australian Association of Christian Schools. They said:
Proposals to remove the ability to access exemptions is effectively the removal of the ability of the institution to define its character, goals and imperatives. It is the removal of the ability to control the unique voice of the institution to the wider society. It is actually the removal of the identity of the institution.
Proposals to remove exemptions from educational institutions gives rise to some chilling possibilities.
Christian Schools Australia, another large faith-based educator in this country, also apparently dismissed by Senator Keneally and the Labor Party as not knowing anything about schooling, said:
We are concerned that if changes are made to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 … without creating adequate positive protections for our schools—
that's the important point—
the effect would be to profoundly compromise the ability of our schools to act in accordance with their beliefs and convictions.
… … …
… no changes should be made to legislation affecting our schools, until there is also adequate protection in place for schools to maintain their beliefs and character as faith-based schools.
Christian schools need legislation that gives us much clearer assurance that schools can continue to:
In further testimony, the Australian Association of Christian Schools said:
… if they are removed and adequate protection isn't given to schools to hold a commonly held biblical view of sexuality and relationships in what is taught and in managing school life and in who the school employs, you'll be carving out an area of faith and deeming it impermissible. You'll be deciding that those long-held beliefs of many Christians can't be expressed in education at all—and that's a serious step for a government to take.
They are concerned that, without adequate protection, schools could be forced—
…to teach in ways that contradict what they genuinely believe, to act against their conscience and beliefs in the way they handle behaviour, and to employ staff who don't share in and meaningfully uphold the beliefs of the school.
Debate interrupted.
I rise to take note of the government response to the Select Committee on Red Tape's seventh interim report, Effect of red tape on occupational licensing. I chair the Select Committee on Red Tape, which was established to inquire into and report on the effect of red tape on the economy and the community. In August, the committee issued an interim report on occupational licensing. This month the government issued its response to the report. The response said just two things: (1) that occupational licensing is a matter for state and territory governments and (2) that it had no role in the Council for the Australian Federation. Frankly, both are disingenuous. If there was a motivation for the government to do something about the ridiculous state of occupational licensing in this country, it has ample opportunity. What the response shows is a lack of commitment to red tape reduction, something that is abundantly clear in the committee's final report to be presented next week.
Occupational licensing is a growth industry, despite the fact that almost everyone can find problems with it. With sometimes quite different approaches taken in the states and territories, it's also a source of frustration for those who work across state boundaries or who move interstate. The Institute of Public Affairs described occupational licensing as a government-enabled cartel that inflates the wages and market share of licensed workers at the expense of non-licensed workers. The IPA said:
Occupational licensing creates a barrier to market entry. This reduces the number of people in licensed professions and increases the number of people in non-licensed professions. This drives up labour supply in the licensed professions, which pushes up wages, while it floods labour supply in unlicensed professions, which pushes down wages in those professions.
The IPA questioned whether occupational licensing confers any benefits to the community. They referenced a report from America which concluded there is no evidence base for licensing improving the quality of public health or safety. They said:
Occupational licensing can actually reduce health and safety and quality outcomes by restricting competition. Less competitive markets contain businesses which are less responsive to the needs and preferences of consumers, and so they are less likely to deliver high-quality, low-cost products and services. Moreover, by raising prices occupational licensing reduces real income. This means that people economise on the use of licensed products and services, which can cause negative health outcomes.
Some have argued that occupational licensing is there to protect the safety of consumers and the public and to ensure a sufficient and reliable level of service quality. Some also say it signals that a person has the requisite training and skills to function competently and safely in an occupation. There are plenty of examples of occupational licensing in which it is difficult to find benefits, though. Tattooists are a case in point. The Australian Tatooists Guild says that licensing has had substantial adverse impacts on the previously self-regulated tattoo industry. It said that, when the tattoo industry was self-regulated, the general public was protected from backyard amateurs due to their inability to gain any form of legitimacy within the trade. The state licensing regimes have added to bureaucracy and red tape but have undermined the working existing structure of the profession and, by licensing amateurs, have created a public health risk.
And there is a legitimate question as to whether the rationale for occupational licensing promoting consistency of quality and public safety is relevant and necessary in the modern age. Consumers these days can inform themselves of the quality and safety of a provider or service in ways that were not previously available. They no longer have to rely on centrally mandated licensing in order to check up on a provider, a shop, cafe or even a specialist or tradesman. They can revert to crowdsourced websites like Yelp or Google reviews and the like. Online reputational platforms such as those used by Uber and Airbnb are examples of how quality and safety can work without licensing. Instead of occupational licensing, policymakers should focus on enabling consumers to make more informed decision-making through the technological provision of more and better information.
Australian governments have at times sought to increase consistency between the states and territories with respect to occupational licensing. However, that ceased in 2013. So, what are we to make of the government's response to the red tape committee report? Is it really a case of 'not my problem' from a Commonwealth perspective? Well, no, it's not. If the government is serious about red tape, it can hardly ignore the mountain of red tape associated with occupational licensing. It can't ignore the fact that it administers the Mutual Recognition Act. At a minimum, it has influence. While it's true that it's not involved in the Council for the Australian Federation, it is involved in the extensive COAG process, through which it has ample opportunity to pursue a deregulatory agenda on occupational licensing. It can challenge the states and territories to adopt the policy on occupational licensing with a presumption against licensing. It can challenge the states and territories to ensure that occupational licensing is based on specific measurable outcomes and consistent with best-practice models for occupations. It can foster and promote the expansion of automatic mutual recognition based on the objective of increasing labour force mobility, and it can stop pretending red tape on occupational licensing is not its problem and get serious about removing or reducing it.
I rise to take note of Report No. 12, the Education and Employment Reference Committee entitled 'Wage theft? What wage theft?! I have now had an opportunity since the report was published to have a look at the coalition's dissenting report on this inquiry. Obviously those coalition senators who attended the hearings and actually heard about our most vulnerable workers in the retail sector and in government procurement areas being ripped off by unscrupulous contractors have not really taken any of the lessons of this inquiry into consideration. Their dissenting report simply says, 'We've done enough, there are enough laws in place, and basically those companies that are ripping workers off are a minority.' You hear this refrain from the coalition all the time—that it's only a minority, and even that minority are ripping workers off because they don't understand their obligations. Well, it is not good enough when Woolworths, one of the biggest, most profitable and most successful retail organisations in the country, is standing back and turning a blind eye to subcontracted workers on $7 an hour. In this economy, that is just a nonsense.
It makes me smile a bit when I see Senator Jim Molan, a substitute member on the committee, who didn't attend any of the committee hearings, actually signing off on this basic capitulation to employers in this country who rip workers off. In the report, Labor developed a number of recommendations—22 recommendations—to try to deal with the issue of vulnerable workers in this country, predominantly migrant workers, being ripped off. This is a process that has been put in place—that companies now simply contract out sections of the work that they used to do, when there used to be a very detailed and close employer-employee relationship. They contract it out. That main contractor then subcontracts—pyramid subcontracts—to an extent that the funding that was made available to the main contractor is dissipated through that pyramid subcontracting and there is absolutely no chance of some of those subcontractors further down the line being able to provide decent rates of pay, or even minimum rates of pay, or meet the legal obligations they have to the contract cleaners in that area.
This is happening not only in Woolworths but in other industries as well. In this inquiry we had reports about a contractor called Broadspectrum that was engaged by the Department of Finance to undertake work in government areas and was employing contractors that had been found to be ripping workers off—and had been fined for ripping workers off. That is a disgrace when it comes to a federal government contract. It's understandable when the coalition don't really care about vulnerable workers, when the coalition turn a blind eye to these problems, and senators like Senator Molan are defending Woolworths against workers who are being ripped off.
This inquiry came from the inquiry of the Fair Work Ombudsman into cleaners in Tasmania having their wages stolen. And since this inquiry has been finalised, Labor has received further reports, and the committee has considered further reports, of workers being ripped off in other states, such as Western Australia. So, this is not something that was isolated to Tasmania. It is a national problem, and it is a problem that this government has no concern about. In fact, the government basically says, 'Everything's okay and we've done everything we can; the Fair Work Ombudsman's there, and that'll fix the problem,' when patently it does not and workers are still being ripped off and having their wages stolen.
So, in our recommendations, we say the government should take immediate steps to protect vulnerable workers subject to wage theft and exploitation from companies who operate with impunity. Even if they are caught, what's happening now is that the Fair Work Ombudsman will do a deal with them to go back six months and repay underpayments for six months. The wages that have been stolen go back only six months, when we had examples in this inquiry where the wage theft went back to 2010. So the Fair Work Ombudsman needs to lift its game. The Fair Work Ombudsman actually needs to be a proper regulator. The Fair Work Ombudsman needs to be supported financially to make sure it can track down some of these rip-off merchants.
But the best thing that could happen is that unions get proper access to these stores and the right to look after their members, and that workers understand that the best way to make sure that they don't get ripped off is to belong to a union. We had academic evidence before this inquiry that showed clearly that, if it was the Fair Work Ombudsman that was supposedly looking after the wage theft, not many workers got looked after, but, if you were a member of a union and the union then took that issue up, that was the most successful way to make sure that workers got their wages back and were treated fairly and equitably. But we know how this government treats the union movement. We know how this government sees workers who are in unions and know that that's the best way to go. It tries to ensure that union officials can't get proper access to these workers. It puts up impediment after impediment to workers getting their wages paid properly. So we are saying that the government should take immediate steps to protect vulnerable workers.
We have also said that Woolworths should immediately reassess its methods and resources. Here is how crazy it is. Woolworths said, 'We have notified people about this.' They put ads in the Financial Review and The Australian, and they put notices up online. You'd need to be a reader in law to understand what the notices online were saying, and these are notices to vulnerable, non-English-speaking workers. It is a disgrace. Woolworths have been an absolute disgrace when it comes to looking after vulnerable workers in this country. Woolworths are the only retail store of that size and nature who continue to contract out their cleaning services to contractors who then subcontract again. Then they say, 'We'll put all of these complex, sophisticated monitoring positions in place,' and it means nothing, because Woolworths simply contract out and turn their back on the most vulnerable workers in this country. Their position was a disgrace. They had workers coming onto Woolworths sites, and they didn't know who they were. They had workers coming into Woolworths workshops without it being registered that they were there. Who knows what that could have led to? It was an absolute disgrace. But not one manager in Woolworths was disciplined or sacked or had any other action taken against them. All that happened was that workers had their wages stolen and Woolworths carried on with impunity. Woolworths need to lift their game. Woolworths need to look after their employees. Woolworths should do the same as other companies and employ directly. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I rise to take note of the Economics References Committee report, Future of Australia’s naval shipbuilding industry. One of the areas that I'm really concerned about in the context of having an effective, efficient shipbuilding industry is the lack of skills in this country. We have seen that this government has been incapable of developing and publishing a proper skills plan for the shipbuilding industry. I'm not surprised that that's the case, because this government is hopeless when it comes to vocational education and training.
We heard Senator Cash today continue the patent nonsense that her predecessor in that portfolio, Ms Karen Andrews, carried on with—that is, that we have a VET system in this country that is world class; that the VET system in this country is better than the German VET system. That is an absolute nonsense. It just beggars belief that any senator or any member of parliament could stand up and say that our VET system is better than the Germans' and that our VET system was world class, because that is not what the evidence says. Senator Cash—that disgraced senator; that senator who continues to mislead the Senate; that senator who on five occasions misled the Senate about her office's involvement in the raid on the AWU—really doesn't get it. Senator Cash should stop coming in here and running the lines that she runs.
If there are problems with our vocational education system, we should deal with them. We shouldn't take a position based on the ideological nonsense from Senator Cash that we should not criticise the system. Well, if we shouldn't criticise the system, how about understanding what the Productivity Commission has said? How about understanding what the OECD is saying about our VET system? How about paying some attention to what former senior public servant Terry Moran is saying about the national VET system? Senator Cash comes in here and blames Labor for VET FEE-HELP and yet, if you look at the statistics on the outlays on VET FEE-HELP, when did the outlays skyrocket? They skyrocketed under Senator Birmingham. That's when they skyrocketed. That's when this ran out of control. Senator Birmingham was so incompetent that he couldn't deal with it.
The OECD is reporting that Australia doesn't have the skills to engage in global value chains. If we can't engage in global value chains, which are the backbone of trade in this country, all the government's rhetoric on trade is a nonsense. We need to trade, but we need to have the skills to allow us to trade, and that's not happening under this coalition government. The OECD said, 'Australia, you're at the bottom of the heap when it comes to skills and accessing global value chains.' The government's key economic adviser, the Productivity Commission, has called the VET system a mess. Yet Senator Cash will come in here and say that we have a world-class system. I will take the Productivity Commission's view on this, even though I'm not a fan of the Productivity Commission, over Senator Cash's rhetoric and nonsense any day. The Productivity Commission says it is a mess. One of the architects of the national VET system, former senior public servant Terry Moran, has said that the national VET system has been fragmented and devalued and that there is no effective governance. This is a government that has been there for five years, and there is no effective governance. The funding arrangements are chaotic, and there is no national strategy.
This is why Labor, early this year, said that we would conduct the first comprehensive review of the Australian post-school education system, VET and higher education, since the Kangan review 40 years ago. I suppose imitation is the best way to look at this: the government have announced that they will do a narrower inquiry, and they will commence that inquiry shortly. But, if the minister is saying that the VET system is world class and the former minister is saying that the system's better than the German system, what chance have we got of getting anything reasonable coming out of that inquiry?
The government have appointed a former New Zealand minister, Steven Joyce, to head up the review, and I'm getting feedback from New Zealand, from people engaged in the VET sector there, about his legacy. This guy is from New Zealand. I can't believe we can't find someone in Australia to look at our own VET system. They've got to get one of their cronies, a conservative from New Zealand, to look at it. What has been said is that, in his period as vocational education minister, he starved the sector of funding, with the biggest cuts in regional areas. He left a $3 billion hole in the VET system in New Zealand. He removed students and staff from governing councils. He undertook countless structural reviews with no impact. He pursued failed mergers. He introduced competition for funding—and that sounds all too familiar here, because privatisation and competition policy have nearly destroyed the TAFE sector in this country. He took money out of the government sector and handed it over to for-profit providers, over the public institutions in New Zealand. And he turned the sector into a private good for individuals rather than a public good for all New Zealanders.
This is why this New Zealander, this conservative, this arch-Tory, has been picked to look at the VET system. And here we are with Senator McKenzie laughing. Do you know what he did in New Zealand, Senator McKenzie? What he did in New Zealand was cut—
He balanced the budget.
Oh, he balanced the budget! Do you know how he balanced the budget? He decimated the VET system in regional New Zealand. He cut some of the regional New Zealand TAFEs by 56 per cent. He closed regional New Zealand TAFEs down. If you think that's good to laugh at, if you think that's about balancing the budget, I think the people in Indi need to understand where you come from when it comes to their VET system.
Senator McKenzie interjecting—
Well, we know you come from inner city Melbourne. We know you're not a real National.
Order!
But that's okay. We need to make sure that this inquiry is superseded by a proper inquiry. If we are fortunate enough to win government at the next election, we will conduct a real inquiry. We won't make an announcement a few weeks before Christmas, tell industry that they've got until 25 January to put submissions in, and then make a decision so that we can throw money around to the private sector. We won't be doing that. We will conduct a proper review of both VET and higher education.
It's got to the stage that Senator Cash is so on the nose that the government won't even let her conduct the inquiry through her department. The PMO is conducting the inquiry. It just demonstrates that Senator Cash is a diminished minister, a disgraced minister and a minister incapable of carrying out the job that she should be carrying out. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I rise tonight to express my support for the recently formed online retail and delivery workers alliance. The Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday in the United States. As many listeners would be aware, Black Friday is associated with discount retail sales both in stores and online. This is a phenomenon that in recent years has begun to spread to Australia. Some of the online retailers that push the Black Friday sales have also spread to Australia, most notably Amazon. Whilst new and innovative ways of working are always welcome here, what will never be welcome here is old-fashioned worker exploitation dressed up in shiny new economy clothing.
I want to put briefly on the record my concerns about the culture of Amazon. Beginning its rise in America, Amazon now operates online through Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, China and India, and, since late last year, Australia. With an annual turnover in excess of $600 billion, it takes around five per cent of all retail sales in its native USA. Their motto, 'your margin is my opportunity', I'm sure is chilling to the ears of Australian retailers. What we heard through an Australian Financial Review article in 2016 is that this company wants to destroy the retail environment in Australia.
So it's probably unsurprising that this year Black Friday across the world was not just about markdowns; it was marked by protests. Amazon has particularly been in the spotlight over poor working conditions, with workers across Europe and the US last Friday holding strikes and demonstrations. We've heard the horror stories from the UK's GMB union—ambulances being called out 600 times to 14 Amazon warehouses over three years, and a pregnant woman forced to stand for 10 hours a day. In the US, Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill which would tax employers like Amazon when their workers need government assistance such as food stamps and medical help. These protests come as unions from across the world recently formed the Amazon Alliance, with a commitment to work together to organise workers in Amazon. Last week, 67 union leaders from 17 countries committed to organising to change the way Amazon treats its workers. Amazon globally has a reputation for its union-busting activity, doing everything it can to avoid having workers in its company collectively working together to improve their lot.
Amazon is welcome in Australia, but poor working conditions and union-busting activities are not. We'd ask that, in Australia, Amazon works with workers and their unions to have a successful business with fair conditions and secure jobs. But, unfortunately, the early signs here in Australia are worrying. In Australia the SDA, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association—the union for retail workers, online retail workers and warehouse workers, and my union—have been organising workers in Amazon's fulfilment centres. The SDA has had some significant success in organising workers, despite lunch room visits by union officials and their conversations with employees being monitored by management representatives, who often remain prominently in the lunch room for the whole time the union officials are there. But workers are starting to band together. They're coming together despite being pitted against one another through employment arrangements where online retail workers are employed through a labour hire agency, Adecco, rather than being directly employed by Amazon. We know that labour hire employment is insecure employment and often carries poorer pay and work conditions than direct, permanent employment.
Labor always works closely with the unions to achieve better worker outcomes and has a policy to stamp out dodgy labour hire. It's our 'same job, same pay' policy. I'm pleased to hear that workers at the Amazon fulfilment centre are joining the union, withstanding undue pressure from the labour hire agency who made it clear that they didn't want any caps or lanyards with union logos on their premises. Workers are banding together, even after the first worker to join the union in the Amazon fulfilment centre, Raj, was sacked. The SDA has filed proceedings in the Fair Work Commission where it will be alleged that the employee was sacked for being in the union and having the hide to ask for more hours of work. The application before the Fair Work Commission is a general protections application involving dismissal. Raj has worked in warehouses for 20 years. He's a hard worker and a good worker. He and his wife, who works in retail, have built a life together and raised two sons together on a modest income in south-west Sydney. They've worked hard and put both sons through university. One son has gone on to become a doctor and the other a solicitor. Raj doesn't understand why he was sacked. He just wants to go back to work at Amazon and keep working hard, keep building a life and be a member of his union. Amazon needs to respect the workers in their fulfilment centres in Australia. They should respect their workers' rights to join a union. The overseas Amazon approach of union-busting is not welcome here.
To strengthen the ability to organise online retail workers and delivery drivers, two of Australia's largest unions, the SDA and the Transport Workers' Union, have set up the Online Retail and Delivery Workers Alliance, an alliance aimed at bringing fair standards to the growing online industry. The move to change the rules and build the Online Retail and Delivery Workers Alliance comes as retail unions globally in Union Network International, including the SDA, have formed the Global Amazon Alliance. Also, the global unions for retail workers and for delivery workers, UNI and the International Transport Workers' Federation, have agreed to work closely together to organise Amazon, and the campaign to change the rules in Australia to allow workers to bargain through the supply chain gains momentum.
The SDA believe that the Online Retail and Delivery Workers Alliance will bring together all workers in the online retail businesses supply chain, no matter how they are hired, to improve their working life. Already, over 2,000 workers in online retail in New South Wales alone have joined the SDA, the online retail workers union. Combine this with delivery drivers, and the alliance will take the cooperation of the SDA and the TWU in this area to a new level as part of the global union movement's campaign to provide security for workers in the online retail industry. Through this alliance, the SDA and TWU will support each other to reach out to workers within the Amazon retail and transport supply chain in Australia to make sure they know about their rights as workers and how to exercise them. The SDA has seen some shocking examples of workers in online retailers overseas being subjected to appalling working conditions. We cannot afford to let that happen in Australia. That's why the SDA and TWU are taking the unprecedented step of joining together to maximise union capacity to protect workers in the online retail industry.
The TWU know that fair working conditions and safe workplaces are inextricably linked. Nowhere is this more acute than when it comes to transport in the retail supply chain, which sadly has high rates of deaths and injuries. I echo the call of the International Trade Union Confederation for Amazon to work with the Online Retail and Delivery Workers Alliance to ensure respect for workers and the community in Australia. General Secretary of the ITUC, Sharan Burrow, has supported the new alliance and recently said that the ITUC stands in solidarity with the SDA and TWU Online Retail and Delivery Workers Alliance in Australia and undertakes to support them in their endeavours to bring respect and fairness to Amazon workplaces.
Fair-minded Australian retailers who rightly call for a level playing field with overseas online retailers on GST should also support any moves to ensure a level playing field in the way workers are treated by overseas online retailers who set up shop in Australia. This initiative to organise the supply chain will help level that playing field. Amazon is welcome in Australia if they accept that, here, workers are entitled to secure work, workers are entitled to fair treatment at work and workers are absolutely entitled to join their union.
I want to encourage any Amazon workers who might be listening to or watching this speech to please consider joining a union. You can find out more information about the SDA online at sda.org.au and information about the TWU at twu.com.au. Lower prices are welcome only if they come through better ways of working and not through ripping off workers through lower pay and inferior conditions. Our unions are here to help and to make sure that this doesn't happen in Australia.
Like the International Trade Union Confederation, we too stand in solidarity with the SDA and TWU Online Retail and Delivery Workers Alliance in Australia. I look forward to fighting alongside them with my Labor colleagues as they change the rules. I put on record here our unwavering support for their endeavours to bring respect and fairness to Amazon workplaces, starting right here in Australia.
Despite all of the conversation, analysis and commentary about the state of Australian politics, I like to draw people's attention to one very important point, and that is that, in the recent past, the big debates in our country—indeed, the big debates in this Senate chamber—have been handled very responsibly and have led to very clear resolutions. The 18C free speech debate springs to mind, as does resolution of the GST system in a way that allowed Western Australia to be properly compensated into the future but also ensured that every other state and territory wouldn't be worse off. Then, of course, there was the same-sex marriage debate.
What do those three things have in common? I argue that those three things have in common the fact that they were put into a process where competing views were put on the table, competing views were assessed and debated, legislation came before the parliament and the matter was resolved. That is certainly the case with regard to the resolution of 18C. That matter was put before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. That matter led to the development of legislation that came to the Senate, and the matter was resolved. The GST distribution system debate was put under the lens of the Productivity Commission, an idea that I'm proud to have advocated very strongly in my home state of Western Australia. The beauty of putting that very contentious issue into an independent economic process is that a body of evidence was revealed, and then parliamentarians like us—and, indeed, the government—could make a judgement call over how to resolve that issue with a very clear body of evidence before them. Similarly, with the issue of same-sex marriage or marriage equality in our country, an exposure draft was put before the Senate select committee. Everyone came to that committee. The committee could discuss, debate and resolve its position. Then Senator Smith, with the support of other senators, went off and developed a bill, and the issue was resolved.
That's why I continue to argue that this parliament must re-establish the long term strategies committee, a committee that previously existed in the House of Representatives—it didn't involve senators—from 1990 to 1996. It was charged with discussing, debating and gathering evidence from across the community from people with a view—whether people with very informed and evidence based views or just ordinary Australians. It was able to chart a course on a variety of issues.
One of those issues that it reported on was the matter of population. That's why in recent weeks and months I've been arguing that the parliament, as the representative of the people, should be given the opportunity to canvass community attitudes—ordinary community attitudes and the informed expert attitudes of scholars, the business community and others—to put before the Australian community a very strong and clear evidence base about future population growth in our country, because it is a big debate. Some people are nervous about giving the community a sense of expression. I'm not. The country, the community and the parliament, through a committee process, can handle the big issues. It's handled and resolved GST, same-sex marriage and the issue of free speech in our country. So the parliament can be trusted to take on the big issues, collect a body of evidence and help government come to a better position.
I'm proud that the coalition is tackling the issue of population, because in the last few months, when we've been having a population debate in our country—somewhat constrained, I argue—a story has begun to emerge, and that is that the population growth that has happened in our country has happened in a very restricted way. It has happened in our two biggest cities. The other story that we know is that, in other parts of our country, people would like to have access to population growth to support their regional communities and to support their local and small businesses. So I'm saying that the population debate in our country is actually many debates. But it shouldn't be owned just by government; it can be owned by the community. And the parliament is exactly the vehicle to do that.
I respect the fact that some people might be a little bit nervous or apprehensive about what this debate might deliver. But I'm someone who puts their faith in the Australian community and in the Australian parliament to be able to bring forward a very concise, evidence based conclusion and, indeed, some recommendations. We've seen it already. We saw it in the 1990s, when Barry Jones was the chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Long Term Strategies, because, if we are genuinely interested in the prosperity of our country—and certainly coalition senators and members of the House of Representatives are—then we must plan and prepare.
I'm someone who says that we need to have debates in our country about what the future tax system looks like. I'm someone who believes that we should have a debate about what intergenerational and demographic change looks like in our country. I'm someone who wants to make sure that we're pricing infrastructure the best way we possibly can. I want to make sure that regional communities are being given the best opportunity to prosper in the same way that our cities are. And the right way to do that is to use the population debate as a lens through which to look at all of those issues and to plan not just for tomorrow, not just for next week, but for the next few decades.
Senator McKenzie and others here at the moment know that politicians are regularly criticised for having a short-term view of the world. What I'm saying is that the best way to correct that is to give some parliamentarians the opportunity to think about the future—to think about what the next few decades will look like for our country, because we know that things are changing. They're changing in our country. They're changing in our cities. They're changing in our regional areas. Indeed, they are changing across the globe.
I'm one who says that, if we are going to use limited resources, if we are going to wisely spend taxpayers' dollars, then we want to do so in a way that gets the best possible value for those taxpayers' dollars. I want to make sure that, when we're building and planning for infrastructure, we're properly building and planning for the population that is going to use and be serviced by that infrastructure in the decades ahead. I don't see that long-term thinking or planning anywhere.
That's why I remain resolute in my commitment to pursuing the idea of a parliamentary inquiry into population matters in our country. Those who know me well know that, when I come to a view, I stay committed to that view, and I do exercise a lot of tenacity—there's no doubt about that. I'm not giving up on this issue, because we know that the community is ready for this debate as well. And I think they can be trusted with this debate.
So let me issue a caution to parliamentarians in our national parliament: if you don't step forward and act quickly enough and give people a say, then public confidence in population growth, in our immigration programs, will be lost. The best way to retain a high level of public confidence is to give people the opportunity to express a point of view. Like I said before, they can be scholars, they can be the Australian business community, they can be my mum and dad—because, when we get an evidence base before us, we'll be able to make the best possible decisions.
We don't have to look too far. In the United Kingdom, the British House of Commons, in the last 12 months, as a result of the debate about Brexit, undertook a very extensive task, to go and speak to the British people about population and migration matters. It came to a very revealing conclusion. That House of Commons report—which was called Immigration policy: basis for building consensusstressed the importance of taking early action to avoid polarisation and misinformation on population and immigration issues.
I don't want to point the finger. I don't want to mention names. But, in this place, we know who wants to drive polarisation and misinformation— (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
Senate adjourned at 18 : 50