I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator. There being none, we shall move on.
by leave—I move:
That the rules for remote participation of Senate proceedings recommended by the Procedure Committee in its first report of 2020 have effect during the sittings of the Senate from 6 to 8 October 2020.
Question agreed to.
I now welcome our senators attending remotely. My statement regarding COVID-19 and the operation of parliament is simply that the procedures announced in recent weeks remain in place until further notice. Senators should be familiar with the operation of the building while parliament is sitting, and circulars have been sent out to that effect.
I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020. Well, that's what the government calls this bill, anyway. It might be more fitting to call it the 'higher education support amendment (Scott Morrison is making it harder and more expensive to go to university) bill 2020', because that is the reality. The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and his Liberal-National government want to make it harder and more expensive to go to university. At the time of the Morrison recession, the first recession in three decades—the worst, deepest and most devastating recession in almost 100 years—at a time when there are almost one million unemployed Australians and a further 400,000 Australians set to be out of a job by Christmas, at a time when youth unemployment has hit 14.3 per cent and even higher in regional areas, and at a time when there are 13 jobseekers for every job vacancy, what does this government decide it is going to do for people across Australia, including young people and people looking to reskill? The Liberals and the Nationals, led by Scott Morrison, want to make it harder and more expensive to go to university.
Labor will oppose this bill and we urge other senators, particularly the crossbench, to do the same. Prime Minister Scott Morrison famously said, 'If you have a go, you get a go,' but this bill is going to make it harder for Australians to have a go and it will make it more expensive for them to have a go. Let's face the realities of this legislation. First, thousands of Australians—many of them young Australians—will pay more than double for the same university qualification if it passes; 40 per cent of students will have their fees increased to $14,500 a year; and, on average under the government's legislation, students will pay seven per cent more for their degree. That means people studying humanities, commerce and communications will pay more for their degree than doctors and dentists. Second, this bill will cut $1 billion out of Commonwealth funding from universities. The government is going to increase the student fee burden and reduce Commonwealth funding of higher education. We know Scott Morrison loves to pass the buck with responsibilities—you know, the bushfires, the Ruby Princess, aged care and the first recession in three decades—but with this legislation the Prime Minister is literally passing the buck to Australians seeking a university education. Third, Scott Morrison's university plan won't do what he promised it would do. As is always the case with the Morrison government, they are big on the headline and the announcement and the photo opportunity but they never deliver.
This bill means that, in academic areas which the government wants to encourage students to take up, universities will receive less money to teach those students. In areas where the government wants to discourage universities, they will receive more money to teach those students. Don't take my word for it. The CEO of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, has said:
I honestly think it's one of the worst-designed policies that I have ever seen … Even if you accept its stated rationale, it doesn't go anywhere near achieving it.'
It doesn't take a university degree to know that, when you cut money that supports engineering and science courses, either you are going to get worse courses or you are going to get fewer scientists and engineers.
Under this legislation, universities will receive 32 per cent less to teach medical students, 17 per cent less to teach maths students, 16 per cent less to teach engineers, 15 per cent less for clinical psychology, 10 per cent less to teach agricultural students—and that's really not so good for regional Australia—and eight per cent less to teach nurses, in the middle of a global pandemic. Even the former Liberal foreign minister Julie Bishop has pointed out, in her role as Chancellor of the Australian National University:
My concern is that under these new arrangements, there is a greater incentive for universities to take in a higher number of law, commerce and humanities students than there is to take in students in engineering and maths. That appears to be contrary to the government's policy intentions.
Even former Liberal minister Julie Bishop has called it out: the government's policy will do the exact opposite of what they say it will do.
To put it simply, you can't promote science and engineering by starving universities and their departments of money. The Prime Minister has either been dishonest about the intention of this legislation or, worse, he doesn't actually know how university funding works. Maybe the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education need to return to university themselves to work out what would actually happen under their proposed plan. It's clear you cannot trust the Liberal Party with universities. All they do is cut funding, jack up prices and lock out students. They're cutting billions from the sector while doing nothing to help young people get into high-priority courses and jobs. They're depriving young Australians in years 11 and 12 of a chance to help rebuild our economy, by making it harder and more expensive for them to go to university. Scott Morrison is making students pay more for their degrees, and he's locking others out altogether.
Just like all parts of our society, COVID has wreaked havoc on our higher education system. Australian universities are in distress, classes have moved from in person to online, student unions have had to strip back their operations and estimates show that at least 12,500 jobs have already been lost in the sector. Student life has been turned on its head. International student numbers have dropped off a cliff. The ABC reported yesterday that from January to July this year Home Affairs received 40 per cent of the applications that they received in the same period last year. In June alone, Home Affairs received just 4,062 student visa applications, compared to 34,015 in June 2019.
Not only are Australian universities not receiving the tuition fees of international students; the ripples have been, and will continue to be, felt throughout the economy. Those students won't be spending money in shops, they won't be renting apartments and they won't be travelling around our country as part of their time here. International education was worth $37.6 billion to the Australian economy last year. It's our fourth-largest export industry. We won't know the true impact of COVID on the international education sector and the economy, but the Mitchell institute forecasts a $19 billion loss in student revenue over the next three years.
The international students who are in Australia are suffering because they've been left behind by the Morrison government. They've been denied JobSeeker by this government and they've been denied JobKeeper by this government. They've been forced to rely on charities and food hampers to survive because of the actions of this government. They've been exploited in their workplaces and faced shocking racial abuse. Close to two-thirds of international students say they are less likely to recommend Australia as a study destination than before the pandemic. I've met with international students and they've been in tears as they've told me how Australia, the country that they have lived in and contributed to for years—sometimes four or five years—has simply abandoned them.
Another group who have been abandoned by this government are the almost 30,000 Australians stranded overseas, and this does impact on our higher education sector. Let me explain. Australians are stuck overseas, abandoned by the government during a deadly global pandemic. They're stranded in the UK, the Philippines, the United States, Canada, Lebanon, India—the list goes on. Thousands are considered medically and financially vulnerable. They shared their stories with the Senate COVID committee only a handful of weeks ago, some with their lives at risk overseas and others with their livelihoods in Australia on the line. That's all because they're stuck overseas and have not been afforded assistance by the government. The Australian government's failure to help these stranded Australians come home is actually standing in the way of our international student sector reviving. With the support of their respective state governments, universities in both South Australia and the Northern Territory are considering launching pilot programs to see international students return to our shores. But the education minister, Dan Tehan, told ABC RN Breakfast just two weeks ago:
What's being holding that up, though, is that we've got to make sure, first of all, that we're getting Australian residents back into the country and getting them properly quarantined, so they can return home.
The Morrison government's failure to have a plan to get stranded Australians home is actually impacting Australian universities recovering. You can't make this stuff up! But, still, it should come as no surprise given the Liberal government's neglect of Australia's higher education system. They failed to save university jobs at every step during the COVID crisis and the Morrison recession. There have been over 12,500 jobs lost to date, with forecasts of 20,000 jobs lost by the end of the year—20,000 Australians, their families and their communities devastated. And what has the Prime Minister done? What has this government done? Nothing. Nothing at all.
In fact, the government went out of its way to exclude public universities from JobKeeper. It changed the rules three times to ensure that universities don't qualify for JobKeeper. Government backbenchers often attack our universities and, more specifically, academics. When they do, we need to take a moment and realise not only are they attacking academics but they're attacking the people who are educating the next generation of Australians, who will help rebuild our economy, our society and our country in the wake of COVID-19. They're also attacking everyone who works at or is connected to a university. That means the librarians, the catering staff, the maintenance and ground staff, the security guards and the cleaners, many of who have had to continue going to work during the pandemic, many with families trying to make ends meet. That's who they're attacking when they attack universities.
They're also attacking regional Australia. Universities support 14,000 jobs in regional Australia, and this crisis is already devastating our regional universities. Senator Hanson says she's for Central Queensland and for regional Queensland, but why isn't she standing up for the 300 jobs that have been cut at Central Queensland University? Will she stand up for the jobs that will be lost across regional Australia and the economic devastation that will hit those communities? No, she won't. The Liberal-National government, who want to make the changes and who include government senators sitting opposite, have benefited from Australian universities. I'm sure some of the government senators opposite would have received free university education thanks to Gough Whitlam, yet here they are today, unleashing another kick in the guts for students and uni staff. Every member of Scott Morrison's cabinet went to university, but they don't think that our kids deserve the same chance in life.
We're relying on our brilliant universities and their researchers to find a vaccine for COVID-19, but they can't even rely on Scott Morrison to protect their jobs. We will be relying on universities to drive our economic recovery, but the Morrison government is cutting funding to those very universities. We're relying on an additional 3.8 million university qualifications by 2025, but instead the government is making it harder and more expensive to go to university. Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam said:
We believe that a student's merit, rather than a parent's wealth, should decide who should benefit from the community's vast financial commitment to tertiary education.
Only Labor will ensure that a university education never remains out of reach for Australians no matter who they are, no matter what family they're born into, no matter how much money they have, no matter where they live. In that spirit, Labor is going to oppose this irrational, unfair and poorly designed legislation. We commend Senator Lambie for signalling she will also oppose this bill and we urge others on the crossbench to do the same.
I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020. I want to be clear from the outset: the only correct cost of a student's degree is zero dollars. University staff, research and teaching should be protected. Our universities should be fully funded, and this bill achieves none of those aims. This bill is cruel. This bill is punitive. This bill is an irredeemable mess. This bill is shit. This bill is not worth the paper it is written on.
Senator Faruqi, can you withdraw that statement please?
I withdraw.
Thank you.
We will be moving a second reading amendment to give the government an opportunity to withdraw this terrible bill. It would take chapters to catalogue everything wrong with this legislation, but I'll sample its litany of problems today. This cruel bill hikes fees for students, massively shifting the cost of university education away from the government and onto students. We are not talking about a small tweak here; we are talking about more than doubling the fees for degrees like arts and commerce to more than $14,000 a year. Right now, the most common unit cost is the lowest cost. Under the Liberals' plan it will be the highest. The hypocrisy of these fee hikes is stunning when we know that 16 members of this government, including the Prime Minister, received a free education. Now they are forcing students to pay tens of thousands more.
The attack on the humanities that this package represents is particularly galling. One submission to the consultation rightly suggested that the government was legislating to ensure the irrelevance of the humanities. The Liberals salivate when they blather on with the corporate language of 'agility' and 'job readiness', but they wilfully ignore that the transferable skills needed to weather a recession and adapt to a changing labour market are those taught by humanities.
We know this legislation won't encourage students to study the so-called priority degrees. All the experts agree; even the minister's own department agrees. The modest fee cuts the government is tendering to a minority of students in exchange for destroying the quality of their education simply won't change the average high school graduate's plans. But I am gravely concerned that first-in-family and regional students who are less engaged with higher education will avoid Scott Morrison's astronomical fee rises and avoid the humanities and business, which have been a fantastic entry point to higher education for countless students. To see the arts return to an elite quasi-private pursuit would be a tragedy.
With the fee hikes come the cuts to teaching and learning that force universities to teach more students with less funding across the board. Billions are being cut over the years to come. That's how the government is creating its dubious new places—not through new funding but by cutting it and demanding unis take on more students. Make no mistake: this will destroy the quality of education in all courses, including, absurdly, the STEM subjects, like engineering, that the government claims to care about, which are expensive to deliver but have still suffered cuts. Overall, it means fewer teachers, less support and less choice of courses and degrees.
I feel in particular for the high schoolers watching on at the pointy end of an already terrible year. Many of them made course choices years ago and have watched their hopes of an education be dashed as the promise of decades spent in study debt is all but guaranteed by this government. Under this bill, high schoolers can't even rely on having a place waiting for them at uni. It's incredibly unlikely that the government's plan will create the places it claims to. But even if it does, the promised places are not enough to meet ordinary population growth, let alone the surge in demand during this recession. The result will be hardworking, deserving students missing out.
For those students who do get a place, this bill creates a grim future. Young people are already graduating from uni with a decade of debt repayments ahead of them. With youth unemployment skyrocketing, these fee increases will leave students in much deeper debt for much longer. Modelling we commissioned found that many students will be well into their 40s before they pay off the study debt that has dogged them through the start of their adult lives. The blokes who put this bill together, Scott, Dan and Josh, are probably proud of themselves—
May I remind you to refer to those in the other place by their correct titles.
The blokes who put this bill together: the Prime Minister, the Minister for Education and the Treasurer are probably proud of themselves for crafting fee hikes that disproportionately hurt women. On average, fees for women will rise by 10 per cent compared to six per cent for men. They shouldn't be allowed to run from the misogynist consequences of their policy. To make matters worse, the bill also disproportionately impacts First Nations students. IRU analysis has found that First Nations students' fees will increase by an average of 15 per cent—that's years and years more debt. For struggling students the government's cruel answer is to take away their HELP loan if they fail subjects. I will be moving an amendment to strip this cruelty from the package.
Altogether, those are plenty of reasons to scrap this bill. But it gets worse. Universities themselves have said this plan encourages them to enrol students in courses with the highest fees instead of the supposed national priorities. That absurdity also destroys the vital research presently cross-subsidised out of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. Our researchers, who should be focused on securing a vaccine and helping us navigate through the pandemic, are instead worried about their jobs. A whole generation of young researchers working casual jobs are already being shown the door. Thousands of additional researchers are expected to lose work in the year ahead—and they won't come back.
This plan does nothing to protect university workers. The government has stood idly by as thousands of jobs have been lost already. They have rigged JobKeeper three times to exclude universities, voted down my disallowance motion in this chamber which would have scrapped the unfair rules and exacted the punishment they've long hoped to on a sector that they hold in utter contempt.
The impact of that contempt, which riddles this package, will be felt most by regional communities. Regional unis are at the heart of our communities. The great benefit of regional education is that students who study locally tend to work locally. The terrible consequence of this bill is that every dollar of extra debt for a regional student is a dollar not being spent in their communities when that spending is desperately needed at this time. You can guarantee the sweeteners promised for regional unis will disappear. Further Liberal cuts to education are a safer bet than the sun rising tomorrow. It's wishful thinking that they won't use the impending recession to eventually yank support from regional universities. In the meantime, as Charles Sturt University submitted, this bill will hurt the agricultural workforce. The university may need to concentrate enrolments in a smaller number courses leading to fewer opportunities for regional students and with flow on effects for the agricultural workforce.
This whole thing is a policy disaster. The Liberals arrived at such an all-round useless bill by relying on useless labour market predictions that even their buddies and donors on the Business Council disagree with. This bill will see, for the first time, students paying different rates for units depending on what type of psychology degree they are a part of. This not only runs counter to the idea that students should be able to make unit-level decisions but is completely confusing. The new funding rates for units are based on bad, incomplete data from the Deloitte report that doesn't fully cover the university sector, or pass intellectual rigour as one expert put it. Relying on it is an exercise in diving to the lowest common denominator that saves the government money at the expense of diversity of teaching offerings and research. Let's not forget the made-up TEQSA integrity unit the minister slapped together when he was called out on the perverse incentives in this legislation. Let's be clear: even if the plan was good, this legislation sucks! The few carrots the minister has dangled for industry and student support in the package aren't implemented in the legislation, and vital details are desperately lacking or totally absent.
Minister, a point of order?
Senator Faruqi is regularly flouting the chair—in fact, it was the Deputy President's ruling on unparliamentary behaviour. I ask you to seek more appropriate language from the senator for this debate.
Thank you, Minister. Senator Faruqi, you were obviously reminded earlier, before I came into the chair. We would appreciate you keeping your comments in a parliamentary fashion.
We have no guidelines for how this will work and no details at all of how the range of onerous new regulatory requirements co-opted from debt regulation will be enforced on universities.
Any one of these problems with the bill would justify voting against it. Taken together, they make Centre Alliance's decision to sell out students, young people and our universities for a reprehensible deal even more shocking. Rebekha Sharkie MP and Senator Stirling Griff, you've bought the government's spin hook, line and sinker. You should be ashamed of condemning generations of young students to decades of debt. You don't need to pass this unfair and unpredictable legislation in order to deliver new student places. It's really not a matter of accepting this messy bill, which punishes students and staff, or nothing. Minister Tehan's own conveniently timed announcement of millions of dollars for extra places has confirmed that it's not too late to do the right thing and block this bill. It's clear how far out of their depth Minister Tehan and the Prime Minister are. Instead of anything close to a vision for universities, we've got this jumble of competing priorities and a desperation to not invest in students or their education. They have neither the respect for higher education nor the command of the policy detail needed for reform.
Outrage is to be expected when the Liberals try to cut uni funding, as they have done time and again, but with the justified outrage this time came bafflement—an entire sector bewildered by the policy disaster that is this bill. Everyone, from the higher education unions to the business lobby to Julie Bishop, says this doesn't make any sense. The disciplines the government claims the bill will advantage, like physics and maths, were all out condemning this plan. The best defence the minister could manage was to tell the Herald that I, the only engineering PhD in parliament, should study a maths unit. That was mere hours before he was caught using dodgy figures in a press release in an attempt to talk this bill up. From the lack of detail in the original announcement to the mere six-day consultation period for the legislation and their opposition to a Senate inquiry into this once-in-a-generation legislation, the government has shown nothing but contempt for the university sector, the community and the parliament throughout this process.
Unlike the government, the Greens vision for post-school education could not be more clear. Uni and TAFE should be free for all students for life. We recognise that our collective future depends on the education and training happening in our public universities and TAFEs. We see that our ability to see this crisis through and the opportunity to rebuild as a more just society afterwards turn on ensuring that people can access that education and training without going into decades of debt. We know everyone has a right to education, whether they're leaving school, changing careers, retraining later in life or looking to gain new skills and knowledge. This is not a flight of fantasy; this is a matter of priorities. If the government closed the loopholes that let one in three major corporations pay no tax and stopped giving tax breaks to the super wealthy, which they are going to do in the budget today, we could make lifelong access to public education a reality for all students and reap the collective benefits. We can do this and ensure that staff have security of work with fair wages, so they can do their work teaching and researching side by side and with certainty. That's the vision the Greens will keep fighting for in this place and in the community.
It's only fair that students of today have the opportunity so many in this place, including many of the hypocrites sitting opposite, had. The Senate can and should reject this package. We should call on the government to come back with a plan to support staff and create new student places by adding funding, not cutting it. The Greens oppose this cruel attack on students, on staff and on universities. I move the Greens second reading amendment on sheet 1050:
Omit all words after "That", insert:
", the bill be withdrawn; and
(a) The Senate condemns the Morrison Government and Minister Tehan for attempting to ram legislation through the Parliament which would irreversibly damage Australia's higher education system and harm and disadvantage students, university staff and communities; and
(b) The Senate condemns the bill which will:
(i) hike fees, pushing students into decades of debt as they face rising unemployment and hurting women and First Nations students the most,
(ii) slash billions in funding from teaching, including from STEM subjects, which will mean bigger classes, fewer teachers and a worse education, particularly in regional areas,
(iii) force universities to do more with less,
(iv) fail to create anywhere near enough new places to educate school leavers and people who want to study during the recession,
(v) shift the overall costs of university education away from the Commonwealth and onto students,
(vi) fail to encourage students to do STEM courses,
(vii) punish struggling students by unfairly and unnecessarily forcing them out of Commonwealth Supported Places instead of helping them, and
(viii) fail to save a single university worker's job and worsen the research funding crisis; and
(c) The Senate calls on the Government to:
(i) fully-fund university education and research, and provide ongoing funding certainty into the future,
(ii) ensure job security and good conditions for all university staff, and
(iii) make university and TAFE fee-free for all.
I too rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, because this bill is a direct response to the workforce skills and training challenges that we are facing as a nation. It's a recognition of the unprecedented impact and churn within the Australian labour market and it's an acknowledgement that we, in partnership with industry, businesses and the broader Australian community, understand that skills will be absolutely critical in driving not only our recovery but also our long-term prosperity.
As we've heard only too often, the economic shock from the coronavirus challenge is unprecedented. Each and every Australian has been impacted in some way or another, whether it be them personally, their friends or their family. Small businesses have been disrupted. Local communities have been disrupted. Entire industries have been disrupted. Indeed, the higher education sector has been disrupted. Ensuring that the Australian economy is in the best possible position on the other side of this challenge will take every policy lever available to government. We know that, as a result of this disruption to our economy and the churn in our labour market, there will be record demand on our higher education system. We need to ensure that it's ready for that and accessible to as many Australians as possible who want to get the skills that they need to enter the workforce.
This government is providing leadership on this issue. We are making sure that our higher education system will be able to respond to this enormous challenge. We're getting on with the job. We're putting in place the reforms that our nation needs to not only recover but continue to prosper. I would make the argument that this is one of those rare 'Team Australia' moments which arise in this place every so often. You would think that those opposite would be supportive of getting Australians back into work and making sure that our higher education system remains accessible to as many Australians as possible. But, no, you would be wrong. We've heard that already this morning. They have continued with their policies of fear, their rhetoric of division and the old class warfare nonsense that they come up with every now and again when they have little else to argue with.
So let's look at the facts, shall we? I know that's something that those over there on the crossbench and in the Greens fail to do more often than not. Let's look at the facts and the practical impact of these reforms. This package will create 39,000 new university places in 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. It will also provide additional support for students in regional and remote Australia. With this bill, the Morrison government's record funding to Australia's higher education sector will also increase. I know that those over there don't like these numbers because it doesn't quite fit their narrative, but here they are. Through to 2024, funding will increase by an additional $2 billion—an additional $2 billion—increasing to $20 billion. Overall, Australian taxpayers will continue to pay more than half of the costs of Commonwealth supported places, with funding prioritised to areas of high public benefit and areas most needed by the labour market.
In addition, universities will work more closely with industry to ensure that graduates have the job-ready skills and experience that they need in this challenging labour market. This means that our universities will be able to respond more effectively to the jobs and the skills challenges that we have and are facing. It will give school leavers more options to take up the career of their choice. Commonwealth supported students starting courses in key growth areas—including science, nursing, teaching, engineering and IT—will see significant reductions in their student contribution for those units. In total, around 60 per cent of students will see either a reduction or no change at all to their student contribution. By choosing degrees with electives that respond to employer needs and the future demands of the Australian economy in subjects like mathematics, engineering, science and IT, students can actually reduce their total contribution and enhance the skills that they bring to employment.
Australian employers and industries are the ones that are actually best placed to know what skills they need for their business, for the jobs that they have. They're the ones that know what they need in the near term, for immediate recovery, and in the medium and long term. That's why those who study agriculture and maths will pay 59 per cent less for their degree—59 per cent less for their degree. Those enrolled in teaching, nursing—my wife's a nurse, my sister's a nurse, my mum's a teacher—clinical psychology, English and languages will pay 42 per cent less for their degree. Why? Because these are careers that are needed, these are careers that are in demand in our economy. And students who study science, health, architecture, environmental science, IT and engineering will pay 18 per cent less for their degree. Importantly, these reforms also align the costs of completing these units with the costs incurred by the provider in teaching them. All of these decisions have been made using data from the higher education sector, which clearly show the breakdown of actual costs. These measures will be grandfathered for those students with a Commonwealth supported place who are already studying these subjects. They'll be grandfathered so that they'll either pay a lower rate or the current rate, so this notion that someone who has chosen to do a degree is now going to be faced with higher costs is an absolute untruth.
As a senator for Western Australia, I'm also very proud to be part of a government that's delivering for regional and remote students, and I know Senator Reynolds would completely agree with me. We are very proud of our regional areas in Western Australia, and this bill is going to help deliver opportunities for more and more students coming from those areas. We need to make sure that the opportunities afforded to students as part of this package are afforded to all students, particularly those who live in some of the most regional, remote and isolated parts of our nation—and Western Australia has those places in spades. It could be said that these places are often where the bulk of our national wealth comes from, but no doubt that's for another debate.
In addition to providing more student places at Australian universities overall, the government will provide more than $400 million over the next four years to increase opportunities for regional and remote students to attend university, lifting investment in regional university campuses. All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from regional and remote areas will have a guaranteed Commonwealth supported place upon admission to their university of choice. For the first time, the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program will support regional, remote and Indigenous students, in addition to low-SES students, to access and complete higher education. This bill also amends the Social Security Act to reduce from six to three the number of months a student must be receiving student support payments to be eligible to receive the fares allowance for a return journey home—another important Napthine review recommendation. Regional communities will benefit from strengthened and newly established regional university centres, enhanced regional research opportunities and regional growth through additional funding to regional university campuses. I've seen the impact of these centres, I've visited the ones that are operating in Western Australia, and I acknowledge the good work of my colleague in the other place the member for Durack, Melissa Price, for the tremendous work that she has brought into this area in seeing a newly established regional university centre in Karratha.
Continuing to support regional students to get into their careers of choice with long-term demand in the Australian economy is critically important. I don't have the luxury of time this afternoon to go over all the measures in this bill. I've seen there's a long list of speakers, and I'm sure others will take us through that. But, despite not being able to do that today, I can say this: we cannot underestimate or downplay the long-term impacts of the economic shock caused by the coronavirus, particularly the effect that this is having upon the Australian labour market. We know that in a downturn the demand on skills and higher education providers actually increases. We must ensure that our higher education system can respond to this demand from a position of strength. At the same time, we must ensure that any reform we undertake makes further education and higher education more accessible to the broader Australian public—those looking to get into the workforce, gain those skills and set themselves and their families up for life. For those looking to have a go, we want to make sure that they certainly do get that opportunity to have a go. We need to make sure that our higher education system responds to the demand from businesses and industry, and those who will ultimately end up employing these graduates. We must ensure that they've got the skills that are in demand by employers—so that people are not just training or educating for training or education's sake but are undertaking courses and getting the requisite skills required to be productive in the workplace and to hold and keep down a job.
We're in partnership with our universities. They're best placed to know what skills they need for the near, medium and long term. And I believe that this bill meets those objectives. But don't just listen to me. Let's take a couple of points that we heard through the submissions that came in through the committee process. We heard from the Australian National University vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt:
The government has put forward a set of higher education reforms that should allow essentially everyone (young and old) who wants a university opportunity to get one.
We heard from Professor Greg Craven, VC of the Australian Catholic University:
The package is massively pragmatic, responding to real problems in real time.
Industry is also on board. Employers are also on board. The president of the Australian Primary Healthcare Nurses Association, Karen Booth, said:
This is a major boost to our profession. It will attract more students into nursing by making their university education more affordable.
These are just a sample of the comments from universities and industry. There are many, many more. And they all acknowledge the importance of putting in place a sustainable funding model—a system which will deliver skills for the jobs of the future. We're in a rapidly changing labour market environment, and we have to adapt and change our education and training sector to ensure that we're meeting the demand and the needs of those jobs that exist not just today but into the future.
These are just a sample of some of the comments from universities and industry, and they all acknowledge the importance of putting in place a sustainable model—a system which will deliver skills for the jobs for the future, and, critically, allow all Australians who want to have a go to get a go. I commend this bill to the Senate.
If that's the flavour of the contributions from those in government, this is a sad day for our democracy—reading those talking points while going through, with the support of the crossbench, with a radical structural change to higher education in this country that is unjustified, unjustifiable and found very, very wanting. It's a miracle we even got two days of hearings, because this government didn't want them. So hardball did they play it with the crossbench that they actually intimidated them. The government did not want any scrutiny of this bill—no scrutiny. We had to fight tooth and nail to get in two days of crammed hearings for this most significant, enormous structural change to our higher education sector.
We've got that nonsense contribution from those opposite: 'Oh, it's good, and we're going to make it sustainable.' The minute they say 'sustainable' the country should say 'cut', because that's exactly what it means. This will be a cut to higher education. It will forever dislocate teaching from research, and that is a recipe for disaster. This is the government that's gone out and kicked higher education to the ground every single year for the last seven years. They've inflicted multiple fractures on the sector to the point where it is a bruised and battered sector, and now they want to get this legislation through. And, with the shameful support of the crossbench, they're going to get it through here. What they will do is lock in, like a plaster cast, a multiple fracture that we will never recover from. That will be the record of this government in terms of higher education. It is an absolute disgrace.
The higher education bill that is before us today, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, despite its title, like most of the government's other nonsense bills, will do exactly the opposite. There is no support in this; this is about breaking things. As I said, this is about breaking the nexus between teaching and research. This is about breaking the sector that they have been working on breaking for seven years. This is about breaking the hearts of young students who want to go to university and now know that, after the government gets this bill through, their debt will be increased.
The dissenting report from Labor is 36 pages long, which is quite significant for a dissenting report during my time here in the Senate. It reflects the evidence that was received from the large number of submissions and the evidence that was taken, against the government's wishes, in the series of hearings that we had. The subheadings of our report give an indication of just some of what is wrong with this bill. There is a lack of time for proper scrutiny. There is a dangerous extension of ministerial discretion: the minister can pick his own winners when he wants to. The sector is very concerned about getting on the wrong side of the minister, who seems to be able to wield power in the most extraordinary way and advance or withdraw money at his will—or her will, as the case may be. But that's what's getting locked in and baked in with this legislation. There are student fee hikes that have no justification.
Our report goes on to say that the pricing model that underpins the funding structure that has been established is profoundly weak; the incentives in this bill for universities are perverse and they do not match the realities that confront our universities; and the labour market assumptions in this bill are wrong. The barriers to job-ready graduates are well discussed in this document, and we know that those barriers are going to increase as students fear taking on more debt. Many students will pay more, and some will pay much more than others, as this government arbitrarily redetermines the shape of higher education. The worst impact will be on women and First Nations people. An enabling loading will be removed. This is how many Indigenous students—and many older students who recover from not being such good students at school and develop their lifestyles—go to university. This bill plays with that system and leaves it to the discretion of the minister to respond.
There will be punitive and unnecessary interference in students' progress. I will have more to say about that and the severe impact that is likely to have on students mental health and wellbeing—compounding the COVID-19 crisis. This is just what we really need from a government that says we are all in this together! Well, this is about making it a very separate kind of experience for those with wealth, and those without wealth will miss out.
There are consequences for research and the economy from the dislocation of research from teaching funding. There are risks to regional universities. We had Senator O'Sullivan saying how good this is for regional universities, but he wasn't there to hear the evidence from the regional universities. We know there is every chance that, as regional universities lose their research status, they will simultaneously lose their status as universities. There will be massive job losses at Charles Sturt University, just down the road from here at Wagga Wagga in the Deputy Prime Minister's seat. There have been hundreds of jobs lost during the COVID-19 crisis and there are hundreds and hundreds of jobs still to go. What's going to happen to that university and the great town of Wagga Wagga if it loses its status as a university? A failure to attract research from overseas will be a common problem.
All of these issues were aired in our two days of furious receipt of evidence that the government didn't want to have on the record. We will have a loss of university status and private providers. There is a mirage of 39,000 new student places. Don't believe that number for a minute. That's an absolute lie. The last of these subheadings is 'Degrading the sector'. This is just a taste; they are just the subheadings in a 36-page dissenting report from Labor senators. That's how bad this bill is. It's wrong on many, many fronts.
As a former teacher and university lecturer in education, I've always believed in the power of education. Getting a proper education is the best way to build a dream career and a life worth living and to give your talents and capacities the strength that they need to become a vital part of the Australian economy as well. But, instead of supporting those sorts of goals and supporting aspirational young Australians, this government has created a bill that shifts a larger proportion of debt onto students. It's also a bill that, through research funding changes, further empowers the minister to punish or promote universities at his own discretion. In the dissenting report, there is a critical statement that indicates how dangerous what this government is doing is, and I want to read it into the record:
The bill breaks the nexus between teaching and research, and makes no provision for research funding at a time when universities are suffering huge revenue losses because of falling international student numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The cuts to teaching and to research will inevitably result in universities gradually losing their capacity for civic engagement with the communities and regions they serve. This challenges the very notion of a university as it has been understood in this country.
The impact on young Australians should not be overlooked. For those who are still locked up in Melbourne, can I just say, as a senator for New South Wales, how much my sympathies and the sympathies of my state are with you in that situation. But it's not just students in Melbourne but students across the entire country who have been locked up and engaged with a very uncertain path to university, and this is what we've said in our dissenting report:
Year 12 students graduating this year will have endured stressful exams during a deadly pandemic. This bill will ensure that they enter a depressed jobs market with more debt than ever and less opportunities than their parents. According to ABC News reporting, youth workers say instances of self-harm and suicidal thoughts have risen significantly among young people in recent months and The Kids Helpline reported a 40 per cent—
yes, 40 per cent—
rise in demand for counselling services in March. This bill does not take any account of the effect on the mental health of these young Australians, which has already been buffeted by the cancellation of the traditional rites of passage like graduations and formals, and instead presents them with a mountain of debt, rather than an open doorway of opportunity.
That is the general flavour of this bill. It's a vicious and partisan attack on the university sector. Its central premise, its central goal of supposedly creating more jobs-ready graduates, is not backed up by the evidence. The overall effect of this bill, if it continues to achieve the support of the crossbench as has been indicated in mail this morning, will be to cause deep and lasting harm to an already battered and bruised cohort of young Australians. It will result in vast cuts to research and jobs in our world-class university sector. This bill represents a billion-dollar cut to the university sector, and it forces the burden of funding that billion-dollar deficit—that cut, chosen by this government—onto Australian students. There is no merit in this bill.
The bill also seeks to make it cheaper for rich families to send their kids to university, by giving discounts for upfront payments of fees, thanks to the actions of One Nation. This is an obscene and unnecessary discount for those whose parents have the wherewithal to pay thousands and thousands of dollars upfront rather than take out what's basically an interest-free loan. It'll make it harder and more expensive for working-class students and easier for affluent ones to study. This bill will have lifelong impacts on working-class students' ability to accumulate wealth and personal savings or to get a loan and obtain property, while at the same time this bill, as it is baked by this government, will give that upfront discount to rich families who can afford to pay upfront.
As Labor's dissenting report noted:
If the bill becomes law, the difference between the lowest fees paid by students and the highest fees paid will grow to a magnitude of four.
That should tell you all you need to know about Mr Tehan's priorities. Once you strip away the bill's sophistry, if you ignore the lack of empirical evidence around its key aims, you get to the hard core, which is the cuts to funding, to student support and to research. The bill's declared aim is to send price signals to students to entice them into disciplines deemed to be growth areas in a future job market, but there was simply no evidence in any of the submissions or in the evidence heard during our committee hearings to support the government's claims about this method of funding. Researchers who gave evidence to the committee, such as Mr Mark Warburton and Professor Andrew Norton, instead said:
… the evidence suggests that student choice is informed by a more complex set of factors than a simple response to price …
The central premise of the bill is that price will drive students in a particular direction. The central premise is incorrect. That alone should be enough for us to reject this bill. In this time of change the government fails to heed the wisdom of thought leaders across all industries and professions, who know that knowledge is moving so fast that you can't train for today, let alone for tomorrow. Graduates need deep and broad knowledge. It will be historical, but they also need to know that their knowledge will have to be refreshed over and over as change continues apace. In all faculties we need problem-solvers who can think creatively and know how to learn, good communicators who can share their new knowledge with others, and skilled collaborators who work with others. Those things are not related to particular strains of learning or particular faculties; they are about learner disposition, the capacity to bring the knowledge and talent that you have to the fore in an ever-changing workplace.
The bill doesn't only affect students. It will have disastrous effects on universities as well. They've already shed tens of thousands of jobs due to the COVID-19-induced recession, the Morrison recession, and the callous decisions and political plan by Josh Frydenberg to exclude Australian universities from JobKeeper. Yet they didn't miss giving New York University's Sydney campus the opportunity to claim JobKeeper! The bill as it stands is a wrecking ball through Australia's university sector. We're seeing courses cut at the University of Sydney, Macquarie University, Monash and all of our regional universities. The enabling loading, which allows students from diverse backgrounds to achieve, is being removed. They're also putting pressure on struggling students by cutting off government support if they fail over 50 per cent of their subjects. Students live complex lives. As the submission from CQ University pointed out, the implementation of this will be extremely limiting and very, very damaging.
This bill is a major structural reform that's just not necessary. It's not called for and neither is it just. The bill goes to the cruel heart of this government and the national ideology—instead of support for an ailing sector, there are just the empty promises of a minister doing the cutting. The poison is locked in legislation and the antidote merely on the lips of the minister. The bill fails in transparency, in spending and in every possible generous way of considering education. (Time expired)
I rise today in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020. Before I get to what I have written down, I'd like to address a couple of the issues that have been raised previously. The first one is the discount upfront. When Paul Keating introduced this HECS debt originally, in 19—
Excuse me, Senator. Could you use the former Prime Minister's title.
When former Prime Minister Paul Keating introduced this in 1989 there was a 15 per cent discount if you paid upfront. I well remember it, because I paid mine upfront. I'd got my money from fruit picking over the summer and then I used that money to pay off the loan upfront. I think it's a very good idea to have a discount in order to encourage students to get their loans paid off, because what we've now got is a $70 billion HECS debt that's being funded by the taxpayer, and the ATO estimates that about $30 billion of that is probably going to have to be written off. I think it's a very good idea that we do encourage our students to pay it off through doing part-time work whilst they study, so they both get rid of the debt and develop a work ethic. It is very easy to get caught up in student life. You can have a lot of fun there, but we should never forget that universities are about a pathway to a better future and getting work in the long run.
The other thing that I'd like to touch on is the misogynistic comments earlier by Senator Faruqi. She said we on this side of the chamber are misogynistic. I think Senator Faruqi should draw inspiration from the women in my family. I happen to be a fourth-generation graduate of the University of Queensland. My great-great-aunt got a degree in 1920: a Bachelor of Arts. She went on to teach at All Hallows, where she taught generations of women maths and physics, so much so that she's now got a hall named after her at the school she taught at.
My grandmother went on to get a Bachelor of Arts in 1930. She also became a teacher. She had four children before the war and four children after the war. One of those children was my uncle Keith, who, unfortunately, at the age of seven became blind. He went on and got a law degree through braille because he persevered. Finally, my other aunt, Auntie Helen, got a Bachelor of Arts from UQ in 1972.
There are a whole range of women in my family, including my wife and my sister, who all went to UQ and got degrees. This idea that somehow we're against women getting degrees I find totally repugnant.
Senator O'Neill interjecting—
On Senator O'Neill's comments that somehow we're breaking hearts: the whole idea of this bill is to make sure that we don't give our children false hope, because we don't want to see our children go through university, rack up a huge HECS debt and then get to the end of it and not be able to get a job. So it is very important when it comes to universities and university degrees that there is a job at the end of it, because to come out before you've even left the starting blocks and have a massive HECS debt around your neck is not a good thing. It demotivates our children, and we don't want to see it happen.
It's also not smart from an overall economy perspective, because we've got a lot of unemployed graduates and at the same time have to import people from overseas to do our trades. If Senator Cash were here, she would say this bill about supporting apprenticeships is a great thing, because at the moment we've got a country where, in my view, we've got 500 architects and one builder as a result of those Dawkins plans, which turbocharged universities, instead of having one architect and 500 builders. We've got to try to fix all the money that's gone into higher education and hasn't actually got our children jobs, and that is what this bill is trying to do. We should never forget the importance of our trades—our carpenters, our mechanics—and lordy knows that out in the regions they can't get enough carpenters, mechanics or boilermakers. We need to match demand and supply so that our children can get a job and start earning a livelihood so that they can own a house, put a roof over their head and go forward and have children, basically able to provide for those children and have good health. I know it's an education bill, but it's about having a better economy and a happier lifestyle and about encouraging homeownership as well.
This leads to what I've written down here: whether through infrastructure, trade or health, good investment remains one of the best ways to grow the economy and produce jobs. This government has always been committed to smart investment. As we exit one of the biggest economic crises since World War II, investment has never been more important to getting Australians working again. This government has committed over $250 million in dam projects, $800 million for small business to transition into online business and $380 million for the regions in order to stimulate areas hardest hit by coronavirus, recent bushfires and drought.
Make no mistake: the job-ready guarantee bill is an investment. It is this government's investment in countless Australians who choose higher education. It is a stimulus for these Australians to make the most worthwhile investment in themselves. An investment in your own education creates opportunities for you for the remainder of your life. School leavers looking to start their career, people in the workforce upskilling and individuals looking for a change in career through new qualifications all have one thing in common: they are all investing in their future. Self-investment is a pillar of small government, a concept I am sure that those opposite could not hope to comprehend. But let me summarise: small governments allow individuals and businesses to largely manage and invest in themselves with appropriate checks and balances. It is a system where government does not overreach its authority or power but encourages individual improvement rather than government intervention. Common sense will tell you that when considering two investments that both see the same rewards, the cheaper investment will be more desirable. Higher education is no different. When a degree allows access into a rapidly developing sector with higher wage growth but also costs less to complete, then students will be inclined to study this degree. In 2009, enrolments in STEM subjects were approximately 14,000. When student contributions for these subjects fell in 2012, this number increased to 26,000. It was largely expected this growth would continue, paving the way for students to continue to choose STEM subjects and increase Australia's standing in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. Unfortunately, due to a conveniently quiet 78 per cent increase for student contributions enacted by the then Labor government, a tactic Australians have come to expect from those opposite, we saw this number plateau, stifling growth in this sector of study. What do these figures demonstrate? They show us that the Australian public shares this government's view that higher education is an investment. It is not a small investment but one that, in many cases, reaps large rewards.
This government is not interested in making higher education a more difficult process for Australians. Instead, we want to support investment Australians make in themselves, in their future and in their education. We would like to see Aussies go through higher education and gain a foothold in the job market in order to receive the returns on their investment that they deserve, and that's a really key point about this bill. It's about making sure that Aussies can get a foothold in the job market when they graduate. We do not want to see students, after spending years of study putting their nose to the grindstone, come out and have no opportunities. There is nothing more heartbreaking than false hope. This is why, in conjunction with private industry, we have readjusted the funding being allocated to units based on future growth. This restructure shows Australians where the best possible returns are available for their investment. It has been restructured to ensure Aussies see the benefits both financially and personally in studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics by allowing student contributions to fall by 18 per cent for all STEM units.
It is true that the risk/reward factor is not the only factor students consider when choosing a degree. Passions and, in particular, some individuals' desire to help the community also play a role in determining the outcome. The government not only understands that desire to help the community but actively encourages it. This is why the funding has been restructured to support individuals who seek to give their lives to care for the sick and teach our kids. This will see a 42 per cent reduction in student contributions for units relating to teaching, nursing, psychology and languages. That can't come soon enough. When I was born, my home town, Chinchilla, had three midwives for a population of 3,000. It now has a population of 6,000, but no midwives and no maternity wards. One of the reasons it is so difficult to get nurses out to the regional areas is that the cost of studying to become a nurse is exorbitant. They have to do two degrees if they want to be both a midwife and a general practice nurse. When my mum did it—she had both tickets—she did it through training in the ward. That's something we need to look at—getting our nurses back on the wards, our teachers back into the classroom and our mechanics back in the workshop. I think there is a little bit too much emphasis on seeing our students spend time in the classroom rather than going out there and gaining on-the-job experience whilst they're studying.
Even in the COVID-19 era, this government understands that Australia is the food bowl of the world. We understand the need for growth in agriculture, particularly to support the rebound out of the pandemic. We understand one of the most rewarding investments Australia can make is in agriculture. All families need a farmer. Yet again I look at those opposite us. The Queensland state Labor government shut down three agricultural colleges in regional Queensland in this term of government. Why would they do that when our farmers look after the land? They're the ones on the land. Wouldn't you want to encourage farmers to adopt best practice so that they can look after their farms, manage their farms for all of our children's futures, generate income for themselves and have a prosperous regional community? For Labor to sit here and complain about what we are doing with this bill when they sat there and closed down pastoral colleges smacks of hypocrisy. This is why, in support of our agricultural industry, student contributions in units relating to agriculture will fall by 59 per cent.
Additionally, the government is allocating a further $400 million over the next four years for regional students, allowing greater opportunity and access to higher education for our regional and remote communities. It's interesting—I forgot to touch on this before—that my grandfather topped maths in the New South Wales Public Service exam in 1911. He never got to go to university; he had to go back to the farm. Maybe if this stuff had been around then, he might have gone and got a degree. Who knows? The additional funding will be prioritised into newly established regional university campuses and enhanced regional research opportunities in order to maximise the chance for these communities to attend university.
This government understands that regional communities have been particularly hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with many, particularly in Victoria, forced to sustain some of the world's harshest lockdown laws despite recording zero coronavirus cases in many regional areas. We also understand, particularly in this post-COVID era, that many within our regions and remote areas simply cannot afford to leave the home. This understanding has led to the development of a one-off $5,000 payment, known as a TAP payment, for regional school leavers who are forced to relocate more than 90 minutes in order to enrol in higher education. This new payment is designed to encourage students leaving school in these communities to enrol in higher education. I commend the bill to the Senate.
[by video link] It's always interesting to speak after Senator Rennick. I heard him say he paid off his degree by picking fruit. He must have picked a lot of fruit, I think. He has a commerce degree. That'll be worth $14½ thousand a year to any student that wants to undertake it should this bill go through. I'm not sure if it is a three- or four-year degree, but it's a minimum of $45,000. That's a lot of fruit to pick. Maybe he's an expert fruit picker.
Can I ask the senators in the chamber to pay the normal courtesy for those people who are making a contribution remotely, and that is not to interject. It is disorderly to interject at any time. I remind senators to give Senator Bilyk the opportunity to be heard in silence.
Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. Senator Rennick also talked about how many architects and builders there are. If they didn't keep cutting the funding to TAFE then I think there would be a lot more builders around to help fill that gap.
But I am speaking today against the government's Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020. It's a terribly poorly-thought-through bill. It was made in haste and is based on outmoded prejudices and ideology. I really don't know what made the government propose this ill-conceived bill. It's based on an ignorance of the higher education sector and/or of the wider community. Perhaps it's based on a dislike of arts graduates—although there are plenty of those on the government benches. But, honestly, I think they simply do not want young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds going to university.
The Liberals want a return to the past, where you had almost no chance of going on to a tertiary education unless you went to an elite private school and had wealthy parents. Those opposite should be ashamed that they introduced this bill and ashamed that they're supporting it. At least the Nationals, for once, managed to secure some government concessions with this bill. What did the Liberal party room secure? Did they all just sit there meekly and let it go through without giving it a second thought? I really believe that those on the government side have betrayed all those voters who believed that they did truly care.
The bill we're debating today makes it harder and more expensive for a lot of Australians to go to university. Why? Why are they making more people pay more money for the same qualification? And why, having hiked the fees, do they then still cut billions in funding from the sector? I'll tell you why: it's ideological, and I don't believe that this policy is backed by any evidence. Forty per cent of students will have their fees increased to $14½ thousand a year, doubling the costs for thousands. That means people who are studying the humanities, commerce and communications will pay more for their degrees than doctors and dentists.
The title of this package, the Job-ready Graduates Package, is farcical—like a lot of bills that we come across from this government. There's no evidence that these degrees make students less employable than other degrees. In fact, the job prospects of humanities students are very healthy. According to recent research, people with humanities degrees have higher employment rates than those with science or maths degrees. The government has provided no sensible or reasoned arguments for these changes; perhaps they should study some units in logical and critical thinking.
Terrible bills have terrible consequences, and I'd like to focus for a while on how this bill will affect my home state of Tasmania. In Tasmania we have only one university, the University of Tasmania, and Tasmanians are rightly proud of their university. It's an affordable and quality pathway to a higher education, and plays an important role in providing skills and training opportunities, as well as research and development capabilities. Higher education can have a transformative effect on individual lives. It creates employment and opportunities, and it results in generally higher salaries. It also creates employment opportunities in the wider society, increasing the capabilities of companies to deliver services and products, as well as the creation of new services, products and technology. The benefits of higher education do not just flow to students; they're shared by the whole of our society. Particularly in regional areas, like Tasmania, by working smarter and not harder, we can leverage our natural advantages and utilise them for the maximum benefit for our state and for our people.
We'll be relying on university graduates to drive our recovery from the recession. Recently, I spoke to the National Tertiary Education Union about the bill in general and, more specifically, on the impacts it will have on UTAS. They told me, 'Under the Job-ready Graduates scheme, some institutions will be more severely impacted than others due to the mix of disciplines that their Commonwealth-supported students enrol in. Put simply, the universities that have a relatively high proportion of students enrolled in disciplines which experience the largest cuts in total resourcing will be under even more financial pressure should the JRG package come into effect. No university will be better off under the JRG package. The University of Tasmania will see an average reduction of over $900 per Commonwealth supported place. In fact, the NTEU's calculations based on 2018 student data show that 60 per cent of the Commonwealth supported places at UTAS will see a reduction in total resourcing under the package. This means UTAS not only will have less resources per student but, like all institutions, will have to teach more with less in order to maintain current levels of funding. They also advised me that the JRG package will not alleviate the funding issues facing UTAS as a result of the COVID crisis. In fact, the JRG package will increase pressure on the university to increase its level of discretionary funding. While there are some sweeteners in the JRG that UTAS may be able to access, such as regional loadings, these do not outweigh the loss the university will be facing overall. Furthermore, most of these benefits also rely on the university substantially increasing domestic enrolments, which will be a challenge. So it's clear UTAS will be disproportionately impacted by this bill.'
The NTEU also made the following point about research funding: 'While the JRG package will see a reduction overall in the resourcing for teaching per student, it also removes the research allocation from CSP funding. In fact, the JRG package does not provide a single dollar for research, and the government has remained silent on any research funding changes, despite the importance of research in a post-COVID recovery.' Tasmania does important, innovative research, particularly in marine and Antarctic sciences, and it's disappointing that this government wants to attack not only students but the important research our universities are doing as well.
It's a stark contrast to what Labor did in government. In government, we made policies to ensure that university education never remained out of reach. In order to achieve this goal, we invested in our universities and we supported them when they needed it. After years of neglect under the Howard government, Labor boosted investment in universities from $8 billion in 2007 to $14 billion in 2013, and our policy resulted in an additional 200,000 going to university. Sadly, those opposite don't have that kind of vision.
It's clear that this is a bad bill and it's coming at a really bad time. We all know what a terrible year 2020 has been. We've seen increases in the rate of youth unemployment. It has risen by more than 90,000 in recent months alone. We're in the depths of recession, so now is the perfect time to be training young Australians. The demand for university places has surged, yet we've got Mr Morrison refusing to provide enough extra places to meet the increase in demand. Even when the government promise new places, they provide no extra funding to support them and no guarantee that those numbers will eventuate in practice. The effect of this bill would be to increase the student fee burden and reduce Commonwealth funding for higher education.
As I said earlier, perhaps the government simply doesn't have an understanding of the current labour market, and the industry stakeholders tend to agree. Bronwyn Evans, CEO of Engineers Australia, said the government's announced changes may:
… lead to increased inequality and a harmful reduction in the diversity of skills necessary for a modern workforce.
… … …
An increase in university fees risks increasing structural inequality for women and people from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds who choose to study humanities, law and other courses that will now leave them in even more debt.
Megan Lilly from the Australian Industry Group said:
We're not of the view that the humanities is unnecessary. Graduates get very good generalist skills and it can lead to very good career opportunities. There is also potentially a problem with reduced total funding to some courses being promoted. Universities might have limited places for engineering courses (despite student fees being slashed) and that could be very problematic.
Dan Woodman, President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, or CHASS, said:
Some of the fastest growing job areas for university graduates are new, many of which require exactly the skills and experiences that the study of HASS subjects can provide. Content Specialists, Customer Officers, Data Scientists, and Sustainability Analysts are in high demand. These jobs did not exist five years ago, and a strong humanities or social science degree provides a foundation for working in these and the new, related fields that ·will inevitably emerge in the corning years.
The bill has even been criticised by the former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Representatives, Ms Julie Bishop. That's right: Ms Julie Bishop has criticised the bill. Ms Bishop, who is now chancellor of the Australian National University, has argued that the substance of the bill won't result in the government's stated policy goals. Similarly, the CEO of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, has said:
I honestly think it's one of the worst-designed policies that I have ever seen … Even if you accept its stated rationale, it doesn't go anywhere near achieving it.
When industry, students, business groups, unions representing staff including academics, and even a former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party are all opposed to the bill, you know it's a bad bill. It's just another move in a continuing pattern attacking our higher education sector.
Of course, we shouldn't be surprised. This government has had a habit of attacking and failing to support the university sector. For months now, Labor has been urging the federal government to finally step in and help universities save jobs during the pandemic. Since then, thousands of jobs have been lost across the country. Australian universities forecast 21,000 job losses in coming years, and Scott Morrison has done nothing to stop these job losses in our fourth-largest export industry. He's shown no interest in the thousands of university staff who are losing their livelihoods or the communities that depend on their jobs. The federal government has gone out of its way to exclude public universities from JobKeeper. It's changed the rules three times to ensure that they don't qualify.
The impact of this crisis on regional universities will be devastating. Universities support 14,000 jobs in regional Australia. These are not only academics and tutors but also admin staff, library staff, catering staff, ground staff, cleaners and security. All these people have families. All are trying to make ends meet. We know that Australia will require an additional 3.8 million university qualifications by 2025. Yet, when it comes to our higher education system, this government's priority has always been to cut. While promising to support the study of maths, science and engineering, this legislation reduces the money universities will receive to provide those courses. In areas that the government say they want to encourage, universities will receive less per student, and, in areas that the government say they want to discourage, universities will receive more per student. It provides a disincentive for universities to enrol extra students in these disciplines.
In total, this package will cut $1 billion from universities. As always with this Prime Minister, the detail doesn't match the announcement. Mr Morrison is making students pay more for degrees and he's locking others out altogether. While promising to support the study of maths, science and engineering, this legislation reduces the money universities will receive to provide these courses. Either the Prime Minister is misleading Australians about the intention of this bill or he doesn't know how university funding works. The reform is a complete miss. It can't be amended or fixed, and we can't trust the Liberal Party with universities. All they do— (Time expired)
I rise to speak on the government's Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, which is, sadly, the latest in a long line of attacks on the university sector from this government. This is a bill that would hike fees and push students into decades of debt right at a time when youth unemployment is at record highs. It will hurt women and First Nations students the most. It will slash billions in funding from teaching, leading to bigger classes, fewer teachers and worse-quality education, including for rural and regional students. It will force universities to do more with far less. It will shift the overall costs of education away from the Commonwealth and onto students' shoulders, it will fail to encourage students to do STEM courses and, of course, it will fail to save a single university worker's job from the COVID crisis—workers who are excluded from the JobKeeper support package, despite multiple occasions where the government could have fixed that.
So here we are again: the government is ripping money out of the tertiary education sector, yet at the same time it's got the audacity to be relying on that same sector to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. It's saying to universities: 'You're going to have to do more with less. Students are going to have to pay more. We're not going to support you to keep your staff on the book. You can just fire thousands of people because we're not giving you enough funding. Oh, but you need to save us from COVID-19 and you need to be the first; you need to get ahead so Australia can do that.' What an absolute farce once again from this anti-intellectual government that sees everything as potential profit making and as the potential to privatise and flog off to the private sector.
With successive cuts to university funding by this government for decades, we have seen universities forced to become more and more corporatised. Thanks to the cuts by this government to university funding, unis have had to go cap in hand to industry, do more research for sale and more research for industry, become more and more like a business and more and more corporatised, with less focus on public interest research and less focus on the interests and the outcomes of students. And this government is continuing that trend. It's excluded universities from JobKeeper, leading to tens of thousands of people in that sector losing their job. It's expecting unis to do more with less. They've already faced so many cuts and now they have to teach even more students with even less money. This government is cost-shifting shamelessly onto students.
I genuinely don't understand why in a recession with record-high youth unemployment you would discourage young people from skilling up, from getting further tertiary education. I just don't understand why the government thinks that that is a bad investment when we all know that education is a boon for us all. It is not only good for the individual but it is good for our prosperity as a society and a community. Naturally, this government wants to defund the sector. They don't value education, they certainly don't value tertiary education and they're ready to continue to see it flogged off and corporatised, while they give yet more subsidies of public dollars to the fossil fuel donors that they are so cosy with.
Well, we here at the Greens think that education should be free. The Prime Minister got his university degree for free. I think there are 15 others in the government ranks that also benefited from free education. We all benefit from free education. That is the point. Education is a universal public good. It should be free, yet these old white guys that got free education when they were at uni now want students to pay even more for a worse-quality education. They are squeezing universities and bleeding them dry. Wrong way. Go back.
We'll be moving a second reading amendment which calls for decent support for universities: for universities and their research programs to be fully funded, for the employees of universities to be properly supported and covered by JobKeeper and for university—and TAFE for that matter—to be free. It is just tragic to watch the progression of increasing fees and increasing corporatisation of the higher education sector. This government has a chance, as always, to rectify that, but it's just doubling down. So I don't have a lot of hope that we'll get much support, in all honesty, when we move that second reading amendment that says higher education should be free. Nonetheless, we will move it, because I believe that the majority of Australians see education as a good thing that should be supported by governments because it's an investment in people and in the prosperity of our shared future. I look forward to seeing where the numbers will fall in that regard.
I want to talk briefly about the impacts on women, because this government's not really known for prioritising women. It hasn't really met many women; it certainly doesn't have many women in cabinet, with a handful of exceptions—
A government senator interjecting—
It's still too low, I'm afraid. It is still about one quarter. That is not good enough. Do better! Maybe if there were more women around the cabinet table we wouldn't see such a terrible policy as this one, which will disproportionately affect women once again. About two-thirds of the students in the fields of humanities, social sciences, and media and comms are women. The yearly fees in those courses are set to more than double. They're just shy of $7,000 at the minute; they're set to go up $14,500. My colleague Senator Faruqi, who has our portfolio responsibilities on this matter, also mentioned a very interesting statistic: the fee increase will again be disproportionately borne by women. Should this bill pass, women will pay, on average, 10 per cent more for fees, whereas the blokes will pay only an extra six per cent. We don't think anyone should be paying more, because we think universities should be free, but there is absolutely no case for women to be bearing the brunt of increased university fees. We women already take longer to pay off our HECS debts thanks to the facts that we're still paid lower wages and we often have to take time out of the workforce for caring responsibilities, which we disproportionately bear the unpaid brunt of. Doubling the cost of humanities and comms degrees will push women further into debt and lead to even more long-term economic insecurity.
We know that the additional debt burden just compounds the systemic disadvantage that flows from the gender pay gap, but this government either hasn't thought about that or does not care. This whole pandemic has disproportionately affected women, the bill before us will disproportionately affect women, yet we still don't have a women's budget impact statement and we still don't have enough women around the cabinet table making these sorts of decisions. So it's no surprise that once again we have a bill that's completely blind to or doesn't address the disproportionately negative impacts on women.
Interestingly, some other female-dominated degrees, including teaching and nursing, will cost less under these changes. However, these industries are already highly feminised, and it won't surprise anyone that they are amongst the lowest paid. Those two concepts are, sadly, linked. In fact, nursing has also been the highest-risk profession in the year we have just had. Those sectors have been subject to public sector pay freezes and casualisation and, of course, they've been largely ignored in the COVID stimulus packages. Lower fees to encourage women into lower-paid, undervalued professions is not good policy.
The minister has argued that the proposed changes could advance gender equality by prompting more young women to study STEM, because of the cheaper university fees for STEM. However, that flies in the face of evidence that financial incentives alone repeatedly fail to achieve gender equality in STEM. If we really want more women and girls in STEM then we need some serious investment in that sector. We need to challenge the gender bias that, sadly, still persists in that sector and in so many others. We need to look at the way in which young women are encouraged to study STEM at school—look at the role models that they have, look at the teachers, look at the gender composition of that mentoring—and destigmatise flexible working conditions in institutions that practise STEM.
Finally, the proposal to remove HECS support from people who fail their subjects also will have an immensely gendered impact. This government is saying that if you fail more than half of your subjects you'll be cut off from your HECS and HELP support. Sadly, we know—because we pay attention and we talk to young women and we talk to university students and workers—that many women who have been subject to sexual harassment, rape or assault on campus will fail many of their subjects in that semester. That is understandable; they have been traumatised, and they are often very much let down by the university system in grappling with those assaults. Yet this government has not factored that in. It hasn't factored in the burden that young people bear, the juggling exercise they have to undertake to even afford to go to university. Many of them are working in jobs and have carer responsibilities. Again, this government is blind to the realities of life as a young person and as a woman; so it's no surprise that this package will have a disproportionate effect on women.
I'm from Queensland. There will be some extremely poor outcomes for some of our universities in Queensland. The University of the Sunshine Coast will lose $31 million per year, more than any other university. James Cook University, up in North Queensland, will lose $6 million a year. Central Queensland University, in Rocky, and Griffith University have also opposed the changes in this bill.
The Greens stand with students. We stand with those universities that are saying, 'We would like more funding, rather than less; we're spread quite thinly as it is, thank you very much.' We stand with investing in a prosperous and bright future for young people, for anyone who wants to go back to uni and study a new skill, for anyone who needs to retrain as our economy changes. Yes, we are in a global health pandemic; but we are also in a climate crisis and there will need to be some retraining and reskilling of workers as industries change and adapt to our climate collapse. That's another reason why we think university should be free. Tertiary education, in all its forms, including TAFE, should be free.
Unfortunately, it looks like we've just lost the numbers. That's why we're debating this bill here today—because the government has finally got Centre Alliance to vote to cut university funding. It has given them a few crumbs from the table for South Australia. The reality of the balance of power shows itself once again in a poor decision that will be rammed through this chamber because the government has managed to bribe enough support out of the crossbench to get them to support it. I commend Senators Lambie and Patrick for standing with the opposition and with the Greens to oppose this bill. We're extremely disappointed that Centre Alliance—I think we are calling them Liberal Alliance now—have decided to stand with the Liberals and slash funding for universities nationally just to get a few crumbs from the table for South Australia. My South Australian colleague, Senator Hanson-Young, will be saying some considered words about this very issue later in the debate.
We have a government that has never met a young person, doesn't think much about women and doesn't value tertiary education—and they are ramming this bill through, right before the budget, after successive cuts to our university sector already and after refusing to support university staff with JobKeeper eligibility. They are shameless. Let's turf them out next time.
I would just like to correct Senator Waters. Many of us have not only met young people but are parents to young people and support young people in our communities. I appreciate the generalisation, but it is false.
The Nationals support the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill. We support our regional students and our regional universities, and we support the contribution they will make to our economic recovery. I acknowledge the work of my Nationals colleague in the other place Minister Andrew Gee, who consulted extensively with regional universities to ensure that these reforms meet the needs of regional students and regional institutions alike.
Higher education is an important career pathway choice. It plays a vital role in our economy both through producing qualified jobseekers and professional development opportunities and as an income generator in its own right. We want to ensure that tertiary education is available to any Australian who wants to attain a university qualification. That's why this package will create more places—39,000 new university places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. To kickstart it, we're increasing the funding of universities from $18 billion to $20 billion by 2024. These extra places and the extra funding will also assist people from rural, regional and remote areas to access university courses, because we know that there is disparity in educational participation and attainment for people from regional and remote areas and our Indigenous populations.
The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee heard in the recent round of hearings that the biggest impediment to rural, regional and remote students undertaking a university course is not cost but access. Mr Duncan Taylor, CEO of the Country Universities Centre, which manages six supported study hubs across regional New South Wales, told the committee that:
Without doubt, it is access. It is the up-front costs of potentially relocating to a distant university campus or, in the case of online study at home, it is the supports in place that are likely to make that study successful and the student not feel isolated and drop out of university.
When I asked for a figure on the attrition rate for students who choose to study at home in remote locations, Mr Taylor said that it is about 2½ times higher than that of face-to-face learning. But that rate falls greatly for those who can access the supported study centre. That's why the Nationals in government are very proud to support regional university centres, because we know that not everyone can relocate and move to a university campus for their study and that regional university centres do a very important job in providing additional support for those students.
We recognise, however, that some do want the benefit of face-to-face learning and some remote students want the choice to go away and experience university life. The job-ready package acknowledges this and provides for a tertiary access payment for those students. This one-off payment of $5,000 for school leavers from outer regional and remote areas who relocate more than 90 minutes from their home to undertake tertiary education will make relocation and accessing university easier for many. It is estimated that over 8,000 students will benefit from this payment next year alone. But, importantly, this tertiary access payment is not limited to university courses, because we recognise that university is just one career pathway for our young people; some go through university, some go through TAFE and others learn on the job. There is no right way to enter the workforce.
This bill also amends the Social Security Act to reduce the number of months that a student must receive eligible student support payments to be eligible to receive a fares allowance to return home from six to three. That is really important, because we have seen recently the stress of students who have been blockaded by state border closures and unable to travel home for holidays, to see their family or for special events. Our package will also ensure that universities target the enrolment of rural, regional and remote students by expanding the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program to recognise these students as a key target group, along with the already-recognised low socioeconomic group and Indigenous students. Currently, around 130 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds or Indigenous students are eligible for support under the HEPPP. Our changes will mean an additional 125,000 students who either meet those criteria or are from regional and remote areas will be eligible for this support.
Contrary to what we're hearing in this debate from Labor and the Greens and some of the Independents, we're not making it harder for students from lower socioeconomic demographics; we are actually supporting and facilitating those students to access pathways through higher education and, ultimately, into the workforce. And we're making sure that this includes a new regional partnership pool to support outreach activities to increase the aspirations of rural and regional school students to attend university, because we know universities have a big role to play in reducing the gap in educational attainment between metro and regional areas.
We are also supporting our regionally based universities, because we know that if someone learns in the region they are more likely to earn in the region; they are more likely to stay regional. Not only do our regional universities make it easier for these students to study and, hopefully, to continue to work in regional areas; they support our regional communities through employment, through research and by fostering regional development. We support them. Indeed, we heard this over and over again through our inquiry at the Senate committee. The Regional Universities Network told the committee that they support this bill and that its timely passage would enable relevant arrangements to be put in place prior to 2021.
The vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania—Senator Bilyk rightly said today that she is very proud of the University of Tasmania; it is the only university in Tasmania—said this package supports regional and rural education and assists in creating a sustainable university for the island. The Central Queensland University vice-chancellor, Nick Klomp, said reducing the cost of studying teaching, nursing, agriculture, health and engineering will make these courses more attractive to students from all walks of life, particularly from the regions. And, in Victoria, the Federation University vice-chancellor, Helen Bartlett, remarked that students, communities and providers should benefit from this new reform package and regional, rural and remote students, communities and tertiary education providers will benefit from this decision. In New South Wales, the University of New England vice-chancellor, Brigid Heywood, said, 'This reform will help regional Australia.'
I also note that Senator O'Neill referenced Charles Sturt University. They did not appear before the Senate committee, but I have had extensive briefings from them about their recent restructure. In my consultation with Charles Sturt University, they made it clear—and I want to put this on the record—that their restructure was not brought on by these reforms, nor was it brought on by COVID; it was brought on by their strategy to ensure that they can continue to deliver quality, modern education into the future. I commend CSU for being proactive, for undertaking this work and, importantly, for keeping their stakeholders informed.
Now to reducing the costs for students studying priority areas. I fail to see the problem in reducing the costs for 60 per cent of students. We know there is a gap between the skills of graduates as they leave university and the skills and experience needed to succeed in the workplace. We have shortfalls in priority areas, including sciences, health and IT. I note there has been a welcome increase in the number of Indigenous students enrolling in health courses; and our reforms will encourage, rather than discourage, more of that. There are also key growth employment areas which will require more graduates, such as engineering and agriculture—particularly relevant for regional Australia.
Because our government is committed to regional Australia, we are committed to developing and delivering major infrastructure projects, such as Inland Rail, that will need such graduates into the future. We also commend the National Farmers Federation and their ambitious goal of $100 billion in farmgate return by 2030; but we know that, to reach it, agriculture needs to continue to innovate. We need more graduates and more agricultural research—both practical and developmental—if we want to fulfil that goal. By strengthening our regional universities and by improving access to university for outer regional, remote and Indigenous students, and by offering incentives—
Order! Senator, Davey, you will be in continuation when debate resumes.
I advise the Senate that Senator Cormann will be absent from question time today, Tuesday 6 October 2020, due to budget arrangements. In Senator Cormann's absence, I will represent the Prime Minister; the Minister for Finance; the Minister for the Public Service; the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service and Cabinet, the Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure; the Treasurer; the Assistant Treasurer; and the Minister for Housing.
Senator Payne will also be absent from question time this week, Tuesday 6 to Thursday 8 October 2020, due to ministerial business overseas. In Senator Payne's absence I will represent the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Ruston will represent the Minister for Women and Senator Cash will represent the Attorney-General and the Minister for Industrial Relations.
My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck: Last week, Professor Brendan Murphy said that, if the Australian government had acted sooner to protect residents of aged care from COVID-19, 'there could have been some avoided deaths'. Does the minister agree?
Thanks, Senator Sheldon, for the question. As I've said a number of times in this chamber, every death that's occurred in aged care as a result of COVID-19 is an absolute tragedy. Each of the 681 who have passed away is an absolute tragedy, and my condolences and the condolences of my colleagues in the government go to every single one of those families. It is absolutely tragic that these people have lost their lives.
At all times, the government has acted on the appropriate health advice of the time. It's very easy for the Labor Party to come in here with the 20-20 vision of hindsight and make comments and/or allegations, but all through this pandemic this government has acted on the advice available to us at the time from the health professionals that have been guiding us. We have continued to do that and we will continue to do that. We will continue to update our plan as we learn more about the virus and as we learn more about the way that it acts within residential aged care. As we have learnt more, we have applied that to our response, and that is clearly evident in the work that we've done in particular, for example, in Victoria with the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre.
On each occasion, we have worked with the sector and provided advice to the sector, and we will continue to do that because it's appropriate to act on the health advice of the day in the best interests of aged-care residents within Australia.
Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The royal commission's special report released last week confirmed:
There was not a COVID-19 plan devoted solely to aged care.
How many of the 673 deaths in residential aged care could have been avoided if the minister had a plan?
The government has maintained and continues to maintain that we do have a plan to deal with COVID-19 in residential aged care. As I said in my answer to the primary question, as we've learnt more about this virus, we've continued to update that plan and we will continue to do that. We will continue to update our plan as we learn more about the virus and how it operates, and we will continue to communicate the learnings about management of COVID-19 in residential aged care to the aged-care sector. We continue to do that. We have commissioned a number of reports into Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch, and we applied the learnings from those particular incidents to our approach to managing the virus in Victoria. As we've learnt more, we continue to update the plan and we will continue to do that, as we said in a response last week.
Senator Sheldon, a final supplementary question.
The royal commission also described insufficient supplies of PPE and infection-control training as 'deplorable'. How many of the 673 older Australians who died of COVID-19 in residential aged care would still be alive if the Morrison government had acted sooner?
All through the COVID-19 pandemic, the one thing that this government has made sure of is that any facility with a COVID-19 outbreak has had available PPE to appropriately deal with the virus.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order!
The Labor Party quite conveniently forgets that, as we entered this pandemic, there was a global shortage of PPE.
Senator Colbeck, please resume your seat. Senator Wong, on a point of order?
My point of order is direct relevance. The comment to which the minister refers, the 'deplorable' comment, is a comment of the royal commission, not the Australian Labor Party. I'd ask him to address the royal commission's description of PPE availability as 'deplorable'—that is the question.
There are two matters. I was having trouble hearing Senator Colbeck's answer because there were interjections from both sides of the chamber. The minister was getting to the point of PPE as you rose to your feet. I'm going to let him continue, because I cannot instruct him how to answer a question. But I believe that his answer is directly relevant to the question asked. Senator Colbeck will continue.
It is actually a tragedy that not only do the Labor Party come into this place and misrepresent our comments but they misrepresent the comments of—
Order! Senator Colbeck, please resume your seat. Senator Wong, on a point of order?
He is deliberately avoiding the question, Mr President. I ask the minister to return to the question. It is not directly relevant to speak about the Labor Party. He is being asked about his royal commission's 'deplorable' comments.
Senator Birmingham, on the point of order?
Senator Wong had begun her interjections on Senator Colbeck before he had even started speaking in response to that question, before he had even said a single additional word. Mr President, in your previous ruling, you did acknowledge it was hard to hear in the chamber and, if Senator Wong wants the minister to be able to address the question, then a little silence for him to do so would be appropriate.
Interjections are always disorderly; I remind all senators of that. The senator is being directly relevant if he is talking about PPE, but he had not concluded a point before both interjections and a point of order was raised. I need to hear him make this point before I can make any ruling on direct relevance.
As I was about to say, the Labor Party actually even misrepresents what the royal commission said, because what the royal commission said was that the practice of aged-care providers withholding PPE was 'deplorable'. It made no comment about what we said or did. We, at all times, made sure that aged-care providers had adequate supplies of PPE to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. (Time expired)
Opposition senators interjecting—
Order on my left. Order! Senator Watt, when I call you to order, the rule is to count to 10.
My question is to the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, Senator Cash. As we rebuild the Australian economy from the impacts of COVID-19, how is the Morrison government's plan for jobs ensuring we support our skilled workforce by investing in training and apprenticeships in this year's budget?
Tonight, the government will unveil one of the most significant budgets in modern history. This federal budget, as the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have said, is all about jobs. This federal budget is all about helping those who are out of work get into work, and helping those who're in a job stay in a job. From our very first stimulus package, the government have put in place support to ensure that our apprentices and trainees are able to stay on the job. We've done this through our supporting apprentice and trainee wage subsidy. This will now support around 180,000 apprentices and trainees across 90,000 businesses to stay on the job, because that is exactly where we need them to be.
The Prime Minister has also said that the COVID-19 economic recovery will be a skills-led recovery. That is why we have announced the introduction of a wage subsidy, to ensure that we're supporting the commencement of 100,000 new apprentices and trainees. As of yesterday, if businesses of any size, in any industry, in any geographic location in Australia, sign up a new apprentice or trainee they will be eligible for a 50 per cent wage subsidy on wages paid from 5 October through to 30 September 2021. Whether it's in manufacturing, whether it's in housing, whether it's in construction or whether it's in the arts or the mining sectors, our new wage subsidy will not only give businesses the certainty to hire but it will also provide a career path for aspiring young tradies and trainees. This latest measure will see the Morrison government's total investment to jobs and skilling Australians for this financial year now at almost $7 billion.
Senator Rennick, a supplementary question?
As part of this record investment, how will the government's JobTrainer Fund support essential short-term training—
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! Sorry, Senator Rennick. At the rear of the chamber on both sides—Senator Watt, Senator McKenzie and others, I can't hear the question. I'm going to ask Senator Rennick to start again because I can't hear the question and I doubt the minister could. Senator Rennick, please start again.
As part of this record investment, how will the government's JobTrainer Fund support essential short-term training to help Australians back into work in areas of skill demand?
The government has partnered with states and territories to put in place the $1 billion JobTrainer Fund. This will provide Australians access to free or low-cost training in areas of demand so that they can get the identified skills and get into a job. JobTrainer is central to Australia's and Australians' economic recovery from COVID-19. What it will do is provide school leavers and jobseekers with new opportunities and new skills to get into a job. I'm very, very pleased to inform the Senate that we have launched JobTrainer agreements with Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, New South Wales and the ACT, and that we will shortly launch JobTrainer in the Northern Territory. Those states and territories have agreed to match the federal government dollar for dollar. JobTrainer will provide Australians with an additional 340,700 training places and, again, these are in areas of identified need so that they can get into a job.
Senator Rennick, a final supplementary question?
How does this much-needed investment in tonight's budget build upon the Morrison government's existing investment in our skills system to keep apprentices and trainees in training through the COVID-19 pandemic?
Senator Cash interjecting—
Order! Senator Cash.
What those on the other side fail to remember is that they actually decimated vocational education and training in Australia. There was the greatest drop in apprenticeships ever under the former Labor government: 110,000 people left apprenticeships in one year. The former Labor government pulled out $1.2 billion in employer subsidies that correlated with the drop. But who can forget—Senator Birmingham in particular—VET FEE-HELP? Seriously, VET FEE-HELP totally, completely and utterly decimated the reputation of vocational education and training. To date, taxpayers have invested or paid out in excess of $2 billion—$2 billion!—to students who were signed up by dodgy providers for courses that didn't exist: given a laptop and told to sign up.
And guess what? There are still more students out there who are still suffering because of the failure of the former Labor government. In this financial year alone, the government will now invest $7 billion. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck. It has been reported that taxpayers have paid more than half a million dollars, or the equivalent of $56,000 a month, to the liquidators of a 40-bed aged-care facility in Murchison, Victoria, to keep the facility open. Minister, how many residents have benefited from this funding of the liquidators of this facility since February this year?
The facility at Murchison is actually not open. This government is supporting the administrator to maintain the administration of that facility pending an agreement for another provider to purchase the facility. This government understands that provision of aged care, particularly in regional Australia, is important so that locals can actually access that resource.
Because of COVID and the impacts of COVID on the aged-care sector, and wanting to ensure that a new provider coming in can actually rebuild that business, we have been making payments, as the opposition indicate—I have to say, I think it's a bit unreasonable to average it across the entire period and make that a monthly number, because there was an initial up-front payment to support the facility, through its administration, and so that's quite dishonest of the Labor Party. We are supporting the administrator to maintain that administration, pending the purchase and sale of the facility to another provider, and taking into account the impacts of COVID-19 on the aged-care sector as a part of that process.
Senator Keneally, a supplementary question.
Minister, since the aged-care royal commission was established, Australians have heard shocking stories of ants crawling through wounds, residents left in dirty nappies and providers begging for more staff. Minister, why did you choose to give this $564,000 grant to a liquidator to run an empty 40-bed aged-care facility rather than investing this money in an aged-care facility that is actually open and with residents who need help?
Well, again, Senator Keneally should have listened to my primary answer, before she asked her secondary question. The facility is not open, it's not being run; it's being maintained, in administration, on a care-and-maintenance basis while COVID-19 runs.
We have not denied any aged-care provider support during the COVID-19 outbreak. In fact, we've invested more than $1.6 billion in the aged-care sector during COVID-19—$1.6 billion is what we have invested. We continue to support this sector, to ensure that it can provide all of the things that Senator Keneally talked about, and that's what we will continue to do. We have proactively worked with this sector. We have continued to invest in this sector. We have put $1.6 billion into the aged-care sector just for COVID-19. (Time expired)
Senator Keneally, a final supplementary question.
Minister, you lead an aged-care system where there are 100 reports of assault and sexual assault every week, where more than 1,000 assaults go unreported every week, and with more than 2,000 complaints reported in just three months. Minister, why are you determined to waste half a million dollars on an empty aged-care facility instead of funding the most basic services to help older Australians who deserve better?
This government understands the importance of residential aged care in regional Australia, and the importance of regional Australians close by having the capacity to access it. It's an important part of a local community, and so when that facility is taken over it will be a major employer in that town. We, in this government, are looking to see the growth of jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be an important facility in that local community.
We continue to reform the aged-care sector to make it better. That's why we called the royal commission, to ensure that we have a forensic review of the entire aged-care sector and to ensure that we can actually make it better. That's why we'll continue with the reforms that we have been undertaking while the royal commission continues. That's what we will continue to do. We will continue to act in everybody's interests, not just sectoral interests like the Labor Party.
My question is to the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Ruston. Minister, a constituent recently told me that surviving on JobSeeker was very difficult after the cut to the coronavirus supplement. They said: 'I don't think many politicians understand how heartbreaking it is to live in poverty. Constant financial stress is causing my mental and physical health to deteriorate. Without an extra $300, I'll have no way of paying for necessary appointments and medical assistance.' Minister, if the government is funding tax cuts for millionaires, then why aren't you funding a permanent increase to the JobSeeker payment so that people aren't living in poverty? Why are you prioritising millionaires over the millions of Australians who are unemployed and underemployed?
Thank you, Senator Siewert, for your question. Clearly, one of the things that this government did back in March, when we realised that the coronavirus pandemic was going to have a significant impact on Australians, and particularly those Australians who find themselves out of work, was to put in place the $550 supplement to support people. We recognised, first of all, that there were no jobs out there; and, secondly, that people were sent home. Basically, we shut Australia down for two months. That ran for six months, as you would be well aware, and then in the July economic fiscal update we made the announcement that, recognising that the jobs market was still shallow, we were intending to extend that supplement at a rate of $250 through to the end of the year. At the same time, we recognise that we've seen jobs come back—we've seen over 700,000 jobs. If I'm correct, Senator Cash, 760,000 jobs have come back.
So what we're seeking to do is to encourage Australians to test themselves by going back into the jobs market, even if it means only getting a part-time job. That's why we've put in the $300 per fortnight income-free area—so that those people who find themselves out of work but have got the opportunity to go and get a little bit of work can do so without losing any of their payment. Going through until 31 December, people in Australia—
Order! Senator Siewert on a point of order.
A point of order. I do appreciate—before you pre-empt me—that I did do a little bit of a preamble, but it's gone for a minute and a half with a history lesson. I don't need a history lesson. I asked about tax cuts over JobSeeker's permanent increase.
Senator Siewert, you asked a question with loaded language at the end of an extensive preamble, which gives me very little ability to tightly hold the minister to direct relevance. The minister can be directly relevant by addressing any part of the question, including your preamble. The minister is being directly relevant in this because of the nature of the question.
Thank you very much, Mr President. One thing that this government will continue to do is continue to support all parts of our economy. Despite what Senator Siewert might think, jobs don't grow on trees; they're actually created by profitable businesses. That's why we are making sure that, whilst we maintain levels of elevated support for people who find themselves without a job, we also need to make sure that we stimulate our economy, because the businesses that create jobs will be the ones that get Australians who find themselves unemployed back into a better place.
Senator Siewert, a supplementary question?
Minister, there are millions of Australians who are unemployed or underemployed. What good is a tax cut if you don't have a job?
Senator Siewert, as I mentioned in my previous answer, this government is targeting all sectors of the economy because we believe that the pathway out of the pandemic is making sure that our entire economy starts working again. That means providing supports for people who find themselves unemployed. As I said, we do it by the extension of the coronavirus supplement through to the end of the year. If at the end of the year we are still in need of additional supports for people who find themselves unemployed, then we will make those supports available at that time. Equally, we must open up our economy. We must put incentives in place by stimulating aggregate demand so people start spending money.
This is not a one-trick government. We have got a range of measures that we want to put in place to make sure that all Australians play their role in making sure that our economy can return to strength and making sure that it happens as quickly as possible. I think you'll see in tonight's budget a range of measures that go towards making sure that our economy rebuilds with great strength.
Order, Senator Ruston. Senator Siewert, a final supplementary question?
We established in the COVID committee that the government hadn't done any modelling of the impact of cutting the coronavirus supplement. Does the government have any understanding of the impact this reduction is having on people looking for work?
First of all, I would like to clarify that the government has not cut anything. The government has extended. In March we put in place a six-month coronavirus supplement of $550 and in July we made the announcement that we were intending to extend it through until the end of the year. Governments don't model individual measures; they model things in total. Tonight the next big lot of economic modelling will be available for all to see, because it will be the budget tonight. The last lot of economic modelling that was available to all Australians was through the July economic fiscal update. So I would say to you, Senator Siewert: the government is absolutely committed to supporting Australians who find themselves in a tough situation. We are absolutely committed to making sure that we continue to provide elevated levels of support to people who find themselves unemployed, but to characterise the extension of a payment as a cut is completely and utterly misleading.
My question is to the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Ruston. How is the Morrison government ensuring those escaping domestic and family violence situations have a safe place to go to and seek support?
Thank you very much, Senator Askew, for the question. I was really pleased last week to be able to make an announcement in conjunction with the Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services, Luke Howarth, in relation to the $60 million Safe Places initiative. An absolute priority of this government is to make sure that we keep all Australians safe and secure, and it is particularly important that when women make the very brave decision to escape domestic violence they have a safe place to go.
Last week we announced the awarding of 40 projects across the country, which will create 700 new beds for women and children who are escaping domestic violence. Over a 12-month period these new play-safe places will support 6,000 women and children who've had to leave their homes as a result of domestic violence. This will account for both new and refurbished accommodation which will provide them with a safe place to live and to sleep but also, most importantly, enable them to access the domestic and family violence services these women need so that we can wrap around them in a coordinated way so that, hopefully, we can help them through what must be an extraordinarily difficult time. In selecting the projects we worked with the state and territory governments around Australia, and I thank them all for the extraordinary amount of work and support that they have afforded us as we've gone through this very detailed process. We made self-contained accommodation an absolute priority, because that's the feedback that we got from the sector about what children and women want when they have to start rebuilding their lives.
It was great to be able to announce the project in my home state of South Australia alongside Anglicare and Nunga Mi:Minar, the Indigenous family and domestic violence provider in South Australia. I very much look forward to seeing all of these projects completed over the next 18 months to support women escaping domestic violence.
Senator Askew, a supplementary question?
Minister, what does this investment mean for women and children in particularly vulnerable cohorts?
Thank you, Senator Askew, for your follow-up question. The government is making sure that the funding of these new safe places is in place in rural and regional communities, as well as in city areas, and specifically targets culturally and linguistically diverse women. From Rockhampton to Shepparton, from the Illawarra to the outskirts of Perth, about 50 per cent of the projects that we will be funding will support women in rural, regional and remote areas, who, in the past, have tended to have very limited options for access to this kind of service. Unfortunately, we also know that Indigenous women are overrepresented in the statistics in family and domestic violence. That's why housing providers are working directly with organisations who are able to provide culturally appropriate services, such as the one that we announced in Adelaide last week, which is Aboriginal women providing support for Aboriginal women and their children.
Senator Askew, a final supplementary question?
How is the government ensuring that the providers are suited to work with at-risk women requiring emergency and crisis accommodation?
Thank you, Senator Askew. As part of a very complex and detailed application process, organisations were required to demonstrate that they had extensive history in providing accommodation and housing services. Coupled with that, we also required providers to be able to demonstrate that they had the appropriate family and domestic violence specialist services or, if they didn't have them themselves, that they were partnered with such a service to ensure that the delivery of the service was centred around trauma informed response, because we know women and children escaping domestic violence need these sorts of services. This means that we have long-term providers that are able to provide full wraparound services with organisations who are experienced in family and domestic violence, because we understand that women and children fleeing domestic violence need much support. This will help women and children find exit pathways to safe and secure ongoing housing, legal support and financial counselling in safe and culturally appropriate ways as they rebuild their lives.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management, Senator Ruston. Right now, in the lead-up to the next bushfire season, the Bega community is crowdfunding to build proper toilets at their showground in case they need to evacuate their community again. Why is your government leaving bushfire victims to crowdfund for toilets in preparation for another crisis when you have a $4 billion Emergency Response Fund sitting untouched?
Thank you very much, Senator Watt, for the question. Clearly, the federal government have absolutely made commitments, and they have honoured those commitments, to our bushfire affected communities across Australia. As we work our way through this COVID pandemic, I want to make sure that all Australians who are living in bushfire affected areas understand that we have not forgotten the bushfire affected areas, just as we have not forgotten our drought affected areas.
As part of the announcements that have been made in relation to the support that this government has made to bushfire affected areas—as you would be well aware, Senator Watt, the $2 billion that was made available, of which I understand $1.2 billion has gone out the door and has been spent or allocated, and in addition to that a further $650 million—
Senator Watt on a point of order?
On relevance, Mr President. My question was about the $4 billion Emergency Response Fund, which has been unspent—not a single dollar spent.
I've allowed you to remind the minister of the question. I'm listening carefully. She has a minute and seven seconds remaining.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! It's not an opportunity for others to answer on behalf of the minister. The minister can answer.
Senator Watt, I'm more than happy to take on notice the allegations that you're making about some fund that hasn't been spent at all. However, what I would like to say to you is that $1.8 billion is rolling into communities and supporting individuals, and it has already gone out the door and is supporting bushfire impacted communities. That's in addition to a number of other measures, such as small business measures that have been put in place, courtesy of programs that have been operated by Minister Cash, to assist small business. That includes things like, in my home state, funding being made available because of the bushfire smoke taint that impacted the grape growers. The amount of money that has been provided by the federal government in support of our bushfire affected communities continues to be made available to them as they go through the very difficult task of rebuilding, and we have absolutely not shirked our responsibility to make that money available. The money is going out the door.
Senator Watt, a supplementary question?
Right now, in Victoria's Towong Shire, charities are building homes for bushfire victims who are still living in caravans 10 months on from the bushfires. Why has it fallen to charities to build homes for bushfire victims when the Prime Minister has said—and I quote—'Australians are resilient and want to rebuild—and we will be with them every step of the way'?
Thank you very much, Senator Watt, for your follow-up question. As I said in my remarks in response to your first question, this government absolutely will be with our bushfire victims every step of the way. That's why we have made available significant amounts of money.
But also, in response to your questions in relation to charities, I want to commend charities out on the ground, who have played an extraordinary role, both through bushfires and through the coronavirus, in supporting Australians. I'd also like to make a big shout-out to our volunteers on the ground—the 7.8 million Australians who volunteer and who support Australians. But, equally, through those charities and through my own portfolio area we have provided significant amounts of additional funding to charities, to make sure that they're providing the emergency response services that people may need in these bushfire affected areas. But to come in here and suggest that there has been no money spent on bushfires is simply incorrect.
Order. Senator Watt, a final supplementary question.
Last year, the Morrison government announced a $4 billion recovery and mitigation fund to spend $200 million per year helping communities across Australia prepare for and recover from natural disasters. The next fire season is about to begin, and not a single dollar has been spent. Why is the Morrison government always there for the photo op and never there for the follow-up?
First of all, I would suggest, on the comments made by the member opposite in relation to photo opportunities, that absolutely this government takes very, very seriously its responsibility to support all Australians when they find themselves in difficult times. That has been demonstrated time and time again in our response to bushfires, our response to floods and our response to the coronavirus pandemic. We have provided a huge—
Order—Senator Wong on a point of order.
Yes. Both the primary and this question asked the minister to respond to the assertion—the factual assertion—that the $4 billion, $200 million per year fund has not had a dollar spent. I would ask the minister to respond to that question.
I've allowed you to restate part of the question. You will recall, Senator Wong, that the concluding part of the question was somewhat more open-ended and the minister can be directly relevant to any part of the question she chooses. Senator Ruston.
Thank you very much, Mr President. As I said in my previous answer: I will take the specifics of the $200 million fund and the application of that in terms of the building of bushfire resilience for the forthcoming fire season, and I will return to the chamber and provide that information. But on the allegations made by the member when he asked the question in relation to the fact that this government has not been providing assistance to the Australia communities affected by bushfires: we have absolutely supported all Australians who find themselves impacted by natural disasters, including the COVID pandemic.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Senator Cash. Last Thursday, the Prime Minister addressed the National Press Club on the Liberal-National government's Modern Manufacturing Strategy—
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order, on both sides of the chamber there. Senator McKenzie, please recommence the question.
Recommence the question—thank you, Mr President. My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Senator Cash.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! I can't hear the question. I didn't name anyone across the chamber, but I asked for order so that I could hear the question.
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator Wong, please! Senator McKenzie, third time lucky.
Third time lucky, Mr President! My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Senator Cash. Last Thursday, the Prime Minister addressed the National Press Club on the Liberal-National government's Modern Manufacturing Strategy for the future of manufacturing in Australia and acknowledged the particular importance of manufacturing to regional economies. As Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, I strongly welcome a regional—
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! Do we want to try it again? You can recommence from your reference to 'As Leader of the Nationals in the Senate', Senator McKenzie, but I am going to say that I'll get Senator McKenzie to start from the top again if there continues to be interjections.
From the top, Mr President?
No, from the reference to yourself as Leader of the Nationals in the Senate.
Cashie, are you ready! I strongly welcome the regional focus of the plan, particularly given the accessibility of rural and regional Australia to essential manufacturing inputs such as critical minerals and agricultural food and fibre. Can the minister inform the Senate on how the strategy contributes to our plan for jobs in our manufacturing industry, including in rural and regional Australia?
I thank Senator McKenzie for her question, and I acknowledge the commitment that she has to rural and regional Australia—in fact, we all have it in the coalition government.
The $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy, to be announced in tonight's budget, will deliver for regional businesses and communities. Around 30 per cent of Australia's manufacturing businesses are located in regional areas. In fact, Senator McKenzie, they employ close to 300,000 people. In regional towns throughout Australia, manufacturing businesses are often the largest employer. They source their inputs locally, which means they support other local businesses, including our primary producers. That is why our manufacturing strategy is so important for regional Australia. It is a key part of our JobMaker plan, and it will harness Australia's manufacturing capability to drive our economic recovery and, of course, our future resilience.
As we chart the road to recovery through COVID-19, the manufacturing strategy will create jobs that will last for the future—especially, Senator McKenzie, in regional Australia. The strategy itself recognises that we must play to our strengths. We have to target sectors that allow us to achieve scale and generate future growth. That's why we are focusing our efforts on six new national manufacturing priorities: resources, technology and critical mineral processing; food and beverage; medical products; recycling and clean energy; defence; and space. As Senator McKenzie would know, many of these sectors are firmly based in regional Australia. The manufacturing strategy will put in place incentives to grow these sectors and support more resilient regional economies.
Senator McKenzie, a supplementary question?
Creating a competitive business environment is the first component of the Liberal and Nationals government's strong manufacturing plan. Can the minister please outline how the strategy will deliver to overcome competitive challenges faced by businesses in rural and regional Australia so that opportunities for competitive advantage and value-adding can be created?
We know that post COVID many people are now expressing an interest in moving to the regions and many businesses are seeing the value in establishing their operations in regional communities. Many of our regional universities already have very deep and practical research ties with their local economies and local businesses—as does our premier scientific agency, the CSIRO. These businesses are uniquely placed to provide the expertise to drive innovation, support commercialisation and facilitate business-to-business collaboration. That will drive the necessary scale. As Senator McKenzie knows, regional Australia has a strong track record of exporting unprocessed resources and food. The plan we have is about enabling the value-add, and the best place to do that is right where the products are produced. The coalition's Modern Manufacturing Strategy is all about helping scale up our manufacturing businesses so they are better able to compete. (Time expired)
Senator McKenzie, a final supplementary question?
Thank you, Minister, for such a comprehensive answer. Can the minister also outline how the Liberal and Nationals government's plan will build national resilience by securing sovereign capability in these manufacturing sectors, particularly in rural and regional areas, given the resilience they have demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic?
The resilience shown by our manufacturers, in particular in regional Australia, during COVID-19 has been essential to support our COVID-19 health response. There have been some remarkable stories of which we're all aware. Med-Con was our only manufacturer of surgical masks at the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's a family business, based in Shepparton. Their machines were invented by the company founder 30 years ago. With the government's backing, they will now produce more than 59 million masks by December. They're employing 25 more people, they're providing vital supplies to our National Medical Stockpile and, importantly, they've now increased our national capacity long term. That is exactly the type of example we're aiming to build with our $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy.
My question is for the Minister representing the Attorney-General. Last Wednesday night at approximately 8 o'clock, about eight hours after I announced I wouldn't be supporting the government's higher education bill, veterans and serving members and their families were given a slap down by the government when it announced that Dr Bernadette Boss is to serve as the interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention. Dr Boss served for seven years as a legal officer in the Australian Army. She saw operational service in East Timor and Christmas Island. In separate meetings with both the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Finance I was assured in no uncertain terms that the interim commissioner would not—would not!—be a current or former military serving member in any way, shape or form. How on earth can that commitment be reconciled with the fact the interim commissioner is actually a senior ranking brigadier?
I thank Senator Lambie for the question. Senator Lambie, as you'd be aware, and certainly as the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister have made clear on a number of occasions, reducing lives lost to suicide is a priority for the Australian government. Senator Lambie, like you, all members in this chamber recognise that the death of any Australian Defence Force member or veteran is beyond tragic for the family and is deeply felt by the entire community. Preventing suicide amongst ADF personnel and within our veteran community is a critical priority for the Australian government.
Senator Lambie, you are correct: on 30 September 2020 the Attorney-General did announce the appointment of Dr Bernadette Boss, CSC, as the interim national commissioner. Dr Boss has served as a magistrate and coroner in the Australian Capital Territory Magistrates Court. She also holds a PhD from the University of Sydney and she has practised as a barrister in Australia and in the United Kingdom, primarily in the area of family law, criminal law, administrative law and human rights law. In terms of her credentials, Dr Boss also served in various command and staff roles in the ADF, primarily as a reservist. She also worked in the healthcare system as a nurse. It is the position of the Attorney-General and the government that Dr Boss's experience makes her well placed to engage with families, friends and communities affected by the loss of a loved one to suicide. Dr Boss will undertake the role of national commissioner until legislation formally establishing the position has been enacted.
Senator Lambie, a supplementary question?
I've already heard from veterans around the country that are up in arms, that they've already written this off as a stitch-up. I'm telling you what's coming from them: no trust. You've got a real problem here already and we haven't even got the interim commissioner started. Doesn't this government realise that in order for the interim commissioner to have any positive impact whatsoever it needs to have the confidence and support of the community it seeks to serve, especially veterans and families who have lost their own sons and daughters? Why did you not appoint someone independent of the institutions they're charged with investigating? (Time expired)
Again, I will just reiterate that reducing lives lost to suicide is a priority for the Australian government. I've already confirmed that on 30 September 2020 the Attorney-General announced the appointment of Dr Bernadette Boss as the interim national commissioner and I've taken you through the reasons as to why Dr Boss was appointed. As you know, she will undertake the role of national commissioner until legislation establishing the position has been enacted. Certainly the government congratulates Dr Boss on her appointment.
Senator Lambie, a final supplementary question?
Part of the job of the interim commissioner is to make recommendations to the permanent national commissioner regarding the direction and operation of that office into the future. The government has allowed 12 months for the interim commissioner to produce an interim report and 18 months for a final report. My question is: will this interim report period be allowed to inform the operation of the national commissioner before they proceed, or will the government jump straight into action without first giving any pause to consider the findings and recommendations of that office?
Again, thank you, Senator Lambie. Certainly at this point in time, the government is now going through the process of the introduction of the legislation and the consultation process, of which you are aware. You would be aware that on 27 August the Attorney-General himself introduced the National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention Bill 2020 and the National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2020 to the parliament. You'd also be aware that, at this point in time, they have had a four-week period of public and stakeholder consultation, and the public consultation, as you know, concluded on 24 September 2020. We've actually received over 90 submissions from a range of both individuals and organisations, and it is also expected that some further outstanding submissions will now be provided. The government is currently considering all of the submissions— (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck. Page 3 of the royal commission's special report into aged care and COVID-19 states:
… the Australian Government should publish a national aged care plan for COVID-19 and establish a national aged care advisory body.
How, then, can the minister claim, as he did earlier in this question time, 'The royal commission made no comment about what we said or did'?
The comment that I made was with respect to the question that was asked to me about withholding of PPE. The report made comment, in relation to that question, with respect to the actions of providers in withholding PPE, not with respect to what the government had done. My reference—and, again, the dishonest misrepresentation of comments I make in the chamber and applying them to a completely different context continues—was directly answering and being directly relevant to a question that I was asked with respect to the provision of PPE. In the context of the question with respect to PPE, the comment of the royal commission was related directly to the actions of providers in withholding PPE from staff. I agree with the royal commission that it was deplorable if that's exactly what happened.
With respect to other elements of the royal commission's report, we have said that we don't agree with the royal commission with respect to the plan. We've always maintained that we have a plan in place that we will continue to update as we learn more about the virus, how it operates and how we should engage with the residential aged-care sector. We will continue to do that. So it's dishonest for the Labor Party to come in here and misrepresent both what the royal commission said and what I've said here in the chamber. We accepted all recommendations of the royal commission's report on COVID-19. We have said that we will respond to them on 1 December in this place, as the royal commission recommended. It would be nice if the Labor Party were actually honest— (Time expired)
Senator Gallagher, a supplementary question?
Minister, earlier in question time you said, 'The royal commission made no comment about what we said or did.' Page 4 of the royal commission special report states, 'There was not a COVID-19 plan devoted solely to aged care.' Was the minister intentionally misleading the Senate, or has he not read the special report?
Again, the opposition should listen to the answer to the primary question before they just read out the supplementary question that they've been given. I specifically answered that question. The previous question that was addressed to me was relating to the actions of a provider, not the government. In every respect of the comments that were made by the royal commission with respect to the government and the recommendations that have been made, we have said we agree with those recommendations and we will implement them. That's what we've said and that's what we will do.
Senator Gallagher, a final supplementary question?
) ( ): Page 25 of the royal commission's special report labels the guidelines provided to workers as 'deplorable'. Will the minister now correct the record and admit that the special report made specific comments about his failure, or will he continue to deny responsibility and mislead the Senate and the Australian people?
The Labor Party again misrepresents what the royal commission has said. They have so little respect for this place not only do they misrepresent what we have said but they misrepresent even what the royal commission has said. We have said that we will accept every recommendation of the royal commission's report that was tabled last Thursday. That's what we will do. We will report to this place by 1 December, as recommendation 1 has said. We are well on the way to implementing four of the six recommendations, and we have applied $1.6 billion to our plan to support the aged-care sector through the COVID-19 outbreak, a fact that was acknowledged by the royal commission in its report. So we will, as we said in our response to the royal commission report last Thursday, accept all of the recommendations. We will report to this parliament by 1 December.
My question is for the Minister for Defence, Senator Reynolds. Can the minister outline to the Senate the defence investments the coalition government is making in recognition of the strategic importance of the Northern Territory to our nation?
I thank Senator McMahon for that question, and, yes, I can. I also thank you for your boundless passion for defence in the Northern Territory, and for their support. Northern Australia is of profound and increasing strategic importance to our nation. The Territory is the gateway to the Indo-Pacific, looking out to some of our closest neighbours and friends across the Arafura and Timor seas. As the Indo-Pacific becomes more contested, our region faces the most consequential strategic realignment in our generation.
This government reaffirms its commitment to bolstering defence capability in the Top End through both the 2020 Defence strategic update and the 2020 Force structure plan. The Territory has played a key role in supporting more recent initiatives, including the US Force Posture Initiatives, and next year marks the 10th anniversary of the Marine Rotational Force and these initiatives. The US FPI provides the ADF with improved training opportunities and closer interoperability with US forces and also supports US engagement in the Indo-Pacific.
I witnessed this cooperation firsthand when I visited Mount Bundey last month with Senator McMahon and US Ambassador Culvahouse to observe Exercise Koolendong. Observing this high-end, live-fire exercise demonstrated once again the great interoperability between our forces and the clear benefit to both our nations. The fact that the rotation went ahead at all despite COVID-19 is a great testament to the ADF's ability to be agile and also to our ability to work with the United States forces. At AUSMIN, we signed a statement of principles to guide the next decade of cooperation on forced posture to ensure peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.
Senator McMahon, a supplementary question?
Can the minister outline the investments the government is making in response to our changing strategic circumstances, including at RAAF Base Tindal near my home town? And I thank the minister for her recent visit.
Thank you very much, Senator McMahon, for your hospitality and, again, for your great passion for the community of Katherine and your support for defence personnel at RAAF Base Tindal. The Morrison government is investing over $8 billion over the next decade in the Northern Territory. As part of this investment, we are spending $1.1 billion to further redevelop RAAF Base Tindal. These works will enhance defence air combat capability and our ability to engage with allies and partners through the conduct of joint exercises, including our enhanced air cooperation with the United States. The building tempo for the redevelopment is accelerating very rapidly, as we both witnessed. These works are in addition to the new facilities to support the Joint Strike Fighter, which are now already complete. Just last month I had, with Senator McMahon, the great privilege of turning the first sod for this $1.1 billion additional development. This will develop 350 jobs locally. (Time expired)
Senator McMahon, a final supplementary question?
Can the minister advise the Senate how the government is maximising opportunities for Northern Territory businesses and workers to deliver jobs through these significant investments?
At the heart of our $8 billion investment into the Northern Territory is our nation's security but, wonderfully, it will also provide significant new job opportunities in the Northern Territory for at least the next decade to come. This government has provided industry with significant long-term pipelines of investment. I was up there recently meeting with the Chief Minister, Senator McMahon and business representatives to work together to ensure we can provide a continuous pipeline supply of jobs and investment in the Northern Territory. Local industry capability plans, which were implemented by Senator Payne, who was the relevant minister at the time, are now realising very significant benefits to local industry in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory's industry participation in major Defence construction projects is now over 80 per cent and is continuing to rise. Hundreds of local jobs and millions of dollars are now flowing into local businesses and this will continue for many years to come. (Time expired)
Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
As the Minister representing the Minister for Government Services, I rise to respond to the three recommendations contained in the third interim report of the Community Affairs References Committee's inquiry into Centrelink's compliance program that were adopted by the Senate on 2 September 2020. Protecting the integrity of the Commonwealth social security system is a core responsibility of any government. The proper administration and distribution of taxpayer funds to those who are eligible for them, and the recovery of debts from those who are not, is essential to fulfilling that responsibility. There is a longstanding principle that people should be paid correctly according to their individual circumstances. If people receive welfare payments they are not eligible for, it is only fair that they pay that money back to the taxpayer.
The government made changes to income compliance. When the government was made aware that the ATO average employment income data was not of itself sufficient to raise a social security debt, it acted quickly to fix the issue. As announced by the Minister for Government Services on 19 November 2019, Services Australia is no longer using income averaging alone to determine debts. As of 1 October 2020, 374,888 customers have received refunds or had their debts zeroed, with over $650 million refunded.
In response to the Senate's resolution arising from the Community Affairs References Committee's third interim report and in relation to the resolution of the Senate adopting the recommendations of the inquiry, I want to assure the Senate that the Minister for Government Services—me—together with the Department of Social Services and Services Australia have full regard for the process of the Senate and continue to cooperate to the fullest extent possible with the Community Affairs References Committee's ongoing inquiry into Centrelink's compliance program. It was not the intention of the government, or of officers of Services Australia or the Department of Social Services, to show disregard for the resolutions of the Senate in making public interest immunity claims.
Further, I am advised that the failure of the Minister for Government Services to respond to correspondence from the Community Affairs References Committee of 6 April 2020 was the result of an administrative oversight. There was no intention to not respond, and the Minister for Government Services has regularly engaged with the Senate and its committees to explain the government's position in relation to public interest immunity. Updates and additional explanations have also been provided as litigation in relation to the compliance program has evolved.
In addition, government agencies and witnesses have responded to many hundreds of questions at hearings and on notice in relation to the design and implementation of the compliance program. The government does not make public interest immunity claims lightly and without careful consideration of the particular harm to the public interest. The government understands and accepts there is significant public interest in the matters before the committee. However, it would not be in the public interest to disclose some of the information that has been requested.
The current class action before the Federal Court involves very significant and potentially higher value claims against the Commonwealth. The trial for this litigation has now been set down for hearing on 16 November 2020. The applicant's claims in this litigation have been amended several times since the litigation commenced. In considering these evolving claims, the government has continued to review its position in relation to the prejudice it might face in defending the claims if certain documents were made public. As a result, public interest immunity claims have been reiterated and further information about claims has been provided to the Senate committee as necessary.
While the Senate has considered some of the government's previous public immunity interest claims, circumstances have now changed. On 16 September 2020 the applicants were given leave to file a second further amended statement of claim. This amended statement of claim alleges that the Commonwealth had particular knowledge which goes to the legal understanding of the program. While not clearly particularised, the applicants have also named particular ministers and senior APS employees as having knowledge of particular matters at particular times. These are very serious allegations and are completely rejected by the government.
Given the nature of the allegations being made by the applicants in class actions, the content and timing of any legal advice provided in relation to the Income Compliance Program is directly relevant to the issues to be decided by the Federal Court in the proceedings. Disclosing the content of any legal advice, or the date of it, would obviously have the potential to prejudice the Commonwealth's ability to defend the claims made by the applicants. The Commonwealth has discovered more than 200 documents in the class action over which legal professional privilege has been claimed. The Federal Court has upheld the Commonwealth's legal professional privilege claims over every one of those claims that has been the subject of challenge.
The position taken by the government is consistent with past practice over many years and under different governments. Former Attorney-General the Hon. Gareth Evans QC told the Senate:
Nor is it the practice or has it been the practice over the years for any government to make available legal advice from its legal advisers made in the course of the normal decision making process of government, for good practical reasons associated with good government and also as a matter of fundamental principle.
More recently, former Attorney-General George Brandis said:
What it represents is both a statement of the universal practice of all Australian governments since Federation in relation to legal advice, subject in exceptional circumstances to waiver, I acknowledge, but that is something that is seldom done and is never done, nor should be done, if the advice to government is that the publication of the advice would prejudice the legal position of the Commonwealth.
The third interim report has also commented on the executive minute to the Minister for Social Services dated 12 February 2015. The subject of the minute is a public interest immunity claim by the government on the ground that its disclosure would or could reasonably be expected to reveal the deliberations of the cabinet. Notwithstanding this, the third interim report, adopted by the Senate, seeks production of the minute. While the minute was provided to the Commonwealth Ombudsman, it is important to note that the limited disclosure to the Ombudsman in these circumstances is not consistent with the maintenance of cabinet confidentiality. It should also be noted that, as a part of the class action litigation, the Federal Court upheld claims of public interest immunity in relation to such documents. This type of claim for public interest immunity in relation to material supporting cabinet deliberations and decision-making has also been consistent practice by successive governments and was supported by the then Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, when she stated:
Last week the government opposed a motion for a Senate order for me to produce departmental documents relating to management options for the lower lakes . The government did so on the basis of extensive precedents including those set by the previous government where advice to government of a similar nature—that is, for the purposes of government’s deliberative processes—had not been provided on the order of the Senate. Those opposite cannot possibly take issue with that.
That was on 1 September 2008.
The third interim report noted that it may be appropriate to disclose the minute to the committee in camera. However, disclosing the deliberations of cabinet to opposition and crossbench senators would not maintain the well-established principle that the deliberations of cabinet should be able to be conducted in secrecy, nor would it preserve the freedom of deliberation of the cabinet. By making a public interest claim in respect of the minute, the government is doing no more than establishing a well-established right to protect the public disclosure of cabinet deliberations in the same way as has been done by past successive governments. A letter from the Minister for Government Services responding to these matters has also been provided to the President of the Senate.
I rise to take note of the minister's response to recommendations 1, 2 and 3 of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee's third interim report. This scheme has devastated hundreds of thousands of Australians, and the government won't even answer questions that relate not to what the legal advice is but to whether they actually asked for legal advice. I have the original questions that we asked when the original public interest immunity claim was made. That was again subject to the third interim report, because we did not get a response to our follow-up correspondence.
I will just touch on that very briefly. In our third interim report, we commented on the fact that the minister had not responded to the committee's communication in April this year when we rejected the claims of public interest immunity and wrote back to the minister. That email with that letter, I understand, went missing. I will just let the chamber know that I've checked with the committee, and the correspondence was sent in the usual manner, the manner in which we've been corresponding with ministers for some time. However, I personally accept that admin mistakes happen. But we subsequently referred to that correspondence quite a bit. Was there no thought in government that perhaps they needed to find out where this letter was, what—I was about to say a slightly naughty word!—was going on and why the committee was carrying on? I was very concerned that we hadn't heard back from the minister.
Having said that, I want to go back to what is fundamentally the problem here, and that is that apparently no-one in government thought to check whether trying to claw hundreds of millions of dollars back from people who had low incomes and were on income support was actually based on a legal premise or not—whether it was actually legal. Of course, it turns out it wasn't. There was no legal foundation for them to be claiming back these hundreds of millions of dollars, affecting hundreds of thousands of Australians and causing them a great deal of distress.
The sorts of questions that were asked included: is the department satisfied that its net-to-gross calculations provide a legal basis for raising a debt? Well, we would have thought that was okay. A series of questions were asked about how many times the department asked for or obtained legal advice from a range of government agencies, including the Solicitor-General and the Australian Government Solicitor—there are a number of them. We can't even ask how many times the department—or the minister, for that matter—asked for that legal advice. Does that mean they didn't actually ask for it at all, or does it mean that they asked for it and didn't get the answers that they wanted—they ignored the advice—or that they just didn't care about the impact this program would have because they were so desperate to balance the bottom line on the backs of people trying to exist on a payment that is, let's remember in this place, below the poverty line?
The minister, in her response just then, talked about how, when the government were made aware that using the ATO information for income averaging was unlawful, they never thought that they needed to go and seek legal advice.
The Community Affairs References Committee rejected the concept that it was not in the public interest to release this information. We rejected the claim for public interest immunity because we don't agree that it's not in the public interest for the community to know this information. We have sat for hours and hours and hours hearing about the impact of this scheme on Australians who have been impacted by this scheme. Those of us on the committee have sat—I think I've now been through three inquiries dealing with this matter—and I've sat, and heard people's accounts of the impact on their lives. People have been in tears. People's mental health has been badly affected. And I've heard from people's families who believe that robodebt led very directly to those people taking their own lives.
I'm trying to be very careful when I talk about this, because I'm aware of triggering. To people who read this or who are listening: please, if you are impacted by this or need some help, reach out to Lifeline. The fact is that this had a detrimental impact on people's lives. People have lost loved ones; people have had their mental health permanently affected. People talked of shame, of how they felt demonised and of how they thought that people thought they were cheating—all based on a lie, because this was not lawful. This process was not lawful.
And the government say that the community has no right to know whether they knew whether it was legal or not. And it wasn't sufficiently lawful; it was insufficiently lawful. It was unlawful—it was against the law! And yet the government tries to hide behind public interest immunity, saying that's not in the interest of the community. Well, it's very strongly in the interest of the community. And then they try to hide behind a minute having gone to cabinet. Trotting it through cabinet means that they can't give it to us.
Senator Patrick interjecting—
They sprinkle the cabinet dust—yes, Senator Patrick, they sprinkle the cabinet dust around it! They did not directly tell us that it did impact on the deliberations in cabinet, and giving us the minute would not release the deliberations of cabinet or tell us what those deliberations were.
It is very important to this inquiry that we actually have a look at that minute and see what was in that minute. We all know that, while the government have finally paid back most of the people who were owed money from this illegal scheme, they've only paid that back going back to 2015. They're not going back before 2015. That's why this committee which is inquiring into Centrelink's compliance program needs to see that information, so that we can actually get a true look at this. The government isn't releasing that information, which is why we and many other people are calling for a royal commission into this debacle. It is only that forensic review that will identify what went wrong here. (Time expired)
I rise to take note of the minister's explanation. I listened very carefully to the minister as she made her explanation, and my assessment is that it was legally insufficient. The minister ought to know that the issue as to whether or not a house can call upon legal advice to be tabled has been settled in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in the matter of Egan v Chadwick. There is no question that a house that has responsibility of oversight of government decisions has the ability to call any document before it that is relevant to the course of action that the government may have taken in respect of discharging its functions, so it's entirely appropriate that if a committee of the Senate, or indeed the Senate itself, makes a call for those documents then those documents should be tendered.
Of course, you do have a right to advance a public interest immunity claim. I did listen, and I heard what you said about the matter that is currently before the courts, but there is also another case that would protect you in this instance, and it's the matter of British American Tobacco Australia v Secretary, Department of Health and Ageing in the Federal Court. No less than Chief Justice Keane, as he was then, made a decision that basically said, 'If you wander into this chamber and table legal advice, as you are required to by way of order of production, you have not waived legal professional privilege.' Indeed, nothing that has been tabled in the Senate, nothing that has been said in the Senate, can actually be used in that court. They can't draw inference from it; they can't even use the information to establish truth. It's an important principle that allows us to do our work while the courts are permitted to do their work, so there can be no harm in tabling those documents. They cannot be used in the court case. It is not proper, and the court would not permit it.
Section 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act—because there was some dispute over this, the parliament decided to legislate to make it very clear to the courts that they can't use this, although I will note that in a matter I've got before the courts the government lawyers have tendered some statements made in the Senate, and that will no doubt become a matter of privilege shortly if the Attorney doesn't intervene properly. So I do not accept, when you roll out a list of ministers who have, in the past, said that legal professional privilege shouldn't be tabled—they are simply ministers making statements. They're making statements that are inconsistent with law, and we do have to comply with law here in this chamber.
I'll now go to the second claim that you are making, and that is in relation to cabinet-in-confidence. I draw your attention to the High Court case of the Northern Land Council, where the court ordered that in exceptional circumstances the court can order the production of cabinet documents. They are executive documents, not parliamentary documents, and the court can order the production of cabinet documents in special circumstances, and particularly in circumstances where life or liberty might be at stake—certainly when someone's liberty might be at stake. You might note that is being dealt with right now in the ACT in the matter of the Commonwealth and Collaery, the Witness K matter. We'll probably see that the court will make a judgement between the balance of public interest and the interest of justice. I listened to Bret Walker give a presentation, a lecture, on this, and the principle is that a court could, in certain circumstances, require the production of cabinet-in-confidence documents, making it equally the case that the Senate could. There's nothing to distinguish that, provided a balance is found in favour of the Senate requiring their production, and that has already happened here. In advocating that there would be harm caused, it's not helpful when the government makes ambit claims, cavalier claims, concerning cabinet-in-confidence.
We have currently a very bizarre situation where the COVID committee has asked for documents, minutes of the AHPPC, and it turns out the claim by this government is that a meeting of doctors is a meeting of a subcommittee of cabinet. That is truly bizarre. I am in discussions with the clerk's office at the moment in relation to an FOI I did for exactly the same documentation, where the department knew I would challenge them legally and they dared not make the claim. They properly made a claim of intergovernmental documents, and that will come down to the balance of public interest. They made a reasonable claim, although I don't think it will stand the test, but they never tried the cabinet-in-confidence claim.
In the last sitting week, I stood in this chamber and I waved in front of everyone a document that I had obtained under FOI that had been denied to the Senate because it was purportedly cabinet-in-confidence. In actual fact it turned out not to be. Whilst I accept the principle that there is benefit in protecting cabinet documents and protecting the collective responsibility of cabinet, we have a really difficult issue before us in that the government regularly makes claims that are simply not believable or will not stand the test of a challenge, either with the Information Commissioner or in the AAT.
If the government continues to make cavalier claims or it continues to cry wolf, of course the Senate will get to a point where it simply no longer believes the claims that are being made by government. The government itself undermines the doctrine by making these cavalier claims. They're inappropriate. The minister should table the legal advice and the minister should table the cabinet documents, as ordered by the Senate.
I call Senator O'Neill. Senator Abetz, there is 30 minutes for taking note of the response. Do you have a point of order?
Do you take the call from the other side of the chamber, or only from one side of the chamber?
Senator O'Neill sought the call at almost the same time as Senator Patrick and I indicated to her that I would call her next.
Madam Deputy President, I am asking whether that is the appropriate course of action because, as I understood proceedings of this place, you bounce the call from side to side and do not allow one-way traffic in relation to matters of this nature.
In actual fact, Senator Abetz, you would normally alternate the call between the government and the opposition. I didn't do that because Senator Siewert sought the call first and, after Senator Patrick sought the call, I thought it only fair to go to Senator O'Neill.
So, the fairness is three-nil and the government does not get to respond.
The government has responded. Senator Keneally, do you have a point of order?
With respect to Senator Abetz's point of order, his point would make sense if Senator Patrick or Senator Siewert was a member of the opposition, but they are not.
Thank you. Senator O'Neill will continue.
What we are discussing this afternoon, for people who might have just picked this up and are listening to this discussion and who care about this matter, is a complex discussion about procedures, but it's really all about robodebt. What we see this afternoon from the minister who is now departing—I think that's a natural turnover, so I won't make a point about her leaving—is another scene in this government's determination to cover up what's gone on with robodebt. The senator made claims about proper administration and fairness but couldn't even bring herself to actually name the matter that is being discussed today, which is robodebt. To be clear: robodebt was the matter over which the government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to say a very insincere 'sorry'. To this day they continue to acknowledge that this scheme was responsible for the terrible impacts on mental health that were well described by Senator Siewert in her contribution—and I acknowledge her as the chair of the committee; that is why I thought it was appropriate to cede the first opportunity to speak to her.
I want to put on the record what Australians know but this government continues to deny—that for so many Australians the horror of their encounter with robodebt caused such incredible anxiety, distress and financial burden for their families that it is now a matter of public record that family members attribute loss of life to the total lack of hope that so overcame some Australians, particularly young Australians, that they felt they couldn't go on. In the circumstances created by their own government, they took their own lives. I want to acknowledge Kath Madgwick, mother of Jarrad, and Jenny Miller, mother of Rhys, who came forward and enabled me to put on the public record the horror of their experience, of their interactions with this government.
Today, if you listened to the minister's comments, after having been called here to the chamber by the Senate to answer these questions, you heard platitudinous comments, a failure to acknowledge the harm of robodebt and a failure to call it by its proper name, known to Australians in every state and territory of this great country. The reality is that because this government refuses to answer questions, we still don't know who came up with the legal advice for this unlawful scheme. The government still hangs its hat on bogus public interest immunity claims. For those who don't understand what a public interest immunity claim is: in simple layman's terms, it's when the government says: 'Look, this information is so precious, so important for the country, that we really can't talk about it. Just trust us; we're doing the right thing by you.' Except hundreds of thousands of Australians already know the government was not doing the right thing by them with regard to robodebt.
We know the government had to accept at the end of last year that they acted unlawfully. So much do they want to deny their responsibility that they can't even get the word 'unlawful' out of their mouths. They had to coin their own magic phrase: 'legal insufficiency'. What a con job that is. Any plain-talking Australian knows the truth. Robodebt is a scheme of the government's making, and they refuse to answer questions about what they did and advice they received. It is in the public interest for us to know. They stuffed it up royally. They should show us the evidence they used to support their claim to establish it. But they won't. What we've got from the government here today is more resistance, more obfuscation, more delay and more denial.
The only way we're going to get to the bottom of what happened is to have a royal commission. We cannot do with more spin from these ministers and their departmental staff. They have scorned the scrutiny of this chamber, the Senate of Australia. They do not think they're accountable to the Australian people, who are represented here by senators of every state who are here to hold the government to account. We're holding the government to account on a very important matter, of import to hundreds of thousands of Australian families. Make no mistake: this is the biggest social security scandal of a government in Australia's history. It's not the sort of history that, as a government, you really want to make. It is a scandal of extraordinary proportions. Hundreds of thousands have been affected and nearly a billion dollars has had to be paid back to Australians who had money illegally taken from them by their government. As I said in my opening remarks, countless Australians suffered emotional and mental anguish and despair at the terrible financial impact—all to prop up the Liberals' bottom line. Let's not forget who was Treasurer when this decision was made: none other than the Prime Minister of Australia.
What questions are we asking that are so terrible and awful that the government simply cannot answer them, that are so dangerous for the country that the government keep saying it's not in the public interest to answer them? This is what we want to know, and have a right to know, on behalf of the Australian people: who came up with the idea for the scheme? We have a right to know, and we want to know: what due diligence was done and what advice was obtained by this government prior to the scheme's implementation? Those opposite will laugh at and mock this process, but the reality is that they're the ones who unleashed robodebt; they're the ones who chose to change the way in which debt was recovered.
This is what we want to know: when did the government first learn that their robodebt scheme was unlawful, and why didn't they stop it the minute they knew? The question you have to ask is: did they know it was unlawful all along and just say, 'Here's a few billion we can scrape back; it doesn't matter if we hurt a few Australians on the way through; let's just grab the money'? That's the question that lingers at the moment.
We want to know, and we have a right to know: did the government settle legal challenges and choose not to appeal adverse AAT determinations in order to avoid a court ruling that the scheme was unlawful? What we do know is that some brave Australians who could handle the paperwork warfare actually went to the AAT and had the AAT, a tribunal, find for them against the government. It didn't happen on just one occasion; it happened on multiple occasions. The government knew it and, instead of saying, 'We might have a bit of a problem with this; we'd better sort it out,' did what they're doing today: they went all quiet, had the big hush-up, the big cover-up. We want to know for the Australian people, and we have a right to know: how was such a fundamentally and obviously flawed scheme allowed to continue for as long as it did? We want to know, and we have a right to know: in total, how much has this failed scheme cost the Australian taxpayer so far? In total, how many debts were issued under the illegal robodebt scheme cooked up by this government? How many law-abiding citizens, especially vulnerable Australians, have been harmed by robodebt?
We know that the minister still refuses to respond to the Community Affairs References Committee. The letter has been the subject of some discussion this afternoon. We can hope it was an administrative error, but, sadly, I fear it was just another part in the cover-up game that this government plays. Scott Morrison and Stuart Robert need to rule out the possibility of robodebt 2.0 and the chance that they will continue with their old practices and develop a new method to harass the Australian people who have already been traumatised. Human Services should be about human services; it shouldn't be about an out-of-control algorithm with no safeguards or oversight. I am constantly shocked at the disregard this government has for this august chamber and, through that, for the people of Australia. (Time expired)
There are two issues here. One is the issue of reclaiming welfare payments, which was implemented, might I say, in a suboptimal manner by the department. I'm on public record as saying that and I'm also on public record as saying that I helped achieve good outcomes for many of my fellow Tasmanians who had been unfairly targeted by an officious letter and a scheme that was less than consumer-friendly. That said, can I remind Senator O'Neill that this scheme was in fact an add-on to a Labor devised scheme? So, if the honourable senator wants to talk about who implemented the scheme and started it all off, she need look no further than the mirror of the Australian Labor Party.
But the real issue here is not the scheme and the problems it occasioned for far too many Australians but the principle of public interest immunity. That is a principle well and truly established and well and truly accepted by governments of both persuasions—and usually attacked by desperate oppositions. From time to time, my side of politics has fallen into that category as well—regrettably. That is why these matters need to be considered with a degree of maturity and reflection. You have to ask the question: is this a principle that we actually want to undo, a principle which has withstood the test of time? Yes, Senator Patrick spoke for 10 minutes about how good he was with all the cases he's raised and how forensic he's been, but I would just invite him to have a look at a couple of High Court cases. One is Esso and the Commissioner of Taxation and other is Grant and Downs.
I take Senator Siewert's passion in relation to the issue of the reclaiming of welfare payments, but I would invite her and all other honourable senators to divorce that issue from the principle of the public interest immunity. It has served this country and this body politic—and, might I add, not only in Australia but elsewhere as well—exceptionally well. It is something that does protect the rightful business of government, even in circumstances where it frustrates an opposition. That is something where, if you have a mature reflection on these matters, you understand why the principle was established and why attorneys as diverse as former Senator Evans and Senator Brandis have accepted the principal. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of answers given by Senator Colbeck in response to questions asked by myself, Senator Sheldon and Senator Gallagher about aged care.
There might be some fans in this chamber of that great British comedy Yes Minister. They might remember that episode, 'The Compassionate Society', where Minister Jim Hacker found out that his government had been funding for 15 months a hospital that had admitted no patients. Today in the Australian Senate we had our own version, where the Minister for Aged Care, Richard Colbeck, admitted that his government had been funding, for eight months, a residential aged-care facility that had not admitted one resident. I have to say that the British show was funny. This would be funny if the consequences weren't so tragic. Quite frankly, taxpayers have paid more than half a million dollars for a 40-bed facility where no-one is in any of the 40 beds! That's right: in the middle of a global health pandemic, where we have had 673 people die in residential aged-care facilities, this government decided it's a good use of taxpayer funds to spend half a million dollars on a residential age-care facility that has no residents.
Jim Hacker, that minister of Yes Minister was a fictional, a fiction character—
It's fictional.
I know, Senator Duniam; I'm so excited by this reference to Yes Minister, which you are too young to remember!
Correct!
You're too young, Senator Duniam, but I'm sure that Senator Abetz remembers it! I remember it. Senator Stoker probably remembers it. Here's the thing: Jim Hacker was a famous fictional character. What do we have? We have the all-too-real Senator Richard Colbeck. Jim Hacker: he was bumbling, he was accident prone and he occasionally got it right, but he was an object of derision. He made a mockery of being a minister, but he was fiction. Richard Colbeck is all too real. What is also all too real is this government's neglect of residential aged care. Minister Richard Colbeck made a mockery of being a minister for aged care today in question time when he was confronted with the evidence. For example, under Minister Richard Colbeck's 'care'—I use that word advisedly—of the aged-care sector, we have had shocking stories of ants crawling from wounds, residents left in dirty nappies and providers begging for more staff. We have heard that there are 100 reports of assault and sexual assault every week, more than 1,000 assaults go unreported every week and more than 2,000 complaints were recorded in just three months. What has this minister done? Has he apologised? Has he taken responsibility? Has he resigned? No. He has done what this government always does: found someone else to blame, left Australians behind, taken no responsibility.
This government are so good on the announcement. They're always there for the announcement and the photo op but never there for the follow-through. Back in March, the Prime Minister stood up and waved around in the courtyard what he said was a plan, a plan for residential aged care. He said that the federal government would be responsible for residential aged care during the COVID pandemic. Those were his words, not mine. What did the royal commission into aged care say last week? It said there was not a COVID-19 plan devoted solely to aged care. This isn't just some claim by political opponents. This isn't just some complaint by family members obviously distressed by the sickness and death of their loved ones. This is the finding of the royal commission appointed by the Prime Minister. What did the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians do in the chamber today? He rubbished the royal commission. He disregarded and rejected their findings. That is what the Morrison government always does, though. It finds someone else to blame and leaves people behind. It's always there for the announcement, never there for the follow-through.
We have 673 older Australians dead. Today in question time the minister said that the Australian Labor Party in asking these questions was just pandering to sectoral interests. I'll tell you what, older Australians are the sectoral interest I am happy to be associated with. The minister for the aged should look after them too. (Time expired)
We know that the Australian Labor Party's ongoing attacks on Minister Colbeck are designed for one purpose and one purpose only—that is, to distract attention from the deaths and disaster in aged care in one state, Victoria. If Senator Colbeck is to be held responsible for aged care Australia-wide, why is it that we have only had these COVID outbreaks in the state of Victoria? Could it be because of Premier Daniel Andrews and his negligence and the way that he and his government—and they can't remember who—employed these contractors and did not keep the Victorian community safe? If Minister Colbeck is to be held responsible, why didn't he muck it up in my home state of Tasmania, or New South Wales, or Queensland, or the Northern Territory, or Western Australia or South Australia? Why is it that there is only one pocket that the Australian Labor Party continually seeks to refer us to, which happens to be in the state of Victoria? We know why the outbreak has occurred in the state of Victoria. It is because of the incompetence of the state Labor government in Victoria.
So let's not have any of this nonsense that, somehow, Minister Colbeck ought to be held responsible in circumstances where every Australian knows that the tragic consequences of Premier Andrews have led to the statistics that the Australian Labor Party seeks to enjoy crowing about, very distastefully. But in circumstances when you look at the numbers, I simply ask: what are the numbers emanating from the state of Victoria, and why is it that Senator Colbeck should somehow be held responsible for Victoria? I think we all know what happened in Victoria and why it happened. It would be good and decent of the Australian Labor Party in this place, rather than trying to do Premier Andrews's dirty work, to accept the responsibility that it was state Labor's fault in Victoria.
In relation to the misquoting of the royal commission, let's be exceptionally clear. Labor purposefully, I would submit, sought to say to the Senate that somehow the government's behaviour was deplorable. The royal commission never said the government was deplorable. In fact, the only time the royal commission used the word 'deplorable' in their special COVID-19 report was on page 25, when they were referring to an alleged practice, not of the minister, but of a provider. Allow me to quote the full paragraph:
Insufficient supplies of PPE and infection control training for the aged care workforce were the subject of evidence in the form of union surveys and accounts. We heard of workers being told they could only use one glove rather than two, and a guideline at a residential aged care facility that only permitted two masks per shift. This is deplorable.
Clearly not a reference to the minister. Clearly not a reference to the government. Clearly a reference to a provider. Yet the Australian Labor Party come into this question time to so egregiously misrepresent that which the royal commission has provided to the public—might I add, a royal commission deliberately set up by this government because of its concern for aged-care residents, because of some of the stories emanating from the aged-care sector.
As a government wanting to get things right, having established the royal commission, we are adopting and implementing their recommendations. So what does Labor do? They come in here and misquote the royal commission and then most egregiously—and I don't know why—seek to defend Premier Daniel Andrews in Victoria for his neglect. I just hope that the newly implemented industrial manslaughter charges will apply to the Victorian Labor government. (Time expired)
I rise to take note of answers by Senator Colbeck. As I go to those answers, I'll address some of the matters that were raised. Quite clearly the government learnt nothing from Newmarch House and the overseas experience of what was happening in aged care. They learnt nothing from the deaths that were occurring right around the world and were on the front page of every newspaper before this crisis got hold to any degree in our aged-care system.
There's the consistent position from the royal commission, as the counsel assisting the commission, Peter Rozen, pointed out, and it is that there was a very clear degree of hubris and self-congratulation by the government. They failed to turn around and listen to what had happened. They failed to act. They failed to take responsibility. Even now they won't take responsibility for a sector they are responsible for funding, oversighting and implementing arrangements for. They still fail that test after these many months.
Let's look at this a bit closer. We're starting to get to know how the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, operates. We know he likes a flashy announcement. Of course we also know there's never follow-up. He likes to not show up when responsibility has to be taken. He famously excused himself from responsibility for the safety of Australian people during the bushfire crisis—remember that? He took himself secretly off to Hawaii and then, in his own defence, said, 'They know I don't hold a hose, mate.' What a great defence! Then he wouldn't take responsibility for the Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle. We now know that in March, three days after he said that cruise ships would not be admitted to enter Australia except under the 'bespoke arrangements under the Australian Border Force', hundreds of infected passengers flew all over Australia, taking COVID with them, and more than 20 people died, even after airlines' pleas for passengers to be identified fell on deaf ears.
Now the Prime Minister would like to deflect responsibility for the aged-care crisis in Australia, when aged care has always been and will continue to be a Commonwealth responsibility. The special Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety report on COVID-19 was released last week, with the failure of this government to take responsibility for aged care laid bare. There can be no excuse, because we all knew what had happened to aged-care facilities in other countries and to Newmarch House. As I said, the government failed to protect the most vulnerable in our community and they continue to fail. They have no specific plan to protect people in aged care. We now face a national tragedy at their hands, at their feet, but it's our loved ones who are paying the price. It's our families and communities paying that price. It's the workers in those industries paying the price, not the minister and not the Prime Minister. Thousands of family members have been forced to say goodbye to parents, grandparents, loved ones, uncles and aunts without being able to hold their hand.
The royal commissioners, it should be noted, cannot so easily be sidelined by the Prime Minister or by his minister, since he chose those commissioners. The royal commissioners have slapped down the claim by the minister that there was a plan for aged care. They said:
… there is a clear need for a defined, consolidated, national aged care COVID-19 plan.
It's clear that, at the peak of the pandemic, the aged-care regulator was missing in action and provided no written guidance to the aged-care sector in the period between 20 June and 3 August. There it is in black and white.
My message to this government is this: implement the six recommendations before the pandemic hits even worse. Implement arrangements that will improve conditions for working people, and make sure not that one in three are trained but that all are trained. (Time expired)
While I always enjoy Senator Sheldon's contributions, I'm not super clear what that contribution was about. It veered from talking about aged care to veering in another moment to talking about something entirely different. I'm going to focus on the aged-care point because I think that's what he's getting at. I have to say, amid all the guff, it's pretty hard to make sense of it. The truths are what nobody wants to talk about in the field of aged care. They are uncomfortable truths. It might sound easy for someone of my age to say, but I will quote someone very wise, and that's my grandmother. She always says, 'Getting older ain't easy,' and, 'Getting older ain't for sissies.' She's got a sense of humour, my grandmother, but it points out something very real about this time in life. Aged care is deeply challenging. Nobody really wants to be in aged care. Everybody would rather be living independently and healthily without the circumstances that force them to come to require aged care. That puts to the front of one's mind the raw realities. It's very confronting to enter the place where you know you are opening the book on the last chapter of your life.
And so, to make life as good as we can for older Australians for as long as we can, this government has delivered record investment right across the aged-care system over the forward estimates, not just in residential age care but also in assistance to help our older Australians live independently in their own homes for longer with the little bits of help they need to be able to do so for as long as possible. In fact, new home-care packages under this government have increased from 60,308 under Labor in 2012-13 through to 164,135 in the coming financial year. That's an increase of over 170 per cent. Over the same period, funding for them will increase by 258 per cent due to the growth in the number of people who are seeking higher levels of care from home—which, again, highlights that reality: people want to be able to stay in their homes for as long as they possibly can.
It's also worth noting that for all the gloating, for all the confected emotion we see on that side of the chamber, at the last election Labor offered no additional funding in their costings. Not a single cent. Nothing! Not a penny! Not even mentioned. Not a single dollar more for home-care places, not a single dollar more for aged-care quality, not a single dollar more for investing in the quality of the aged-care workforce and not a single dollar more for residential aged care. So I am not inclined to listen to the confected outrage of those opposite when they had no plan to improve this sector, they had no vision for investing more in older Australians and they had no interest in the welfare of those in that difficult last chapter of their lives.
The fact that this is a difficult chapter of life doesn't mean we don't, as a society, continue to aim high. It's vital we have measures in place that make this tough chapter as positive and as healthy as it can possibly be. That's why the Morrison government, under this minister, has provided PPE from the national stockpile for aged-care workers. That's why, under this minister, the Morrison government has put in place infection-control training, PPE measures and infection-control protocols that are designed to keep this workforce and our older Australians safe. As at 30 September of this year, 1,244,709 aged-care workers had completed basic training. (Time expired)
It's got to be pretty tough to come in here at the moment as a senator on the other side and stand up to defend what's happening in aged care. It's got to be pretty tough. You know it's pretty tough when colleagues like Senator Stoker have to refer to in-home-care packages as the shining beacon of what the government's done, because we know that rollout has not gone smoothly either and has left a lot wanting. What we've seen in Victoria in aged care over the past few months is nothing short of a national tragedy, and it is nothing short of a disaster for those Australians in residential aged care and for the families who have had to watch what they go through in residential aged care during this pandemic.
I don't think there's a single person in this room who expected the government, the minister or the Prime Minister to predict the global pandemic, but when the pandemic was upon us, when we started seeing the lessons from overseas and when we started seeing the lessons in Australia—of Newmarch House, of what was happening in New South Wales—at that point we did expect them to come up with a plan. At that point we did expect them to go through a process of lessons learned, to look around at what was happening globally and what was happening in Australia, to develop a plan and to do what they had to do to keep Australians safe.
No-one expected the government to predict the unpredictable, but we did expect a degree of ministerial responsibility for the crisis which is happening in aged care, aged care being a federal government responsibility. We expected the Prime Minister to take responsibility for it. We expected the aged-care minister to take responsibility for it. We expected them to do what was required to keep Australians safe. That is not an unreasonable set of expectations for us as the opposition and certainly not an unreasonable set of expectations for the Australians in aged care and for the families who love them. But the government failed on that. The minister said he has a plan, but, if the royal commission couldn't find it, how can the Australians in aged care expect to find it? How does the sector find it? How do the families who have family members in aged care find it? If the royal commission couldn't find it, where is it? What is it? These families expected more from their federal government. They expected a sector which was resilient, but, most importantly, they expected a sector which would be prepared to respond to the things we knew could come, and we knew they could come because we saw them come in New South Wales and we've seen them come overseas.
This government does not take ministerial responsibility when it comes to the aged-care sector seriously. We saw that last time we were here in Canberra, when the minister turned his back on this chamber as we were seeking an explanation about what was happening. In the chamber, he turned his back and walked out. We saw that in question time today when he waffled in answers to questions from Labor senators—serious questions about what's happening in the aged-care sector in Victoria and his responsibility for it. This is not a minister who takes his responsibilities seriously. This is not a minister who takes his responsibility to this chamber seriously, and we see that time and time again.
All we get from this government are excuses. We've seen today in this debate more excuses that it's not the government's problem; it's someone else's problem. You are the level of government responsible for aged care, so, while it's easier to deflect the blame and harder to stand up and take responsibility, that is what is expected of you. That is what is expected of you by those Australians in aged care in Victoria. And it's not just Victorians. I know people in my home state of South Australia are looking at what's happened in aged care in Victoria and they feel scared too. They feel scared because they don't feel like the government, which is meant to be representing them in Canberra, which is looking after this sector, which is meant to have a plan and has been found wanting, will be there for them if a crisis comes to SA. They are scared, and I don't blame them for being scared. So, Minister, instead of standing here and waffling, or trying to devolve yourself of responsibility or trying to attack Labor senators—because that's really all you can do if you don't want to stand up and take responsibility and ownership of what you've been doing—why don't you think of the Australians out there who feel fear, think about the Australians suffering and actually take your responsibility as a minister seriously.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Families and Social Services (Senator Ruston) to a question without noticed asked by Senator Siewert today relating to tax cuts and the JobSeeker payment.
It really is an insult to the community and to jobseekers to tell them that their payments haven't been cut. The minister, instead of answering my questions, chose to play with words and say the coronavirus payment hasn't been cut. Well, tell a jobseeker that. Tell a jobseeker who's trying to pay the mortgage, who's trying to pay the rent, who's trying to look after the kids and feed the kids, who's trying to put food on the table for the whole family—including parents; we all know that if you're trying to exist on $40 a day, which was the original JobSeeker payment, very often parents go without food—who's trying to make sure they take their medicines and meet their essential bills such as power and water, that their payment has not been cut by $300 a fortnight, because it has. Very soon we are going to start seeing families lose the roof over their heads because they cannot afford to pay rent.
In the chamber tonight, during adjournment, I will be giving people's accounts and what they've said to me—and I've been inundated with what people are feeling—about the cuts to the JobSeeker payment which have been brought to bear because the coronavirus supplement has been cut. The minister said I was being completely and utterly misleading by saying the coronavirus supplement had been cut. Call it what you will, but people do not have enough money in their pockets. They have been dropped below the poverty line by the cuts to the coronavirus supplement—or, to please the minister, I'll say 'the new coronavirus supplement payment, which is $250, which is a cut of $300 from the $550 coronavirus supplement'.
What's the government trying to do? What did the minister try to do in here? She tried to justify tax cuts to millionaires. It is simply unjustifiable to be giving any more money to millionaires when people are literally living below the poverty line, will lose the roof over their head, will be going hungry, can't afford to pay their bills or their mortgage and have to try to renegotiate with the bank to extend their mortgage even further because they're not going to be able to pay it for quite a long time.
We all know that living below the poverty line has an impact on your wellbeing and on your ability to find work. I'll tell you what also has an impact on your wellbeing: the lack of certainty about what's going to happen at the end of December, when the coronavirus supplement will disappear. The government has given nobody any certainty that they will not be subjected to $40 a day again. So, if you're trying to plan or to say to your bank, 'I can't, because I've had another cut to the JobSeeker payment or the coronavirus supplement,' in order to negotiate with your bank to extend your mortgage, you cannot provide that bank with any certainty that you are not going to be put back on $40 a day. It's the same if you're trying to negotiate with your landlord: 'Trust me: I'll be on JobSeeker and the coronavirus supplement.' No, you won't be able to say that, because you have absolutely no certainty.
I've sat with people who are desperate, who don't know how they're going to make ends meet and who aren't going to be able to find a job because there are still 12 jobseekers for every job that is around. Don't tell me the number of people employed has gone up. Yes, I've heard that, but the number of hours worked has only gone up by 0.1 per cent. In other words, people aren't earning the money they need to get by. So don't run the line that employment has gone up tremendously so we don't need to keep the JobSeeker payment at a rate that is actually livable, because they aren't able to find the work that is necessary.
And who are the people that are suffering the most? The young, and older women. They are particularly disadvantaged. That also goes with a lot of the accounts that I'll be giving you tonight in this place, about the impact that cutting this payment is having on people—and it is a cut. In anybody's language, it is a cut; make no mistake. This is unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours, even in this recession.
Question agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to the following senators:
(a) Senators Brockman, McGrath, Paterson and Van from 6 October to 8 October 2020, for personal reasons; and
(b) Senator Payne, from 6 October to 8 October 2020, on account of ministerial business.
Question agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to the following senators: Senators Bilyk, Gallacher, Kitching, Walsh and Ciccone from 6 October to 8 October 2020, for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to the following senators: Senators Whish-Wilson, Rice and Steele-John from 6 October to 8 October 2020, for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator. There being none, I will proceed to the discovery of formal business.
At the request of Senator Steele-John, I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the law in relation to Royal Commissions, 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 seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
The purpose of this bill is to extend confidentiality protections that exist for witnesses and their evidence beyond the life of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Exploitation and Neglect of People with Disability. Currently, the Royal Commission can only guarantee the confidentiality of witnesses while it is sitting making this a matter of urgency, both for the ability of the Royal Commission to do its work and for the safety of witnesses.
The Australian Greens, along with the disability community, have been calling for a Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Exploitation and Neglect of Disabled People for more than a decade and we strongly support the right of disabled people to choose to give their evidence in confidence, and be supported to do so. At this moment I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of my colleague, Senator Rachel Siewert, whose leadership of the 2015 Senate Inquiry into the Violence, Abuse and Neglect against people with a disability was critical to giving momentum to the establishment of our Royal Commission.
But right now, disabled people are being advised by advocacy organisations, legal representatives and the Royal Commission's own legal advisors that they should withhold their evidence until greater protections exist in the law. This is having a very real chilling effect on the ability of the Royal Commission to do its job.
The Morrison Government has known about the urgent need for these protections since November 2019 when the Chair Ronald Sackville AO QC first noted it in his closing address to the Townsville public hearing on education.
The Commission then formally wrote to the Attorney General in February of this year asking for the Government to progress these legislative changes, as did I on behalf of the Australian Greens along with many other members of the disability community.
On page 37 of the Royal Commission's second Progress Report, which was released in early August, the Chair again makes it clear that the limitations of confidentiality provisions within the Royal Commissions Act are impeding on people's willingness to speak with the Commission and affecting the scope of the Commission's work.
Even without these requests, it should have been clear to this Government that the nature of this Royal Commission would require special considerations and protections, as previous inquiries had done, and that without them there would be significant limitations on both the findings and recommendations in the final report.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which ran from January 2013 to December 2017, included such protections for witnesses who gave confidential evidence outside of private hearings beyond the life of the Royal Commission. This amendment will, in effect, replicate section 60N of the Royal Commissions Act which was created specifically for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
For more than a year the Morrison Government has known that current laws aren't strong enough to protect the privacy of witnesses to the Disability Royal Commission, yet they've done nothing about it. That is why the Australian Greens are introducing these amendments to the Senate to ensure that our Royal Commission is fully equipped to do its work and that disabled people and their families feel safe to tell their stories.
So many people in our community have lost all faith in the system because of the violence, abuse, exploitation or neglect they, or their family, have suffered.
Now, as public hearings start again to hear about people's experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, it's more important than ever that our Royal Commission can hear evidence from as many people as possible.
I commend this bill to the Senate.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
At the request of Senator Whish-Wilson, I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) in 1999, the first National Packaging Covenant was developed under the National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure,
(ii) in 2005, the second National Packaging Covenant set a recycling target of 30% to 35% of plastic packaging to be achieved by 2010,
(iii) in 2010, the Action Plan for the third Australian Packaging Covenant did not include a specific recycling target for plastic packaging,
(iv) in 2018, the fourth Australian Packaging Covenant included a recycling target of 70% of plastic packaging to be achieved by 2025, and
(v) the current rate of recycling for plastic packaging is 16%, which is only 50% of the 2005 target; and
(b) acknowledges that:
(i) packaging is a significant source of problematic single-use plastic in the waste stream and the marine environment,
(ii) the Australian community is demanding federal leadership on solving the current waste crisis,
(iii) voluntary targets for plastic packaging recycling have never been met, and
(iv) in twenty years, no enforcement action has been taken or penalties levied on the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation or any other organisation by state or federal authorities over failure to meet recycling targets.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Gallacher, I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Economics References Committee has repeatedly requested information relevant to its inquiry into Australia's sovereign naval shipbuilding capacity from the Department of Defence, and
(ii) in response to requests for information made on 24 February, 5 May, 3 June and 18 June 2020, the Department of Defence either failed to respond or failed to raise a public interest immunity claim when declining to provide the information;
(b) considers that, as a matter of parliamentary oversight, it is vital that the committee obtain the requested information so that it is not impeded in its inquiry;
(c) reaffirms the principle that information may only be withheld following consideration by the Senate of a properly founded claim of public interest immunity, as laid out in the order of the Senate of 13 May 2009 and reaffirmed multiple times since; and
(d) orders the Secretary of the Department of Defence to provide complete copies of the following documents to the Economics References Committee by no later than 5 pm on 16 October 2020:
(i) Naval Group's:
(A) Australian Industry Capability (AIC) plan submitted under the competitive evaluation process from the then DCNS (November 2015) for the SEA1000 Project, and
(B) draft AIC plan and AIC strategy for the Australian Future Submarine Program (May 2018)
(ii) in relation to the SEA1000 project:
(A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Naval Group,
(B) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Lockheed Martin, and
(C) the AIC plans delivered to the Commonwealth by Naval Group and Lockheed Martin under their respective contracts,
(iii) in relation to the SEA1180 project:
(A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Luerssen, and
(B) the AIC plan included in the contract at effective date,
(iv) in relation to the SEA3036 project:
(A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Austal, and
(B) the AIC plan included in the contract at effective date, and
(v) in relation to the SEA5000 project:
(A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by BAE Systems,
(B) the overarching AIC strategy included in the head contract (at effective date),
(C) the AIC plan included in the head contract at effective date, and
(D) the AIC plan, which the department has previously advised was to be publicly released in the first quarter of 2020.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government agrees with the Department of Defence that the release of the unredacted document is commercially sensitive. The government agrees also that the provision of the requested documents would adversely impact on the ability of Defence to achieve value for money across the shipbuilding program and meet Australia's broader strategic objectives. The draft tendered plan cited in this motion includes commercial-in-confidence information which encompasses proprietary information, arrangements with other parties, sensitive financial data and commercial strategies that could impact the competitiveness of companies. The disclosure of information also impacts the government's ability to effectively negotiate AIC arrangements as well as multiple Australian businesses and suppliers who would have no chance to control or object to the public release.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
This OPD calls for documents which are critical to the committee conducting its business—that is, to examine the naval shipbuilding program from the Australian industry content perspective. We've got to a point in time now where the government is denying the Senate basic information that is to do with commercial arrangements agreed to by companies in order to win a procurement contract. The government is now seeking to expand its confidentiality over just about anything, as long as it might have come from a company. This is really important material, it goes to the Australian industry content that was promised by these companies at contract, and the Senate has a right to look at these documents and make sure that these companies and Defence are holding them to account in relation to their promises.
Question agreed to.
I, and also on behalf of Senator Canavan, move:
(1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on Tobacco Harm Reduction, be established to inquire into tobacco reduction strategies, with particular reference to:
(a) the treatment of nicotine vaping products (electronic cigarettes and smokeless tobacco) in developed countries similar to Australia (such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the European Union and United States), including but not limited to legislative and regulatory frameworks;
(b) the impact nicotine vaping products have had on smoking rates in these countries, and the aggregate population health impacts of these changes in nicotine consumption;
(c) the established evidence on the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation treatment;
(d) the established evidence on the uptake of e-cigarettes amongst non-smokers and the potential gateway effect onto traditional tobacco products;
(e) evidence of the impact of legalising nicotine vaping products on youth smoking and vaping rates and measures that Australia could adopt to minimise youth smoking and vaping;
(f) access to e-cigarette products under Australia's current regulatory frameworks;
(g) tobacco industry involvement in the selling and marketing of e-cigarettes; and
(h) any other related matter.
(2) That the committee present its final report on or before 1 December 2020.
(3) That the committee consist of six senators, three nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, two nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and one to be nominated by any minor party or independent senator.
(4) That:
(a) participating members may be appointed to the committee on the nomination of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate or any minor party or independent senator;
(b) participating members may participate in hearings of evidence and deliberations of the committee, and have all the rights of members of the committee, but may not vote on any questions before the committee; and
(c) a participating member shall be taken to be a member of the committee for the purpose of forming a quorum of the committee.
(5) That the committee may proceed to the dispatch of business notwithstanding that all members have not been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any vacancy.
(6) That the committee elect as chair one of the members nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate and as deputy chair a member nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
(7) That the deputy chair shall act as chair when the chair is absent from a meeting of the committee or the position of chair is temporarily vacant.
(8) That the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, may appoint another member of the committee to act as chair during the temporary absence of both the chair and deputy chair at a meeting of the committee.
(9) That, in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, has a casting vote.
(10) That the committee have power to send for and examine persons and documents, to move from place to place, to sit in public or in private, notwithstanding any prorogation of the Parliament or dissolution of the House of Representatives, and have leave to report from time to time its proceedings, the evidence taken and such interim recommendations as it may deem fit.
(11) That the committee be provided with all necessary staff, facilities and resources and be empowered to appoint persons with specialist knowledge for the purposes of the committee with the approval of the President.
(12) That the committee be empowered to print from day to day such documents and evidence as may be ordered by it, and a daily Hansard be published of such proceedings as take place in public.
Question agreed to.
I ask to have it recorded that the Greens oppose that motion.
I ask to have it recorded that Centre Alliance oppose that motion too.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the Judges' Pensions Act 1968, and for related purposes. Judges' Pensions Amendment (Pension Not Payable for Misconduct) Bill 2020.
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 the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
This Bill is to address an important deficiency in the Judges' Pensions Act 1968.
We are all now too aware that some industries enable predatory behaviour by those holding positions of rank and power. We are also aware that reports and evidence of wrongdoing and unconscionable behaviour are all too often dismissed or suppressed, and may only come to light long after the event but while the related damage and hurt are still sorely felt.
The ME-TOO movement has shone new light on widespread sexual harassment and sexual abuse, firstly in the entertainment industry and then across various other professions and workplaces. It seems that no profession is untouched – and that includes the legal profession, and indeed one of Australia's most preeminent institutions – the High Court of Australia.
I acknowledge the courage and thank the current High Court Chief Justice, Susan Kiefel, who undertook an investigation very promptly after it was brought to her attention that former Justice Dyson Heydon, while on the High Court bench, sexually harassed a number of associates.
The investigation initiated by the Chief Justice, and carried out by a former Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Dr Vivienne Thom, found that six associates were sexually harassed. Two additional allegations were also brought to light.
The Chief Justice made the following comments in relation to the findings of Dr Thom's inquiry:
" The findings are of extreme concern to me, my fellow Justices, our Chief Executive and the staff of the Court. We ' re ashamed that this could have happened at the High Court of Australia We have made a sincere apology to the six women whose complaints were borne out. We know it would have been difficult to come forward. Their accounts of their experiences at the time have been believed. "
After indicating that the Court accepted and was implementing various recommendations made by Dr Thom, the Chief Justice went on to say:
" We have moved to do all we can to make sure the experiences of these women will not be repeated. There is no place for sexual harassment in any workplace. We have strengthened our policies and training to make clear the importance of a respectful workplace at the Court and we have made sure there is both support and confidential avenues for complaint if anything like this were to happen again. "
The Chief Justice's response is to be commended.
However, it is still most concerning that it appears that earlier complaints made by associates fell on deaf ears. It was well known that Justice Heydon was a bit off, that he had a track record of poor and inappropriate behaviour, indeed of sexual harassment, and it was best that young women, or indeed women of any age, were not left alone in his company.
The former judge is now retired. He has denied the findings that he harassed associates and has offered an apology for what he describes as any "inadvertent and unintended" offence.
He reportedly did not apply to renew his legal practising certificate with the New South Wales Bar Association upon its expiry on 30 June this year.
High Court Judges are entitled to a taxpayer funded pension on their retirement.
This is paid at approximately 60% of the appropriate judicial salary.
This is quite a significant sum – the Chief Justice of the High Court earns $608,150 with other High Court Judges earning $551,880.
Now 60% of $551,880 is $331,128 per year – this is what Justice Heydon is currently receiving.
He is entitled to receive this because he is untouchable – his pension is guaranteed and is absolutely safe just because of the fact that he is retired and beyond the reach of the Judges' Pensions Act 1968.
Let's just imagine that the High Court took seriously those earlier complaints of sexual misconduct – the indecent assaults and sexual harassment – complaints that were apparently first raised while the Judge was still sitting on the High Court bench.
Section 72 of the Constitution provides that Justices of the High Court and other courts created by the Parliament may be removed by the "Governor-General in Council upon an address from both Houses of the Parliament in the same session, praying for such removal on the ground of 'proved misbehaviour or incapacity."
Had the complaints made been acted upon while Justice Heydon was still on the bench, and an inquiry conducted and findings made similar to those arrived at after the Judge's retirement, there would have been a real likelihood that Parliament would have passed motions seeking his removal from the Bench. His taxpayer-funded life pension would have then been forfeited as a consequence of section 17 of the Judges' Pensions Act.
But that didn't happen. Instead, Justice Heydon's career went along unimpeded and unhindered until he retired – leaving behind a trail of destroyed dreams of junior lawyers and associates he assaulted. And because of the fact that he is now retired – the Act is powerless to impose any penalty on him for actions committed while a Judge.
The Act currently only applies to judges currently holding positions on the bench which means that retired Judges are able to escape the consequences of aberrant behaviour while they were on the bench. Or worse yet, retire when they get wind that allegations may be proved against them and that the Governor-General may make a direction that would remove them from the Bench and consequently deprive them of access to a generous tax-payer funded pension.
This Bill will address this significant deficiency in the accountability regime for Commonwealth judicial officers.
This Bill will impose on a retired Judge the same consequence for misbehaviour they would experience were they still be sitting and then removed from the Bench under section 72 of the Constitution.
As the Judges' Pensions Act is currently framed, there is an inequality between the outcomes for behaviour between a current sitting Judge and that of a retired Judge where their behaviour only comes to light after their retirement. At the very least this legislative loophole creates a perception that there is an incentive for the Judiciary to ensure that any misbehaviour goes unaddressed or is kept hidden during their tenure so as to safeguard their position until retirement and thereby protect their pension.
The Bill is consequently retrospective in operation for the purpose of ensuring past Judges are held accountable for any serious misconduct done while they held their position and that only becomes apparent after their retirement or departure from the Bench. This reform will ensure equality so that all Judges and living former judges that committed misconduct will be held accountable and face the same consequences no matter if they are on the Bench or no longer on the Bench.
It will of course be a matter for the Parliament to determine its response in relation to any allegations or findings concerning misbehaviour that arise after a judge has retired.
The provisions of the Bill will appropriately only apply to living former Judges, as a deceased person is unable to respond in any forum to allegations or findings of misbehaviour. Consequently there is no potential impact in relation to pensions payable to the spouse of a deceased Judge.
The ability for a person, let alone a Judge of the High Court, to avoid the consequences of misbehaviour by the simple happenstance that it was only uncovered post retirement is grossly unfair, especially when they are in receipt of a taxpayer funded statutory pension for life. This is an obvious legal and ethical anomaly that this Bill will remedy.
I commend the Bill and the related Explanatory Memorandum to the Senate.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
At the request of Senator Kitching, I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) Australia is in recession,
(ii) 520,000 workers have lost their jobs, over a million Australians are unemployed, and families are struggling to pay their bills,
(iii) on 31 March 2020, the Australia Post Chief Executive Officer (CEO) declared senior management would take 20% wage cuts and forsake any right to a bonus this year,
(iv) on 28 August, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported that the CEO had secretly reversed course and asked the Board to reinstate up to $7 million in senior executive bonuses, contradicting her statement in March,
(v) on 2 September, the SMH reported that Australia Post had asked workers to volunteer to deliver parcels in their own cars, rather than hiring new workers, and
(vi) on 2 September, the Minister for Communications claimed that foregoing executive bonuses should be a quid pro quo for being granted permission to cut services;
(b) considers it highly inappropriate that the CEO has sought to obtain millions in executive bonuses in the midst of a recession and service cuts, and in contradiction of promises made in March; and
(c) calls on the Chair of Australia Post to wake up and stop this inappropriate handout from proceeding.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
On 2 September the Australia Post chairman stated that the Australia Post board had determined that no short-term incentive payment would be made to the executive team for the financial year 2020. The government welcomes the board's decision, which is in keeping with the CEO's commitment from earlier in the year.
Question agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 796 before asking that it be taken as formal.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) acknowledges:
(i) the lack of appropriate disposal mechanisms and technology for much of the toxic waste from solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable products in many states and territories,
(ii) the significant environmental consequences the improper disposal of renewable energy waste products has on the environment,
(iii) The Morrison Government's $15.14 million partnership with leading Australian universities via the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to support new research projects that include addressing end-of-life issues for solar PV panels; and
(b) calls on state governments to collect environmental bonds on entities which control these assets, similar to those charged on oil and mining companies, to fund the development of appropriate waste disposal mechanisms for renewable energy waste.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That there be laid on the table, by the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, by no later than 10 am on 8 October 2020, the following documents:
(a) a letter from Dr Larry Marshall, Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation to the former Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, former Senator Sinodinos, dated 9 August 2017; and
(b) the attachment to that letter titled 'Response to issues raised with references at the 26 July 2017 briefing' in full and without any redactions.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Labor oppose this motion as it is not necessary. The unredacted document in question is available publicly, via a simple Google search. Labor take this opportunity to again note our ongoing support for the CSIRO.
Question negatived.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion 798.
Leave granted.
Senator Henderson will co-sponsor the motion. I, and also on behalf of Senators McKenzie, McDonald, Canavan, McMahon and Henderson, move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that border travel restrictions imposed by state and territory governments have negatively impacted the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of regional Australians who live and work across border communities;
(b) further notes that many regional communities have and continue to be impacted despite having no local cases;
(c) expresses concern where restrictions prevent or delay travel for:
(i) health purposes,
(ii) employment, particularly within the agricultural supply chain for those states that have not adopted the Agricultural Workers Code; and
(d) commends the work of some state and territory governments that have eased unnecessary restrictions, but calls on all state and governments to adopt:
(i) a clear national definition of a COVID-19 hotspot,
(ii) fair, expeditious and proportionate protocols for essential travel within low-risk regional border communities based on medical advice,
(iii) The Agricultural Worker Code, and
(iv) a consistent protocol for people requiring medical treatment regardless of the accessibility of the service in their home state.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Greens want a thriving, expanding and green manufacturing sector, but this government's plan for manufacturing is based on a completely unconscionable, climate-wrecking expansion of fossil fuels. They could choose renewables, but they don't. They talk up advanced manufacturing while actively decimating local research and innovation. A manufacturing plan without funding for research and skills isn't worth the paper it's written on. The Liberals and Nationals have defunded TAFEs and gutted research. They're not interested in our future. Senator Canavan is more interested in engaging in toxic culture wars about former senator Bob Brown and Black Lives Matter. His Facebook post yesterday, sharing a photo of a ute with a Black Coal Matters sticker, was both racist and climate denialist at the same time. It was absolutely disgraceful. Black Lives Matter has been a critical rallying cry and global movement against racial injustice and police violence. (Time expired)
Before we descend into very tense issues, I'm going to ask senators—and I'm going to review the Hansardto be very careful about their reflections on the individual actions of other senators because pejorative terms can be unparliamentary if they are directed at an individual senator. So can I ask senators to reflect on what they say—I'll review the Hansardbefore we get into more tension than we need.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
We support the motion, the intent and most of the words while noting that LNP policy and actions at state and federal level drive high energy prices, undermining manufacturing and agriculture.
Question agreed to.
Sorry, can I ask the Greens' opposition to motion 798 be recorded? I neglected to jump earlier. Thank you.
So recorded.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) acknowledges that Australia is in recession for the first time in 30 years;
(b) notes that the Government is actively considering bringing forward $48 billion worth of personal income tax cuts in the October Budget that will give even more cash to millionaires and the super wealthy;
(c) recognises that the Government is cutting the Coronavirus Supplement to the JobSeeker Payment by $300 a fortnight on 25 September 2020 and refuses to confirm that the rate of JobSeeker will not return to $40 a day in December; and
(d) calls on the Government to drop planned tax cuts to the wealthy and invest in those on income support and on low incomes.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Australia is in the biggest recession in almost a century, and we need a plan for jobs. We have always been open minded about tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners, but we've expressed our concern with stage 3 tax cuts throughout. We need to see what is in the budget tonight, Tuesday, but the government doesn't need to choose between tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners and a permanent increase to JobSeeker, which is too low. The government should provide Australians who are out of work some certainty by announcing a permanent increase to JobSeeker in the budget tonight.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government wants Australians to earn more and to keep more of what they earn. Under coalition governments taxes will be lower, fairer and simpler.
The question is that motion No. 801 be agreed to.
The Senate divided. [16:33]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
Question negatived.
by leave—I withdraw business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2 standing in my name for today.
I move:
That the following matter be referred to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by the second sitting Tuesday of 2021:
The Government's proposed reduction in the assessment and decision time frames for 15 major projects under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), including:
(a) the process by which the need for a major projects list was decided upon;
(b) the process for determining the criteria for the major projects list and by which the 15 major projects were identified;
(c) any proposed or realised actions by the Government for the reduction in assessment and decision time frame, including the impact of that reduction on the integrity of the assessment process, the impact on protection of the environment, biodiversity and heritage values and on expected assessment and the impact on decision time frames for other projects undergoing EPBC Act assessment;
(d) any interactions of the major projects process with the 10-year review of the EPBC Act and other proposed reforms to the EPBC Act already identified by the Government;
(e) potential conflicts of interest that may have arisen through the major projects process; and
(f) any other related matters.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The process for identifying and endorsing the 15 major projects involved cabinet and national cabinet consideration. As such, prior deliberations on the list may be subject to cabinet confidentiality arrangements. These projects are worth more than $72 billion and they are expected to support over 66,000 jobs. Through the reduction of assessment and approval time frames without reducing environment protections, these major projects will be shovel-ready earlier, helping to create thousands of new jobs and supporting the economy through the COVID-19 crisis.
The question is that business of the Senate notice of motion No. 3, in the name of Senator Hanson-Young, be agreed to.
At the request of Senators Chisholm, Watt and Green, I move:
That the Senate notes—
(a) the decision by the Liberal National Party in Queensland to preference the Greens in the state seat of South Brisbane; and
(b) with concern:
(i) that this decision increases the chances of a minority government in Queensland, and
(ii) the Greens policies would do great economic damage to Queensland at a time when every job is vital as we look to recover from COVID-19.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
If the Australian Labor Party want to talk about economic vandalism, they should look at their own record. Former Deputy Premier Jackie Trad gave Queensland the highest unemployment rate in the nation, the highest number of bankruptcies and the worst business confidence in a decade—all before coronavirus too, I might add. Labor have preferenced the Greens ahead of other candidates in every election. If the ALP are so offended by the Greens, they shouldn't accept their preferences at all. The government also look forward to hearing about the Labor Party preferencing the LNP ahead of the Greens in all 93 seats in the Queensland election. Queenslanders have had enough of former Deputy Premier Jackie Trad's deal. She and her government have got to go.
Senator Watt interjecting—
Senator Canavan interjecting—
Senators Watt and Canavan!
Only a government led by Deb Frecklington will rebuild Queensland's economy—
Senator Watt interjecting—
Count to 10!
and create secure jobs for Queenslanders that they desperately need and that Labor won't deliver.
Senator Watt interjecting—
Senator Watt, I remind you of my rule that you have to count to 10 before you are disorderly again.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Whatever the LNP decide to recommend to their voters about preferences has nothing to do with the Greens, and the Queensland Greens said publicly weeks ago that we would suggest voters put the LNP last along with One Nation. The fact that the Labor Party have chosen to use their time in the Senate today in this way shows just how worried they are about the growing Green movement in Queensland—and well they should be, given the secret royalties deal they just did with Adani. They raised jobs. In Queensland, our plan to revive manufacturing, including building publicly owned renewables and public housing, would create tens of thousands of jobs. Meanwhile, Queensland Labor's plan for the Queensland economy is to freeze teachers' and nurses' wages while giving mining companies a royalties holiday. That is why people are voting Green.
Senator Watt interjecting—
Senator Ayres interjecting—
Order, Senator Watt and Senator Ayres! I will call Senator Hanson, who is seeking the call, when I have an opportunity to hear what she seeks to say.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
I can't believe what I'm reading here: a submission by the Labor Party saying the Greens' policies would do great economic damage to Queensland at a time when every job is vital. They do great economic damage all the time, regardless of whether COVID-19 is around or not, yet they swap preferences every time. It doesn't matter what election, state or federal; they swap their preferences every time.
Senator Watt interjecting—
Yes, you are right, Senator Watt, because it does increase the chances of a minority government in Queensland. So here we could end up with a Labor-Greens government. You're bad enough by yourselves, with the Labor Party's destruction of Queensland, but put the two together—my God! Heaven help Queensland if we actually end up with a Greens-Labor government. It will be the Greens setting the agenda. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I don't know which one to support—you or the Liberal Party. You've confused me. (Time expired)
The question is that motion No. 784 be agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 788 before asking that it be taken as formal.
Leave granted.
I, and also on behalf of Senators Davey, Canavan, McDonald and McMahon, move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that border travel restrictions imposed by state and territory governments have negatively impacted the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of regional Australians who live and work across border communities;
(b) further notes that many regional communities have and continue to be impacted despite having no local cases;
(c) expresses concern where restrictions prevent or delay travel for:
(i) health purposes,
(ii) employment, particularly within the agricultural supply chain, for those states that have not adopted the Agricultural Workers Code; and
(d) commends the work of some state and territory governments that have eased unnecessary restrictions, but calls on all state and governments to adopt:
(i) a clear national definition of a COVID-19 hotspot,
(ii) fair, expeditious and proportionate protocols for essential travel within low-risk regional border communities based on medical advice,
(iii) The Agricultural Worker Code; and
(v) a consistent protocol for people requiring medical treatment regardless of the accessibility of the service in their home state.
Question agreed to.
I, and also on behalf of Senator Wong, move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Australian Government is responsible for borders, quarantine, and assisting Australians in jeopardy and stranded overseas,
(ii) the Prime Minister agreed to cap international passenger arrivals on 13 July 2020,
(iii) since then, the number of stranded Australians overseas has risen dramatically, with 27,000 Australians unable to get home,
(iv) over 3,000 of these Australians are classified as vulnerable by the Morrison Government, including many with health and financial concerns requiring urgent attention,
(v) the United Kingdom Government says Australia is the only country in the world to have actively restricted its citizens returning, and
(vi) the Government has no meaningful plan to lift flight caps or increase quarantine capacity, including identifying new quarantine facilities and training quarantine personnel; and
(b) calls on the Government to take urgent steps to help every stranded Australian return home by:
(i) increasing the number of permitted arrivals under international flight caps through using Commonwealth resources to increase quarantine capacity,
(ii) stopping price gouging by airlines flying into Australia, and
(iii) putting all options on the table to return stranded Australians, especially from places like the United Kingdom, India, Philippines and Lebanon—including charter flights.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Over 391,000 Australians have returned since 13 March, including on 64 government facilitated flights. On 17 March the government advised Australians overseas who wanted to return to do so as soon as possible by commercial means. To manage quarantine arrangements at the request of the states, the national cabinet agreed to international passenger arrival caps. While critical for community safety, the caps restricted flight availability. Resumption of travel to Melbourne when permitted by the Victorian government will assist our capacity to assist Australians. The government made available a hardship program for emergency assistance for the most vulnerable Australians still overseas.
[by video link] I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Morrison government seems to have washed its hands of the thousands of Australians who are stranded overseas, who just want to come home. We Greens have said time and time again that aiming to get stranded Australians and their families home by the end of the year just is not good enough. Thousands of people are in desperate financial and personal circumstances, not able to come home, due to ill health, remote location, flight cancellation or pregnancy. I have heard so many heartbreaking stories from my constituents and the evidence that was given to the COVID committee. The government's approach of small loans simply won't cut it. Prime Minister Morrison and Minister Dutton must urgently provide extra resources for quarantining capacity and to stop the airlines price gouging so people can come home.
I request leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Jacqui Lambie Network won't be supporting this, simply because we believe states have not come to the party or have not voiced it. The states have not said exactly how many people they're going to take or what they're going to do. Actually, the states are missing in action when it comes to this. That includes the state of Tasmania, with our own stuck over there. This is not just up to the federal government; this comes down to the states as well. That's why the Jacqui Lambie Network won't be supporting it.
The question is that motion No. 790 be agreed to.
I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today 15 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result I inform the Senate that the following letter was received from Senator Waters:
Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:
Instead of investing in Australia's future, the Morrison government is choosing inequality and climate collapse in its federal budget.
Is the proposal supported?
More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the Senate speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.
We now know enough about this budget to offer some informed commentary on it. Because of the budget leaks and the budget drops that we've seen over the last few weeks, we know that this budget will choose inequality over equality and we know that this budget will choose climate collapse over climate sustainability. Budgets are about choices, and this budget chooses wealth inequality and climate collapse. It is important to know that the choices we make now will have massive and long-reaching consequences for the climate and for the people we represent in this place in particular.
This budget will contain tens of billions of dollars of direct corporate subsidies to the fossil fuel sector—big coal, big oil and big gas. And we know that the mining and burning of fossil fuels are the single biggest drivers of our climate breaking down around us. This budget will show that we are being led by a government that picks big corporations and their millionaire mates, many of whom are direct donors to the LNP, over the millions of Australians who are unemployed or underemployed. It's a budget for the millionaires, not for the millions. With the money the government is committing to tax cuts in this budget, we could have a green recovery, a green new deal, where we could create hundreds of thousands of good jobs that ensure that people have an income that they can live on and that would create a strong and environmentally sustainable economy.
If you want one window into where this government's priorities lie, look at what's happening to company profits, look at what's happened to company profits over the last seven years and look at what's been happening to wages over the last seven years. Over the last seven years, corporate profits are up massively and people's wages are down. Wage growth is at its lowest rate in Australia since records began. Conversely, corporate profits are at the highest level in Australia since records have been kept. Working people are getting less for their efforts, and the executives and the shareholders are getting more. All this was happening before the shock of the pandemic that we are living through.
Tax cuts on top of this trend are only going to make inequality worse. We know that these tax cuts are not going to adequately stimulate the economy, because we've heard this story before. I want to be clear: we should be looking after low-income people, we should be raising the rate of JobSeeker and we should be providing relief to people on low incomes, because it's the right thing to do and because we don't want people to live in poverty. But when you look at the first round of the tax cuts, which, according to the government, was all about stimulating the economy, instead it just got trousered. People saved it rather than spent it. We know that that is true, and we are now, unlike when the first tranche came in, in a recession. Why would Mr Frydenberg think this round of tax cuts is suddenly going to magically be spent rather than saved? Of course, he knows it's not, which reveals the real reason for these tax cuts—that is, that they are ideologically-driven largess to the millionaires and the big corporates in this country. That is why this government is bringing forward the tax cuts.
There is a better way we can invest in a jobs guarantee. We can invest in a Green New Deal. We can invest in government backed jobs and income guarantees to help to create a good life for far more of our people and to make sure that nobody is left behind. We need bold and strong government investment in green manufacturing, in sustainable infrastructure to create jobs and opportunities to build the foundations of a fairer and cleaner economy. And we need massive investment into public services for our community—health, education, public transport, child care, aged care—those public services that people expect governments to deliver locally and at a high quality. Economies need to work for people, not the other way around. And until we have an economy that works for people and until we see budgets that will prioritise people over the economy, and prioritise nature and climate over environmental destruction, we are in for yet more of the same.
Senator McKim, you'll be pleased to know that tonight's budget is prioritising people. The income tax cuts are for low- to middle-income earners. They are for the battlers, the working class. That's because we know that if you want to get ahead in this country, if you want this country to succeed, it is all about wealth for toil. You're not going to get Australia out of the mess that COVID's got us into if we don't get people back to work. We can't stay under the doonas forever, and these income tax cuts are going to direct more money to the people who go to work every day. If the tax cuts put more money into their pockets, they will spend more and that will create more employment. We know it will work because we saw in the Howard-Costello years regular income tax cuts every year and the economy continued to grow. Wage rises went high, incomes lifted. Wages have only stopped growing since Labor introduced the Fair Work Act. Those opposite don't want to talk about that, do they? Employer improper payments, because of the Fair Work Act, are so complicated that even Labor aligned firms like Maurice Blackburn have been caught out paying the wrong salaries. Now, if an industrial relations firm can't work out what the right salary to pay is, what hope do the rest of us have? What hope do small businesses have if they can't afford to pay a high-priced lawyer?
In welfare support, the Morrison government doubled JobSeeker the moment we shut down the economy and the country with COVID. It went from about $540 a week to around $1,100 a week. We implemented JobKeeper straightaway. We've spent over $200 billion supporting the economy since the introduction of COVID. We've given two $750 payments to pensioners. There has been no shortage of support for those in need since COVID has struck.
And the government is investing in infrastructure. I don't know exactly what's in tonight's budget, but from what I read—I love it how the media know more than our own backbenchers, but that's another story for another day—we are led to believe there is going to be significant investment in infrastructure. That is going to be very welcome to the economy, because it's infrastructure that provides essential services.
I stood up here in my maiden speech and I said that government should never have sold infrastructure. Hawke and Keating should never have sold the CBA or CSL. How many billions is the government paying to CSL? We sold that back in 1992 for $200 million. A couple of years ago, we signed a $3.4 billion contract for nine years—almost $400 million a year—in order to get CSL to clean the blood that's donated to Red Cross. Why on earth did we ever sell that asset? That was just madness. I don't know what former Prime Minister Paul Keating was thinking, but that was just silly. Queensland Labor has just decimated that state by selling our forestry plantations, our ports, our railways, our roads and our Golden Casket. Never sell infrastructure that provides an essential service that people pay taxes for. They expect governments to provide essential services. They're not going to line up in front of Macquarie Bank when it all goes wrong. So this government supports infrastructure, and it's something I'm pleased to say I back wholeheartedly.
I want to talk about the inequality allegation, which is total rubbish—that somehow the LNP and the coalition aren't being fair. If you want to talk about inequality, let's look at Victoria and Queensland. If you want to see an example of brutal, misogynistic inequality, go and hop on the Facebook page of the member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, and look at his posting with the Helen Reddy song, about all the women who have been arrested in Victoria for trying to stand up for their rights. Of course, the name of the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, never gets mentioned on that side of the parliament, does it? They have complete amnesia when they look at Victoria. They don't want to acknowledge what a debacle that state is. If there was ever an example of inequality, it's in Victoria and in Queensland, my beloved home state.
How disgraceful and embarrassing was it to see Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk get up there and say, 'Queensland hospitals are for Queensland people and New South Wales hospitals are for New South Wales people'? That is terrible. My mother was born in Kempsey. My family on my mother's side are from the Northern Rivers, Kempsey and Orange. I love New South Wales. There might be three nights of the year when I don't, but the rest of the time I do. It's a beautiful state, and it is just embarrassing that the Premier has kept pregnant women from getting to hospitals, kept families from attending their family members' funerals, kept other people from getting necessary cancer treatment or recuperating from cancer treatment and separated children who attend boarding school in Queensland from their families—all to save her own skin. So I don't want to take any lectures from the Greens or Labor about inequality in the coalition, because if you want to look at inequality you've only got to look at the complete destruction of our individual freedoms under the Queensland and Victorian state governments—shocking!
Then we come to the climate doom and climate collapse stuff. It just goes on and on and on and on and on. If you want to talk about equality and looking after taxpayers, how about we get real here and look at the subsidies that renewable energy gets: $10 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and $5 billion for the Snowy Hydro pumped hydro project. Three and a half billion dollars of taxpayer money has been pumped into the Climate Solutions Package, $2½ billion into the Emissions Reduction Fund, $1½ billion into the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, another $1 billion into the Grid Reliability Fund and half a billion dollars into the National Hydrogen Strategy. The renewables industry would have to be one of the most propped-up rent seekers this country has ever seen, and it doesn't end there. AEMO have come out and said that, if you want to get to 90 per cent renewables, you're going to have to spend $100 billion. That's not to get to 100 per cent renewables; it's to get to 90 per cent renewables. They won't go to 100 per cent, because they know that you're always going to need baseload power, whether it be coal or gas, in the background to back up renewable energy.
If we go and actually analyse what's happening with energy prices, we can see why they're rising. Despite the fact that everyone says that renewable energy is cheaper, it's not. Maybe renewable energy generation in the middle of the day is cheaper, but the cost of transmission, storage, security services and clean-up is not. Of course that's never factored into it, because there are no environmental bonds; and I'm glad we got that motion up today—I'll be sending that off to all the state premiers, demanding that environmental bonds are paid by these renewable companies. When they talk about costs, 48 per cent of energy costs now are in transmission costs. It's from building all those transmission lines which have to connect solar and wind.
And, of course, what's in all these transmission lines? It's switchgear. And what's in the switchgear? Sulphur hexafluoride, which is the most potent global greenhouse gas there is on the planet. It has a greenhouse-warming effect that is 23,000 times greater than carbon dioxide. Somehow, I don't think that's part of the clean, green dream. And what's in the solar panels? Nitrogen trifluoride, the second-most toxic global greenhouse gas in the environment, is used to make solar panels. That stuff hangs around in the environment for 700 years—700 years! And it goes on: what's used in the batteries? Lithium, which is a one-per-cent ore body; there is one per cent metal in the ore. That means we have to mine 100 tonnes of the ore just to get one tonne of metal. Then it has to go all the way to China or somewhere like that, get melted down through four energy-intensive electrolysis processes and then come back—and it lasts for about eight years. (Time expired)
As Senator Rennick's remarks demonstrate to the chamber, this government is indeed choosing inequality and climate collapse as its agenda. This government has a record of entrenching inequality in our communities, in our tax system, in our schools, in our health system, in our university sector and on it goes. And yet we have a government that does not even want to address structurally or even recognise the nature of inequality in our nation.
We see inequality in the disproportionate financial burdens that we now see on Australia's young people in the higher education bill that's before us today to what we've seen in our health system. Many Australians fork out money for their health insurance, which they then can't afford to use because they can't afford the gap payments which they need to make in order to access the care that they need—the health protection they thought they were buying. In our university system we now see the astronomical levels of debt which students will be subjected to. In our tax system we see tax deductions for people who are buying their fourth, fifth or sixth house, and yet those young Australians who are buying their first house will struggle to get ahead. These are all policy decisions. These are all decisions of government which embed inequality in our nation, a fact that this government chooses to deny or thinks somehow that it is in the economic interests of the nation to behave in this way.
When we look at inequality in this country and when we look at the astronomical levels of debt that are now being accumulated—and I'm not saying it's not justified to stimulate the economy to make sure that people have enough money in their pockets to live—this government is going to make the tax burden on future generations of Australians even harder because not only is there that future debt to pay off but those young people have stacked against them a whole range of other policy settings that will make their lives more difficult from the difficulty of buying a house and low wages to the inequality in our nation's schools and our higher education system. We have here a government that is so ideologically opposed to fair access to higher education opportunities and so blind to the aspirations of young Australians who want to study hard to get ahead that it has put forward a bill that does the exact opposite.
I don't think most senators understand how perverse this bill actually is. For example, a humanities degree or a business degree might currently cost a combined contribution from the student and the government of about $13½ thousand. If you want to do a commerce degree or an economics degree—wow, it looks pretty good on paper—there is going to be a $14½ thousand bill to the student. That looks like a $1,000 funding increase in the funding for that student for that place. On top of that, there is another $1,100 in subsidy from the government. That's a cut of more than $5,000 in the government subsidy to that student place. But it's going to settle that student with $14½ thousand of debt when universities are currently only spending, and allocated, $13½ thousand on that student. So unless universities are going to start funnelling money into the business and arts faculties, those students are going to be used as a cash cow in fees for a cross-subsidy to the very faculties this government says it wants to prioritise. You've said you want to prioritise engineering, you've said you want to privatise maths, you've said you want to prioritise science. Instead you've reduced student debt in some places but you've also reduced the government contribution, capping the amount of funding for those places and reducing the capacity of universities to enrol in those faculties, which I think will, in the future, result in the over-enrolment of students in faculties where a university can afford to charge a student more than that student costs them.
That is the heinous level of inequality that is embedded in the higher education legislation that is currently before this parliament. It is unthinkable to me that we can have a government so committed to Americanising our education system that it's prepared to fundamentally break it so that it's no longer fit for purpose, so that every part of the university sector and university system in the future can be deregulated from a fees point of view. There can be no other reason for the government to approach this issue in this way. You're conveniently saying you want to increase the commitment to science and make it easier for students to study science. But this legislation will make it harder for students to study science. Sure, they will have lower fees, but universities will have to cap the number of places in those faculties because they cannot afford to deliver them on the income this government will provide to them.
It is unthinkable to me that we have a government that seeks to use inequality in order to create a dog-eat-dog society in our nation because it reckons that's what's going to get the best out of people in terms of having a fair go. Well, I have to say to you it's not at the core of the fundamental values of our nation to behave in that way. It is the kind of thing this government has done in keeping wages down, in cutting penalty rates, in harming the economic standing of women in this country. The cuts to JobSeeker payments will disproportionately affect older women, who have disproportionately lost their jobs so far as part of the COVID crisis. In our country, women over 60 represent the largest cohort of people on JobSeeker. They face the greatest difficulty in re-entering the workforce, grappling with structural barriers and age and gender discrimination. When we look to the future and to JobSeeker returning to its old base rate, older women very much risk retiring in poverty. In today's budget I would really like to see the government provide older women who are out of work with some certainty by announcing a permanent increase to JobSeeker.
The government's bungled decision on JobKeeper locked out short-term casuals, the most vulnerable in the workforce. There we go, Madam Acting Deputy President: no attention to inequality in our nation in their response to these issues. Instead of ensuring that casual workers, who are already the most disadvantaged in the system, also had access to JobKeeper, those opposite biased it towards those who were already in secure work. And what do we know? We know that those in our casual workforce are also more likely to be women.
With all of these women in the higher education sector and the childcare sector excluded from government assistance, it is extraordinary that those opposite have then left families and women to draw down on their superannuation. Do they know that there are now 600,000 working Australians—people who've been working—who have no superannuation of their own? It is utterly appalling that this government has such an explicit passion for entrenching inequality in our nation.
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I'll discuss the real climate collapse risk: the Greens' new green deal. The Greens complain about a system that's unfair, yet their alternative plan would cause the total destruction of our economy and our way of life. What's fair about that? The Greens new green deal is a plan to decolonise Australia, deindustrialise our economy and decommodify life and is an assault on our democratic society. The new green deal is wholly dependent on an overbearing and all-controlling big Greens government.
Firstly, the 'green' in the new green deal is nothing to do with protecting the environment or controlling the climate. Green is the colour of camouflage. It's really socialism 101. The Greens' new green deal would see us living in a real-life 1984an Orwellian socialist totalitarian state where the thought police would monitor our every word for signs of offence—or our somewhat free market replaced with a ruinous, state regulated, controlled economy. The new green deal is a radical restructure of our way of life, a political nightmare that would destroy everything Australians hold dear.
So what are the Greens proposing, firstly, economically? They propose free university, a sitting-on-your-backside living wage, free child care, a billion-dollar green army—hopefully, an environmental army and not one to control the likes of you and me—hundreds of billions to fund billion-dollar foreign corporations to build more short-lived junk wind and solar plants. The list goes on and on and on: free money, free money, free money. In short, when the Greens talk about investing in our future it means investing in unaffordable, unreliable power that will cause blackouts and economic destruction. If implemented over 10 years, the Green New Deal will cost taxpayers $2 trillion. Taxpayers will carry the cost, with profits going to corporate partners. The Greens are socialising the cost and privatising the profits. The Greens' method of financing worked so well in Venezuela that in 2018 inflation reached 1,700,000 per cent. As Baroness Thatcher once stated, the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
And what about the new green deal's social policy? That's even scarier than the new green deal's economic policy: increased powers to monitor and police hate speech—which, I'm sure, under the new Greens regulations would outlaw this very speech. There'd be more rules to divide us along race, gender, sexuality, age and any other line the Greens can create to divide us, separate us and pit us against one another. It is a truly disgusting, anti-Australian, anticommunity and antihuman political strategy. Our borders would be open to everyone looking for the Greens' living wage and unelected, race based seats in parliament.
That's enough of socialism and control. The real solutions to both recovery from the COVID-19 recession and returning Australia to a prosperous and free society are these: One Nation will build new coal-fired power stations for affordable, reliable, stable, dispatchable power. One Nation will fight for restoration or compensation for farmers who have lost the right to use land due to UN agreements. One Nation will build more dams and create water security across Australia, including building the hybrid Bradfield scheme. One Nation will establish a fairer tax reform, including multinationals paying their fair share. We will make a drastic cut to permanent immigration numbers to net zero until infrastructure catches up and make a fair family law system for families. We'll exit so-called free trade agreements, treaties and deals not in Australia's best interest. We must exit the Greens' mothership, the United Nations, to restore our sovereignty and freedoms. These proven basics will restore Australians to having the highest per capita income.
I note that in ancient Greece there was an oracle in a town called Delphi, who travellers used to come to and ask for her view on their fortunes—what was going to happen to them in the future. On one famous occasion, King Croesus from somewhere in modern-day Turkey approached and said, 'Dear Oracle, tell us what will happen if I declare war on any neighbour?' And the oracle said, 'Well, surely a great kingdom will fall.' The king, of course, misunderstood what the oracle was saying to him, and the great kingdom that fell was the king's own kingdom, hence the oracle of Delphi's somewhat Delphic fortune telling. Then, in the Middle Ages, we had Nostradamus, the great French astrologer, who is frequently quoted in the modern day. Every time something happens, someone says, 'Well, Nostradamus predicted this.' But, of course, if one reads the poetry of Nostradamus, one can read into it what one will.
Here we are some one hour and—what time is it? I've just come back from Queensland, so I'm still on Eastern Standard Time. We're about two hours from the bringing down of the budget, and the Greens already appear to know what's in the budget. They already appear to know what's in the budget, and here we are debating what the budget provides for two hours out from the actual delivery of the budget. Fair enough; I'm happy to debate on first principles in relation to this matter. I'm quite happy to debate the Greens on first principles with respect to their philosophy and their version of equality.
Their version of equality is equality of outcome. They're levelling down; they're pulling down the successful, the entrepreneurial, those who create wealth, generate jobs, help provide prosperity, support charities. They will drag them down in the hope they can lift other people. Does this levelling process help? Has it ever worked anywhere in the world? No, absolutely not. What works is providing equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes—providing opportunity to each and every Australian. Wherever they live, whether they live in the bush or the city; whatever their background, whether they're a new Australian or one of our Indigenous Australians; wherever they come from we want to provide them with the opportunity to access education and health, provide them with the opportunity to fulfil their potential. That's what I believe in.
That's what I believe in, and I've seen that in practice. I saw that in practice in my life before coming to this place. I saw that in a little country in South-East Asia called Laos, where the company I worked for—and the Greens would have you believe 'company' is a swear word. What is a company? A company is simply a collection of shareholders investing their capital in a common entity to progress some sort of commercial objective. That's what a company is. It comprises shareholders, employees and a range of stakeholders. It's not a swear word. The company I worked for lifted thousands of people out of poverty, provided them with training and skills, provided microfinance programs so women in the villages could bring their kids in from the fields and send them to school. That's the company I worked for. And what did that? It was the entrepreneurial spirit of investors here in Australia, investing capital, putting their faith in the management team which then went and invested that capital overseas and provided those opportunities to some of the poorest people in the world.
That's what I believe in: opportunity for all and support for those in need. That is a fundamental, core LNP value. It goes out on LNP emails with notices of meeting: 'opportunity for all and support for those in need'. It is support which is provided by wealth generated from entrepreneurial activity, which generates tax income and also provides people with the ability to contribute to charities of their choice and do their own lifting in their own communities.
Yet we have the Greens, in this modern-day, socialist articulation, seeking to drag our society down. We don't have to look further than Venezuela to see how these utopian policies work out. In Venezuela we have a modern day living hell for the people of that once-affluent country. I want to quote from a journalist I regard highly. His name is Anatoly Kurmanaev and he has written extensively on Venezuela. He spent five years in Venezuela and he has observed that what he saw in Venezuela was worse than anything he'd seen in the old Soviet Union as it was collapsing. I'll quote from an article he wrote:
By the end of 2018, it—
that is, Venezuela—
will have shrunk by an estimated 35% since 2013, the steepest contraction in the country's 200-year history and the deepest recession anywhere in the world in decades. From 2014 to 2017, the poverty rate rose from 48% to 87%, according to a survey by the country's top universities. Some nine out of 10 Venezuelans don't earn enough to meet basic needs. Children die from malnutrition and medicine shortages.
… … …
Caracas has long been a dangerous yet vibrant city, but the crisis has transformed it into a zombie movie set. When I moved into my neighborhood of Chacao, in the eastern part of the city, the streets were full of food stalls, cafes and shops run by Portuguese, Italian and Syrian immigrants. Groups of young and old stayed in the streets drinking beer or chatting into the small hours.
But Chacao's streets are now empty after dark. Most of the streetlights no longer work, and the only people outside after 8 p.m. are homeless kids rummaging through garbage bags.
There is your socialist utopia; there it is in action. There is the result of your politics of envy. There is the result of the ultimate equality: equality of misery doled out by government officials, who are the only exception to that rule.
I can predict the principles upon which the budget to be delivered tonight will be framed. I can do that because I can draw upon the track record of this government. I know it will be a responsible budget. I know that economically it will seek to target those who most need assistance at this point in time. I know that because of the way the government has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the principles which the Prime Minister put in place back in March have been adhered to. Any government policy has been targeted, temporary, proportionate and scalable. There haven't been any pink batt disasters under this government's watch, no overly expensive school halls and no cheques sent out to dead people. It's been targeted spending using existing delivery services. I know that the driving force behind the budget will be a desire to make sure that people currently in a job get to keep that job and those who don't currently have jobs have the opportunity to find a job as quickly as possible.
I would like to make a few comments in response to Senator Pratt's remarks. I'd say to her that what she said does not reflect my experience on the ground in my home state of Queensland. I can draw on some experiences in just the last week which draw out the truth of the matter. A week ago I visited a building site where the land developer said their new sales of land had fallen off a cliff in March. When the government introduced its HomeBuilder subsidy, they went from a pre-COVID rate of sales of 20 per month to 100 sales in six weeks. It was absolutely transformative. As soon as a vacant lot of land in the greater Brisbane region is released, it is snapped up by, in many cases, first home buyers. So that policy is working. That targeted policy providing support to one of our most fundamental industries is working.
When I visit charities and assistance organisations throughout the region on which I focus, I also see the impacts of the Australian government's support in terms of emergency food relief and other aid which is being provided to the most vulnerable in our society. I expect that principle of opportunity for all and support for those in need to be reflected in the budget which will be delivered by the Treasurer this evening.
I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. Instead of investing in Australia's future, the Morrison government is choosing inequality and climate collapse in its federal budget. Some of my colleagues spoke about the climate collapse, so I will focus my remarks on the Morrison government's choice to perpetuate inequality.
The Morrison government hopes that COVID-19 has given us all amnesia. They want us all to forget how unequal and how weak our economy was before the pandemic hit. Trust me: millions of Australians who for years faced stagnating wages and work insecurity have not forgotten. Let's take a look at where we were in December 2019. At that point we had notched up six years of this government. The economy was slowing and had continued to slow after Scott Morrison had stabbed Malcolm Turnbull, the ex PM, in the back. The economy was already not working for ordinary working families. Growth was anaemic, consumer confidence was down, unemployment was up and household spending was growing at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis. Retail trade was at its worst since the 1990s recession, and many retailers were shutting up or on the brink of collapse. Household debt had surged to record levels and was almost 200 per cent of disposable income. Household living standards were actually on the decline, with real household median income lower than when this mob came to office in 2013. Business investment was tanking and was at its lowest level since the 1990s recession. Net government debt had already doubled since the Liberals and Nationals came to office and was at record highs. All of this was pre-COVID.
There were many older Australians who were struggling—mostly those who do not own their own homes or those who have little superannuation to access. Of course, ordinary families—men and women—struggled to pay their bills, especially the young people being forced to juggle multiple jobs and finding it near impossible to get enough work to earn a decent wage and get basic protections such as sick leave and workers compensation. So Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg don't get to hide behind the pandemic and pretend inequality was not already rampant.
The other thing this government does not like to get out—they like to pull the COVID curtain over it—is that we saw a steep increase in intergenerational inequality on their watch. This is worsening inequality which they have done little or nothing to mitigate. If you compare across generations, you can see just how much harder it is for younger people today to reach the milestones my generation took for granted: a secure job, marriage, family and a home of their own. The average household aged between 55 and 64 is $300,000 richer than the same household back in 2003. If you go to the 65-74 age group, you see the difference is more than $500,000. Meanwhile, the picture for the 25-to-34 age bracket is starkly different. Even before COVID hit, this generation was going backwards. Over that time frame, their wealth was already stagnating.
There is a myth out there that younger Australians somehow are to blame for their own failure to accumulate wealth or buy a home because they spend their money on travel and eating out—the famous smashed avocado on toast example. The problem with the smashed avocado story is it's not true. Figures compiled by the Grattan Institute show that 25- to 34-year-olds save as big a proportion of their disposable income as did their elders. The difference is that today their savings can't keep up with surging asset prices and they cannot get housing and other assets of their own until much later, if at all, because they cannot get secure work. Insecure work is the biggest driver of inequality in this country. Insecure work existed in the Australian labour market long before the COVID pandemic. The pandemic has shone a light on the consequences of insecure work for our entire society.
This government has a historic choice. They can bake in the inequality laid bare by the pandemic or they can begin to address it by tackling what has become a two-tiered labour market. The world of increasingly insecure work and the inequality it creates is what we'll leave our children if we don't take steps now. The Morrison government needs to start valuing work again from the point of view of working people—the role it plays in their dignity and power and the opportunity it gives to them and their families to gain real economic freedom.
If you don't think insecure work is a problem at the heart of the system of inequality in our economy, I urge you to consider these statistics. The Australian Bureau of Statistics' jobs figures announced last month showed that 111,000 net new jobs were created in August. The ABS was at pains to point out that nearly every single one of the 111,000 net new jobs was of self-employed staff, not normal employees. Two-thirds of these new jobs were part time. The conclusion that most economists, including Phil O'Donoghue from Deutsche Bank and Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute, are drawing from this is that most of the jobs were created in the gig economy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with short-term contract and gig work if you have rights. In many industries—including trucking, which I know very much about—small business contractors are the norm. At the Transport Workers Union I often used to say that our owner-driver members made us the largest small business organisation in the country, and it still stands. The problem with the gig economy is it is used as a cover for those who would pay people less than the minimum wage and strip basic protection from those hardworking Australians. This leads directly to a two-tiered workforce: one group without rights and one group that has rights to demand better conditions—a two-tiered system. Gig workers are often deliberately misclassified as the second group, as contractors who miss out on superannuation, sick leave and compensation for injuries while at work. The platforms, in many cases, have tried to create a legal vacuum where they can underpay workers below the minimum wage. Food delivery workers are earning $10 an hour less, with no paid leave. Rideshare workers can be fired from Uber with no recourse, even after working part time or full time with them for years.
Depending on how you measure it, the gig and contracting economy is about eight or nine per cent of the workforce and rising. The rapid emergence of digital platform employers like Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo, Airtasker et cetera has presented us with a new kind of challenge. A recent survey this month of delivery drivers found that 71 per cent of these workers were struggling to pay bills and buy groceries, and that 36 per cent had been hurt or injured on the job and 81 per cent of those workers didn't receive any support from their company—so 36 per cent hurt or injured and 81 per cent of those receiving no support from their company. Sixty-three per cent said they had been unfairly treated by the platforms, like having their account deleted without a chance to defend themselves. That's the Prime Minister's brave new world. It should not be the rest of the country's. The lack of even the most basic protections makes these workers incredibly vulnerable.
There could be some steps to address many of the issues that I've described and give us a path out of insecure work and, therefore, out of inequality. We need to fix our temporary migration system to stop employers using visa status as a means of exploiting migrant workers. We need to rethink the regulatory regime for labour hire. We need to invest in TAFE and universities to futureproof workplace skills. We need to be creative on the Commonwealth Procurement Rules and corporate procurement. These are the sorts of things that will make sure we have an equal economy—one that serves everybody.
Instead of investing in Australia's future, the Morrison government is choosing inequality and climate collapse in its federal budget. We know this because the billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies that have long plagued this government's budgets will still be there tonight. They've got this gas-led recovery that they're full steam ahead on, despite the massive impacts on farmland, groundwater, our climate and First Nations' land rights. It is full steam ahead for the government's corporate donors: their big mining mates, their millionaire mates, their lobbyist friends, their future employers.
Inequality will be turbocharged, because we know that about $5 a week of the tax cuts that are being brought forward—at the cost of, as the PBO says, roughly $28 billion—will end up in the pockets of people who earn less than $37,000. People who earn over $120,000 will get $50 a week. Are people on less than $37,000 meant to be happy with $5 a week? If this government has got $28 billion to splurge on tax cuts, why did it just cut JobSeeker and JobKeeper? They've just ripped 300 bucks a fortnight out of people's pockets and they're giving back $5 a week to low-income earners—and they're supposed to be happy with that?
This budget will turbocharge inequality, and it will also turbocharge gender inequality. We know that the COVID crisis has exposed and exacerbated existing structural gender inequalities and that women are fighting to maintain the progress that they've made in the past two decades, let alone move forward. According to the women's finance index, the pandemic has reversed two years of growth in women's full-time employment. For every month of COVID it has added another year to the time line for reaching gender wage parity. We're at 36 years now before we'll see gender pay parity. Women drawing down their superannuation accounts to make it through the pandemic, when this government let them down so badly with the proscriptions on JobSeeker and JobKeeper eligibility, will really struggle to rebuild their retirement savings. Some analysts have said that the early withdrawal of $20,000 now could mean $100,000 less in your retirement balance when you retire—with compound interest, of course.
On Equal Pay Day this year the Workplace Gender Equality Agency CEO, Libby Lyons, said that the gender pay gap rose two percentage points during the global financial crisis and took a decade to recover. We can't let that happen again. We can't afford another decade. The government's budget must invest to address inequality, and it must close the gender pay gap and the superannuation gap by permanently increasing JobSeeker and increasing wages in the lowest-paid industries—which, we know, are feminised. It must invest in the care economy rather than private construction, brown infrastructure and tax cuts for the rich. The Australia Institute has estimated that by investing in education and care you will create nine times as many jobs as you would in construction and manufacturing—not just more jobs for women but more jobs for blokes, too. So there are actually no downsides to doing that, but this government is just on its ideological war path.
We also want this government to invest in free child care to support parents and, in particular, women to return to the workforce. We had a taste of that; it was great—bring it back! And we want the government to give women a chance to rebuild their retirement savings by scrapping that $450 superannuation contribution threshold which means that low-income earners—predominantly women—don't actually get super contributions from their employers. And, of course, we want super to be paid on parental leave, as it should have been from the word go.
As predicted by women's services across the country, family and domestic violence has risen to epidemic levels during COVID and is expected to spike with ongoing economic insecurity during the recovery. As many as one in 10 women in relationships reported experiencing abuse during COVID, with half reporting that abuse had worsened and a third experiencing that violence for the first time. It is absolutely heartbreaking, and yet the meagre funding that's been provided by this mob has been too little and too slow. Just last week, they had the audacity to re-announce funding from February last year, which was already pitifully small, and tried to make out that this was some pre-budget drop. This was in the same week that Women's Legal Services told a Senate committee that they have to turn away 50 per cent of callers because their funding is not adequate. Women and children are trapped not only by violent partners but by an underfunded system that fails to offer support when they escape. Services are stretched: the supply of crisis and long-term housing falls well short of demand; child care remains unaffordable; and work is increasingly insecure.
We welcome the reinstatement of the time-use survey and the expanded reporting tools provided to WGEA, but data collection means little if it's not reflected in policy. The announcement of the Women's Economic Security Statement is welcome, but it's no replacement for a gender lens on the budget. We don't want funds for kitchen renovations, we want gender equality.
Instead of investing in Australia's future, the Morrison government is choosing inequality and climate collapse in its federal budget. The federal budget to be handed down tonight is many things. I'll start by saying that it's a real contradiction. After last year's big proclamation that we were back in the black, after years of highly misleading and incorrect assertions that surpluses are all the evidence we need of good economic management, we are staring down the barrel of an enormous deficit. The economic response to COVID-19 has involved a level of government spending completely unseen in modern Australian political history. The Liberal rule book was thrown out the window as the conservatives realised that they would actually have to spend money on people and support their incomes in order to get us through this pandemic.
Some of the response has been welcome. The Greens certainly welcome the coronavirus supplement and secured its extension to those on payments, including youth allowance. We fought to retain JobSeeker at the increased rate and also backed the continuation of the JobKeeper wage subsidy at the $1,500 level. But the Liberals could not wait to cut these payments back, and now we have JobSeeker cut by hundreds of dollars a fortnight and JobKeeper slashed and tiered. The projected deficit in this budget will be big, but it's not because the Liberals are spending what they should be on supporting ordinary people in what has been for many people one of the toughest times in their lives.
The centrepiece of this budget, handed down only seven months after our country was turned upside down by the pandemic, is going to be tax cuts. Tax cuts! These people really just can't help themselves. When they introduced their big tax cut package last year, this government said that the economy was doing so well that it was the perfect time to shrink the tax base and deliver these massive tax cuts that would overwhelmingly benefit higher-income earners. Now that we're in the midst of the biggest economic crisis in living memory, apparently it's an even more perfect time and so they want to bring them forward. If the economy is doing fine, we need the tax cuts; if the economy is in the toilet, we need the tax cuts. This budget is all ideology. It is a classic Liberal slash-and-burn number while maintaining an appearance of investment in public and social services.
This will also be a climate-denialist budget. It will be an utter failure when it comes to a green recovery. 'Coal and gas, coal and gas' is the mantra of this government. The government are pushing us down the cliff of climate collapse and inequality and are robbing young people and future generations of a hopeful future. Any budget that does not prioritise urgent cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and prioritise strong investment in renewables is a climate-denialist budget. While we have been locked down, completely changing up how we live and work in order to get through this pandemic safely, the climate crisis has carried on, and the Liberals and Nationals have their heads firmly in the sand, still. I will be reading the budget papers with great interest tonight, but I do not expect much from this cruel, climate-denying government.
The time for this discussion has now expired.
Senator Siewert, if Senator Rice is moving to take note, she will need your assistance or the assistance of Senator Waters.
) ( ): Thank you. I understand that Senator Rice would like to take note of the government response to the Environment and Communications References Committee interim report on Australia's faunal extinction crisis. I move:
That the Senate take note of the document.
[by video link] Yes, I do wish to speak to the government's response to the interim report of our Senate inquiry into Australia's faunal extinction crisis, because I am just so insulted and so disgusted by it. I speak on behalf of the hundreds of Australian animals, birds, fish, amphibian and reptile species whose very existence is hanging by a thread, and I speak on behalf of the more than 13,000 people and organisations who made submissions to this extinction inquiry. I will be their voice in this parliament when the government is ignoring them.
The government has chosen today, budget day, to reject the recommendations of the inquiry's interim report that I tabled 18 months ago in April last year. Our recommendations were very simple. We said that there should be new environmental legislation to replace the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, given how this legislation has so comprehensively failed to protect our wildlife, and that we should establish an independent environment protection authority with sufficient powers and funding to oversee compliance with Australia's environment laws.
The government in their response today merely noted the first of these recommendations and rejected the second. And in their response they have the audacity to talk about recommendations from Graeme Samuel's current review into our environment laws, while at the same time they are trying to ram legislation through this place before that review has even reported—legislation that is a carbon copy of the environment and climate destroying laws that Tony Abbott tried to introduce seven years ago. How insulting, how disgusting and how cynical of them to be tabling this response today, on budget day, when they are giving tax cuts to millionaires and giving yet more handouts to climate and environment-destroying multinational companies. They are doing this on budget day, when I can guarantee they will be announcing policies that are going to be turbocharging our extinction crisis and turbocharging our climate collapse, rather than taking action and investing the billions that they could be to address the existential threats to nature and to climate—and to create tens of thousands of jobs in doing so.
With regard to actions to protect our environment, I'm sure that the Treasurer tonight may throw a few crumbs to knock off a few feral cats, and achieve little else. Meanwhile, our precious wildlife will continue to hurtle towards extinction. It's not as if they don't know; they know that the actions of their government and governments before them are killing our wildlife—our koalas, our swift parrots, our Leadbeater's possum—and they do not care. They are in bed with their mates in the coal and gas industries and the mining companies and the native forest loggers, and they are wilfully ignoring the evidence that is laid out so clearly in front of their very eyes.
What's worse, this interim report that they are responding to today was written and tabled way back in April last year. It was before the election. It was before last summer's megafires—before the burning of a full fifth of our mainland forests and before the deaths of an estimated three billion animals in the fires. That's 120 animals for each and every one of us—each and every person in Australia. Imagine that every one of us had 120 dead animals around us in a circle to mourn for. And those deaths, of course, were on top of the existing crisis.
How does the government respond in the midst of this crisis? They want to make the crisis worse. The Tony Abbott legislation that they are trying to ram through, far from strengthening our environment laws, is going to hand over power to the states, unwinding federal responsibility that has existed for the last 30 years. Our two simple recommendations—for new laws and for an independent EPA, an environment watchdog with teeth—are backed by the overwhelming majority of people who have any insight or expertise in protecting our precious wildlife and who know what needs to happen to halt our extinction crisis.
Our report laid out, in heart-wrenching detail, the current state of our precious wildlife. Some quotes from the report make it clear that 'Australia has one of the world's worst records for the extinction of and lack of protection for threatened fauna and is ranked second in the world for ongoing biodiversity loss' and that eastern Australia is 'one of only 11 regions of the world undergoing high deforestation, and the only one in a developed country'. Australia is now a global deforestation hot spot, standing next to places like the Amazon and Indonesia for deforestation. The koala is now on the brink of extinction in many regions of Queensland and heading for extinction in New South Wales within decades. About a hundred million native birds, reptiles and animals were killed because of the destruction of their habitat in New South Wales in just seven years to 2005. This is a crisis that is unfolding before our very eyes, and it's not like the pressures that are driving these events are abating or diminishing. In fact, they're ramping up. What's even worse is that there are large numbers of other species, poorly known but imperilled, that are at risk of extinction but are not protected, because we know so little about them.
Our report said about our existing laws:
Extinction rates are accelerating because the underlying causes are not being addressed effectively by Australian governments, communities and industries, and laws and policies meant to protect against loss of species are not adequately implemented … or often subsidiary in decision-making to development legislation …
It also said:
Small initiatives and limited investment are insufficient to fully address a legacy of land clearing combined with growing pressure from population growth, expanding development, invasive species and climate change.
This matters. The report says:
… the 'loss and decline of threatened species … have potential ecological domino effects on other species and communities' …
They include:
…reduction in species for pollination and seed/fruit dispersal, and loss of environmental engineers, for example mammals that burrow and dig.
In WA, for example, 'the critically endangered woylie turns over large volumes of soil, dispersing seeds and fungi, improving water filtration and nutrient cycling and plant regeneration, and it reduces fire risk by lowering leaf litter loads'. Professor Wintle, from the Threatened Species Recovery Hub, put it beautifully:
Species have a right to exist, and the loss of species degrades our society. We have a responsibility to pass on to future generations the wondrous natural heritage that we've been so fortunate to inherit …
The ACF commented:
Extinction events can have profound cultural implications. There are deep connections between Indigenous culture and custom and Australia's wildlife. Extinction events break these connections.
The problem is stark, and the evidence of what we need to do to fix the problem is equally stark yet denied by this government.
The conclusions that we reached in our interim report after hearing all this heartbreaking evidence were clear. We need new, strong environment laws, or our extinction crisis is just going to get worse, and we need an independent watchdog with teeth, with sufficient power and funding to oversee compliance with stronger laws. Yet in the 18 months since we put these recommendations forward the government has just slapped us in the face. Prime Minister Morrison, you and your environment-and-wildlife-destroying government that gives tax cuts to millionaires, that props up coal and gas companies and that gives the green light to climate collapse are on notice. Australians care about our wildlife, and they will not take this lying down. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Senator Siewert, was Senator Rice seeking leave to continue her remarks later?
Yes, she was.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
In respect of the government response to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee report Feasibility of a national horse traceability register for all horses, I move:
That the Senate take note of the document.
The Australian government delivered its response to the Senate inquiry into the feasibility of a national horse traceability register last month. The response agreed with or agreed in part with most of the 18 recommendations of the committee, including the establishment of a national horse traceability working group to progress the design, the development and the implementation of a national register. However, the government is distancing itself from the key ask of the federal government taking on this responsibility, showing leadership and driving the establishment of a national horse traceability register.
I pushed for the establishment of the inquiry in early 2019 after learning more about some heartbreaking events. From Juliana and Mark Waugh, I learnt more about the tragic loss of their 18-year-old daughter, Sarah, in a preventable horse-riding incident at Dubbo TAFE in 2009. They have worked nonstop since then to improve rider safety. Their work has resulted in safety codes to regulate riding in New South Wales. But they have also been arguing for a national horse traceability register for safety, and also for the good of the horse industry. And it's not just them. I can't actually think of an inquiry where stakeholders have been more aligned in wanting something to happen, and unified in what it should be. And they want the federal government to show leadership. Everyone from Racing Australia and Australian Harness Racing to horse breeding societies, farming peak bodies, biosecurity bodies, the Australian Veterinary Association, animal welfare organisations and the police understand the need for a national register and are in favour of one.
While the inquiry was going on, we saw the shocking expose on ABC that revealed the extent of the cruelty and animal abuse. We know that race horses are thrown on the abattoir and knackery scrap heaps to meet a terrible fate when they are no longer profitable. Evidence the committee heard showed us that a birth-to-death national horse traceability register would have significant biosecurity and safety benefits; it would improve animal welfare and prevent animal cruelty through more transparency and accountability. Of course, the horseracing industry should also take moral responsibility for the whole-of-life care of the thousands of animals that they breed for gambling and racing. There should be breeding caps and a dignified retirement plan for every single horse.
It has now been close to a year since the committee reported, and eight months have passed since the working group was announced. When the government's response was tabled, the working group had not been established, let alone met. Finally, yesterday, we saw a media release from the Victorian Minister for Agriculture announcing the establishment of the working group and advising that it would meet for the first time later this month. This is certainly a welcome development. Let's be clear though: the states and territories have an important role to play in the establishment of a register, but this is no reason for the federal government to distance itself from a national register and from this issue. A national register requires national leadership. The federal minister needs to be part of and to drive this process. No-one wants to see this report gather dust in Minister Littleproud's office. The government needs to start work immediately. The community wants real action on safety and biosecurity and on animal welfare, and it is really time to get this done. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the report.
I'm pleased to speak to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights 11th scrutiny report of 2020, which was presented out of session on 24 September 2020. As usual, this report contains a technical examination of legislation with Australia's obligations under international human law. It sets out the committee's consideration of 32 bills introduced into the parliament between 24 August and 3 September 2020 and 63 legislative instruments registered on the Federal Register of Legislation between 28 July and 11 August 2020.
The committee is seeking further information in relation to six bills and one instrument. For example, the committee seeks further information about the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2020. This bill would establish an extended supervision order scheme for high-risk terrorist offenders who have completed their custodial sentence or have been subject to a continuing detention order. It would enable a court to impose any conditions on a person which it was satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, were reasonably necessary, reasonably appropriate and adapted for the purposes of protecting the community from the unacceptable risk of the person committing a terrorism offence. This could include requiring that the person remain at specified premises. It would also enable evidence to be withheld from the offender, but still used against them, as well triggering monitoring powers under other acts.
The committee notes that an extended supervision order scheme may protect the public from harmful acts and so promote the right to life and security of the person. The committee also notes that these measures engage, and may limit, other human rights. For example, the committee seeks further information with respect to several human rights which may be permissibly limited where a limitation is prescribed by law, pursues a legitimate objective, is effective to achieve that objective and proportionate.
The committee also seeks information about the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Economic Disruption) Bill 2020. This bill seeks to introduce new offences which would apply absolute liability and reverse the legal burden of proof which engages the right to be presumed innocent. The bill also provides that undercover operatives may question children suspected of committing an offence without first allowing the child to communicate with a parent or guardian, which engages the rights of the child. The committee is seeking further information in relation to these and other matters in the bill.
I think it is important to reiterate that the committee has not reached a concluded view as to these bills' compliance with human rights law where the committee seeks a response or further response from the relevant minister. The committee is seeking information as to whether particular limitations on rights which have been identified are permissible as a matter of international human rights law. Most rights can be properly limited if it is demonstrated that the limitation is reasonable, necessary and proportionate. I encourage all parliamentarians to carefully consider the committee's analysis. With these comments I commend the committee's report No. 11 of 2020 to the chamber.
Question agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That Senator McDonald be granted leave of absence for the period 6 October 2020 to 8 October 2020, for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
I table documents relating to the order for the production of documents concerning Centrelink's compliance program.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the documents.
What we saw here today in the tabling of the documents by the minister was again the government trying to cover up the robodebt scandal. Throughout the public outcry, the Senate inquiry, a flood of AAT court cases and a class action, it has said, 'Nothing to see here.' That's what the government has said: 'Nothing to see here. The system is working as intended.' The Morrison government has attempted to stifle questioning of its decision-making around the biggest social security scandal committed by a government against its people. That's what it's done: it has attempted to stifle questioning of its decision-making around the biggest social security scandal committed by a government against its people.
They have put robots in the Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee's Centrelink compliance program inquiry, in the form of the public interest immunity claims. We saw it again today, and we will continue to see it from this government.
Debate interrupted.
Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 20:30
I table the following documents:
The Budget 2020-21—Statement by the Treasurer (Mr Frydenberg), dated 6 October 2020.
Budget papers—
No. 1—Budget strategy and outlook.
No. 2—Budget measures.
No. 3—Federal financial relations.
No. 4—Agency resourcing.
Ministerial statement—Growing a strong and resilient regional Australia—Statement by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development (Mr McCormack), dated 6 October 2020.
I seek leave to move a motion relating to the documents.
Leave granted.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the statement and documents.
When I tabled my first budget statement in the Senate, it had been a longstanding convention that budget statements were tabled at 8 pm. As Treasurers of both political persuasions were stretching out the half-hour that the budget debate was meant to take, it was difficult to do because we had to leave the Treasurer's speech early, so we delayed it from 8 pm to 8.30 pm. And tonight there's another innovation, as I'm making a brief contribution as I table the statements. You have to keep the innovation going.
For every one of our first six budgets, a key budget message was a focus on the importance of our budget repair efforts to underpin our strength and resilience in the face of any global economic headwinds that may come our way. No-one expected a storm of the magnitude Australia and the world had to confront this year, but the hard work we did as a nation during our first six years in government put us in a strong position to do what needed to be done when the pandemic and the COVID recession hit.
The budget the Treasurer has delivered, and which I have just tabled in the Senate tonight, is our plan to get Australia out of the COVID recession. It's a plan for hope and opportunity, and it is our plan for jobs: to keep saving jobs; to restore the jobs that we lost; to create as many new jobs across the economy as possible. As we set out to grow out of this COVID recession, private sector businesses across Australia will be the key to the jobs recovery and jobs growth our economy needs and which our budget needs. That's why, in this budget, most of the fiscal support is aimed at giving businesses the confidence to invest in their future growth and success, because genuinely viable, profitable and growing businesses will hire more Australians, and those Australians will pay more in income tax, while fewer will have to rely on income support.
Let me make a number of observations about our fiscal position, as reflected in this budget. It is self-evidently a challenging fiscal position. It is not the fiscal position we expected to be reporting on in this budget this time last year, but, when the crisis hit, we had the fiscal firepower to deal with it. We're now facing significant deficits and, for Australia, historically significant levels of debt. Our deficit is expected to peak at 11 per cent of GDP this financial year, before falling to 1.6 per cent of GDP at the end of the medium term. Net debt is expected to peak just below 44 per cent, while gross debt is increasing, before stabilising at around 55 per cent of GDP. While this is higher than we're used to, it remains sustainable and it remains low compared with most advanced economies globally, particularly in this current global economic context. That sustainability will also be assisted by historically low interest rates.
As I've said in this chamber, and on various occasions before, we all know why we're here. We're firstly here because of the fiscal impact of the COVID recession on our tax receipts and our welfare payments. We're also here because of the fiscal impact of the policy measures we had to put in place to support our health system, to cushion the blow on the economy and on jobs, and now to facilitate the strongest possible recovery moving forward. Just based on parameter variations—not policy decisions by government but parameter variations—tax receipts are down by $41.6 billion and payments are up by $18.9 billion in the 2020-21 financial year alone. Over the forward estimates, tax receipts are down by a whopping $227 billion and payments are up by $47.8 billion. Again, none of that was based on decisions of government but because of parameter variations driven by the economic impact of the COVID recession on tax receipts and welfare payments. Importantly, the fiscal impact of our deliberate policy decisions to provide fiscal support is very much temporary. I commend to my colleagues and to the chamber Budget Paper No. 1, page 3-30, which has a graph which illustrates that very well. You can see the temporary nature of the fiscal support and how the payments trajectory pretty well is aligned and goes back to what it was expected to be in MYEFO 2019-20, before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
To illustrate that point: average annual real growth in payments over the four years from 2020-21 is expected to be just 1.7 per cent per annum. That is actually very low by historical standards and might at first blush appear to be counterintuitive, but, somewhat uniquely, in this budget real payments growth is highly variable across the forward estimates years. This reflects the temporary nature of the policy decisions we made in response to the COVID recession, with especially significant investments in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years. The combined effect of the economic impact and the impact of policy decisions on our payments in this financial year, 2020-21, is expected to lead to real growth in payments of 22.6 per cent, the highest, certainly, since 1970-71, which is how far back the time series published in the budget paper goes. However, this is followed by a real reduction in payments of 17.5 per cent in 2021-22 and a further 0.6 per cent real reduction in payments in 2022-23. As the economy recovers and temporary support measures are gradually withdrawn, the level of payments is expected to continue to decline from the peak in 2020-21 and over the medium term and broadly return to levels projected in the 2019-20 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. This very much demonstrates the targeted and time-limited nature of the government's response to the pandemic and the resulting COVID recession.
Finally, let me finish my brief remarks where I started. This budget is our plan to get Australia out of the COVID recession. It is our plan for jobs. Jobs restored and more new jobs created by genuinely viable, profitable businesses are what our economy needs and what our budget needs. It's what will give Australians hope and the opportunity to get ahead, and it will ensure we can restore our public finances and continue to guarantee the essential services Australians rely on.
Debate adjourned.
I table the following documents:
Particulars of proposed expenditure in respect of the year ending on 30 June 2021.
Particulars of certain proposed expenditure in respect of the year ending on 30 June 2021.
Particulars of proposed expenditure in relation to the parliamentary departments in respect of the year ending on 30 June 2021.
I seek leave to move a motion to refer the documents to legislation committees.
Leave granted.
I move:
That the documents be referred to committees for examination and report.
Question agreed to.
I table portfolio budget statements for 2020-21 for the Department of the Senate, the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Department of Parliamentary Services.
I table portfolio budget statements for 2020-21 for portfolios and executive departments as listed on the Dynamic Red.
The list read as follows—
Estimates of proposed expenditure for 2020-21—Portfolio budget statements—Portfolios and executive departments—
Agriculture, Water and the Environment portfolio.
Attorney-General’s portfolio.
Defence portfolio.
Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Education, Skills and Employment portfolio.
Finance portfolio.
Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio.
Health portfolio.
Home Affairs portfolio.
Industry, Science, Energy and Resources portfolio.
Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications portfolio.
Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio.
Social Services portfolio.
Treasury portfolio.
These bills are being introduced together. After debate on the motion for the second reading has been adjourned, I shall move a motion to have the bills listed separately on the Notice Paper. I move:
That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a first time.
I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speeches read as follows—
DEFENCE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (ENHANCEMENT OF DEFENCE FORCE RESPONSE TO EMERGENCIES) BILL 2020
I am pleased to introduce the Defence Legislation Amendment (Enhancement of Defence Force Response to Emergencies) Bill 2020.
We have seen through last summer's bushfire emergency and through the COVID-19 pandemic that Defence is a critical element of the national response to crises.
This Bill will enhance Defence's ability to respond to natural disasters and other civil emergencies.
The amendments in this Bill will streamline the process to call out the Reserves enabling a more timely Defence contribution to national efforts.
The changes will also provide Defence personnel with immunities, similar to their state and territory emergency services counterparts, when performing duties in good faith to support disaster preparedness, recovery and response.
And the amendments will ensure that Reserve members who serve under a call out order will receive commensurate superannuation to those Reservists who provide the same service on a voluntary basis.
The changes will enable more flexible service options for Reservists and will improve the consistency in the treatment of Reserve members, regardless of whether they have volunteered their service or have been called out to serve.
Schedule 1 amends the Defence Act 1903 to streamline the process by which advice is provided to the Governor-General regarding a call out of the Reserves, including for the purposes of responding to natural disasters or emergencies.
The Bill will allow the Governor-General to act on the advice of the Minister for Defence, after consultation with the Prime Minister, in all circumstances – not just for reasons of urgency.
This will streamline the process for calling out the Reserves enabling a more timely and effective Defence response to national disasters.
Preserving the power of the Governor-General to call out the ADF Reserves will ensure decisions of this magnitude will only be taken when absolutely warranted by the circumstances.
Additionally, the changes provide the Chief of the Defence Force the delegation to determine the nature and period of Reserve service provided under a call out order.
This will give the Chief of the Defence Force the flexibility needed to integrate the Reservists into the overall Defence response.
Minor consequential amendments to the Defence Reserve Service (Protection) Act 2001 will ensure that Reserve members will continue to receive the existing protections when called to duty by a call out order.
Schedule 2 will amend the Defence Act 1903 to provide immunities to those Defence personnel supporting disaster preparedness, recovery and response efforts.
The immunity provision covers assistance directed by the Minister for Defence where the Minister is satisfied that:
a. the nature or scale of the natural disaster or other emergency makes it necessary – for the benefit of the nation – for the Commonwealth, through use of the ADF's or Department's special capabilities or available resources, to provide the assistance; and/or
b. the assistance is necessary for the protection of Commonwealth agencies, Commonwealth personnel or Commonwealth property.
This will see our Defence personnel being provided with immunity from civil and criminal liability when they are performing their required emergency response duties in good faith, similar to the immunities provided to state and territory emergency services personnel.
Schedule 3 will make amendments to the Military Superannuation and Benefits Act 1991, the Australian Defence Force Superannuation Act 2015, and the Australian Defence Force Cover Act 2015.
These amendments will ensure Reserve members who provide continuous full time service under a call out order will receive commensurate superannuation and related benefits to those Reservists who provide the same service on a voluntary basis.
These amendments provide greater flexibility in a call out of the Reserves; enable greater consistency in the treatment of our Reserves; and ensure that our Defence personnel have appropriate legal protections when serving our nation in good faith.
I commend the Bill.
ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AMENDMENT (STREAMLINING ENVIRONMENTAL APPROVALS) BILL 2020
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is Australia's central piece of environmental law, governing environmental approvals, threatened species conservation, wildlife trade, world and national heritage protection.
The Morrison Government is committed to modernising Australia's environmental law so that it is fit to address future environmental and economic challenges. The EPBC Act is now 20 years old and it has never been more important to ensure it provides the right protection for our environment while also supporting our economy and the livelihoods of everyday Australians.
This Bill is the first tranche of EPBC Act reforms linked to the independent statutory review of the Act, which is only the second 10-yearly review since the Act commenced in 1999.
This Bill, the EPBC Amendment (Streamlining Environmental Approvals) Bill 2020, demonstrates the Government's commitment to lead in terms of jobs, investment, growth and certainty and transparency when it comes to environmental assessments and approvals.
The Bill streamlines environmental approvals under the EPBC Act by removing duplication with state and territory processes. It does this by ensuring the legally robust devolution of environmental approvals to the states and territories.
These reforms are the first step towards implementing the National Cabinet decision of 24 July 2020, where all states and territories agreed in principle to adopt reforms to move towards a single-touch approach.
Bilateral agreements will be underpinned by strong Commonwealth-led national environmental standards.
The interaction between Commonwealth and state and territory environmental laws leads to duplication in approval processes. It adds unnecessary regulatory burden for businesses which delays job-creating projects and impedes economic activity, and creates uncertainty around environmental protections.
The original design of the EPBC Act envisaged the use of approval bilateral agreements to foster greater cooperation in environmental approvals between the Commonwealth, states and territories.
The Minister for the Environment has issued notices of intent under the EPBC Act and the Government is currently working with all states and territories to enter into approval bilateral agreements to deliver a single-touch approval system. Once in effect, states and territories will be able to make approval decisions that account for both state matters and matters of national environmental significance at the Commonwealth level.
The reforms put forward today provide for the efficient and enduring operation of approval bilateral agreements.
The amendments set out in the Bill will ensure there is no unnecessary duplication, by putting beyond doubt that an action that is covered by an approval bilateral agreement is not required to be referred under the EPBC Act.
Approval bilateral agreements will enable the Commonwealth to 'call-in' an action for approval in appropriate circumstances, including where adequate environmental protection is not being achieved. If this occurs, or if a bilateral agreement is suspended or cancelled, the amendments ensure that projects can be picked up from where they left off. This provides a clear pathway for approval processes and means projects do not have to be sent back to the starting line.
Other amendments in the Bill provide greater flexibility in the type of state and territory environmental approval processes that can be accredited. This recognises states and territories have set up their systems to best reflect their individual circumstances.
In addition, the amendments will facilitate the continuous improvement of state and territory processes, ensuring that those processes can be updated to reflect the latest science and best practice approaches to environmental management.
Today we are taking a major step forward. This is the first tranche of EPBC reform but there is more important work to be done.
Professor Graeme Samuel is consulting on his interim report and will deliver his final recommendations to Government in October on how we can improve the effectiveness of the Act across the wide range of areas it regulates.
The result for the community from this Bill will be a more streamlined and clear process than what currently exists, providing greater certainty around environmental protections.
People want to know we have clear safeguards for protecting the environment. Business wants to know the parameters in which it can responsibly operate. And Government needs to be reassured it is managing an efficient process of environmental checks and balances for future generations.
These reforms will unlock job-creating projects that will strengthen the economy and aid our COVID-19 economic recovery, without compromising Australia's unique environment.
Debate adjourned.
Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.
I have received letters requesting changes in the membership of committees.
by leave—I move:
That senators be discharged from and appointed to committees as follows:
Corporations and Financial Services—Parliamentary Joint Committee
Discharged—
Senator Whish-Wilson
Appointed—
Senator McKim
Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology—Select Committee
Appointed—
Participating member: Senator McKim
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade—Joint Standing Committee
Appointed—
Senator Rice
Foreign Interference through Social Media—Select Committee
Appointed—
Senator Hanson-Young
Participating member: Senator Rice
Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation and References Committees
Discharged—
Senator McKim
Appointed—
Senator Thorpe
Participating member: Senator McKim
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights
Discharged—
Senator McKim
Appointed—
Senator Thorpe
Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation and References Committees
Discharged—
Senator Rice
Appointed—
Senator Thorpe
Participating member: Senator Rice.
Question agreed to.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan inaugurated 15 October as national Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It has been observed ever since. Tasmania and some other states recognise it as well. It might be time for us to consider doing so on a national basis.
Those of us blessed with the gift of children will know the joy and fulfilment they bring. Those of us that have experienced the devastation of a miscarriage will know the heartbreak and shattering of dreams that such an event brings in its wake. The loss of a later term child or a stillbirth or death shortly after birth must be indescribably heartbreaking. In recognition of this the stillborn baby payment is offered by the federal government. This payment is equivalent to the sum of the newborn supplement and newborn upfront payment. So far, so good.
In June 2019, I was alerted to a Devonport lady, Mrs Vicki Purnell, doing wonderful charity work known as Bridie's Blossoms and Blessings. This is a self-funded project in Tasmania, the founder making clothing, layettes, quilts and keepsake packages and gifting them to families who experience the tragedy of stillbirth and miscarriage. It was for this wonderful work that Mrs Purnell was rightly awarded the Tasmanian Local Hero Award in the 2019 Australian of the Year awards.
In writing to congratulate her on her recognition, Mrs Purnell responded by drawing attention to the fact that earlier in that year she had come across a family with limited financial resources which had experienced the unthinkable tragedy of having a second stillborn child. In their devastation, they discovered that they were entitled to a lesser sum of money than they were previously for the bizarrest of all reasons—namely, it was not their first stillborn child. This family of limited means was forced to take out a personal loan to make up the shortfall of the funeral expenses to farewell their baby with love, dignity and respect. It begged the question in Mrs Purnell's mind—as it did in mine, when I learned about this inequity—as to why this inequity existed. Surely we can all be agreed that parents are not in the habit of giving birth to stillborn babies in order to have a financial gain. It of course costs no less to confront a second stillborn child than it does a first. There appeared no justifiable public policy rationale for this situation.
Mrs Purnell advocated against this glaring inconsistency in the Centrelink benefit and asked that it be rectified. It was my privilege to take up this cause with the Minister for Families and Social Services. On becoming aware of this, the minister requested further information from her department to consider whether there could be a way forward. In tonight's budget that inequity was rectified. There was a way forward. I have no doubt that other funding matters will take precedence in the reporting of tonight's budget and grab the headlines—as, in fairness, they quite rightly ought. Nevertheless, I believe that the remedying of this inequity because of the advocacy of Mrs Purnell is worthy of mention and celebration. It shows many good things about our democracy: an individual with a concern can raise it with a local representative, who can elevate it to the ministerial and, then, cabinet level, which in turn sees it incorporated in a budget. Our democracy, for all its perceived failings, does work and is effective.
Individuals like Mrs Purnell can make a difference and change the federal budget. Because of Mrs Purnell, tonight's budget—with all its difficulties, with all its concerns for the future—has resolved an inequity and will, I am sure, make life easier for many people in the future who suffer the tragedy of more than one stillborn child. It was a privilege to advocate for the change. The minister deserves our appreciation for effecting the change. More importantly, congratulations to Mrs Purnell for alerting the government to the inequity, enabling its rectification. Many mothers in particular will be grateful to Tasmania's 2019 local hero, Vicki Purnell, for her efforts.
On 25 September the government cut the COVID supplement by $300 a fortnight, thereby dropping more than 1.8 million people on income support below the poverty line. This cut means that four in five people on JobSeeker will now be forced to skip meals and almost half of all JobSeeker recipients will be forced to ration their medication. Despite this, the government hasn't done any modelling or looked at the impacts that cutting the COVID supplement will have on people in our community.
I asked the community what the COVID supplement cut, during a recession, would mean to them. I've been overwhelmed with responses from people sharing their experiences of how this cut will impact them and their families. Because the government wouldn't even take the time to measure how the cuts to JobSeeker would impact our community, I thought it was important that I share what I've learned from people. These are people's experiences and concerns that they've raised with me. One person said: 'Because we have a mortgage and are not renting, we don't get rent assistance. We are both over 55 and probably won't work again. It's likely that we will lose our home. It means that I can't afford my prescriptions or specialist visits. I need dental work but can't afford that either. I have a back injury and an autoimmune disease, but I'm not considered disabled enough to qualify for the disability support pension.'
Another person said: 'I accessed my super so I could escape an abusive relationship. I used it to pay a bond and six months rent. I live alone, and the rent is $620 a fortnight. I also need to pay for electricity, my phone, gas and food. JobSeeker simply isn't enough for me to survive on.'
Another person said: 'After paying all my electricity bills, I have $40 a week for food and fuel. I have tried to find a job since I lost mine in March and have had no luck—not even grocery stores will accept me. Not working is not through lack of trying. There are now hundreds of other people going for the same positions. Because I'm a student at the same time, nobody will give me a second look, because it could impact my availability.' 'I am a 61-year-old woman with a bachelor degree in social sciences. I highly doubt I will re-enter the workforce again. Employment depends not only on someone's experience and qualifications but very much on discrimination by age, gender, marital status, ability or disability. I very often feel discriminated against and pushed into poverty for reasons that are beyond my control. I have no idea how I'm going to survive on JobSeeker now that it has been reduced by $300 a fortnight.' 'I will struggle to afford rent along with medications for my mental health. One of the bills I will struggle to pay is my private health insurance. I have it because I am trying to receive the best treatment for my mental ill health so I can work again. I'm terrified that I'll have to go back to food parcels and not be able to eat well to stay healthy. I need a higher rate of JobSeeker for a little bit longer while I receive my treatment so I will be able to work again.'
These are just some of the experiences of people who have shared their accounts with me. What this clearly shows is that, despite the government's buzzwords, we are not 'all in this together'. We are simply not—if the government hasn't even bothered to look at the impact of cutting the coronavirus supplement. I can already hear the government yelling, 'We didn't cut it.' Yes, you did. You cut the money that goes into someone's pocket. These experiences outline how it's going to impact people. Magnify those accounts that I've just outlined by the 1.8 million people who have suffered a $300 cut per fortnight while we're still in a pandemic situation, while we are in recession. People will lose their homes. They will be living in poverty. In and of itself, poverty is a barrier to employment. This isn't good enough. We need a permanent increase to JobSeeker.
I rise tonight to speak regarding the enduring plight of the Uighur people of East Turkestan, sometimes referred to as Xinjiang, at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. The Uighur people are the original inhabitants of the Xinjiang region and have a rich history and culture that dates back thousands of years.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute recently launched the Xinjiang data project, which details the CCP's detention systems and cultural destruction in Xinjiang. The ASPI has identified 380 sites, including re-education camps, detention centres and prisons, many of which have been built or expanded since 2017. The ASPI also estimates that approximately 16,000 mosques across Xinjiang have been destroyed or damaged since 2017.
In July 2020, Foreign Policy magazine exposed the horrific realities that take place in these detention facilities, including allegations of abuse, torture, rape, murder, people being subjected to electrocution and injections of an unknown substance.
According to the ASPI, a new facility was opened in January 2020. It's surrounded by a 14-metre-high wall with a 10-metre-high watchtower at various points along the wall. It contains 13 residential buildings—each five storeys tall—totalling 100,000 square metres of space and capable of housing 10,000 people.
The plan runs deeper than simply targeting the current Uighur population. It involves the prevention of their future populations, and reports have now emerged of the CCP using birth control methods to reduce the fertility of the population, including sterilisation and forced insertion of intrauterine devices to prevent pregnancy. This has had the effect of dropping the birth rates in the Xinjiang region by 24 per cent last year and 60 to 80 per cent decreases in population growth in highly populated Uighur areas. At a conference recently in Xinjiang, President Xi explained that it was necessary to educate Xinjiang's population on an understanding of the Chinese nation and guide 'all ethnic groups on establishing a correct perspective on the country, history and nationality'. He added that this is 'completely correct' and should be a long-term approach.
The Australian government has consistently called for China to end the arbitrary detention of Uighur people. These actions are completely at odds with Australian values. South Australia is home to a large Uighur community to whom these matters are extremely important, as they are to Australians more broadly. The South Australian Xinjiang association is a community based organisation in my home state. It's difficult to find much information in relation to the South Australian Xinjiang association and, unfortunately, it appears difficult to locate a street address, a registered office, an email address or even a phone number. It's with this in mind that I reviewed their Facebook page to see if they had made any statements regarding the treatment of Uighur people in the region which they represent. Despite their logo showing two hands shaking combined with what seems to be Mandarin symbols and Uighur-Arabic script, there appears to be no mention made of the matters I referred to earlier.
Last week in Adelaide's Advertiser newspaper, the South Australian Xinjiang association was quoted as saying:
Our association is not in any way linked to the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department … Our association's role is to provide community and social activities to support migrants and their families from Xinjiang as well as the broader Australian-Chinese community.
With that in mind, I have no doubt that an expression of condemnation by this organisation in relation to the treatment of Uighur people by the CCP would be much valued and of significant support to the local Uighur community. As a consequence of same, tonight I call upon the South Australian Xinjiang association to make a public statement condemning the treatment of the Uighur people of Xinjiang. When a point of contact can be established, I will be writing to that association in those terms. The Uighur people deserve this simple act of support.
I rise to tell the stories of two food delivery workers who lost their lives in Sydney in the past fortnight. These two workers represent a group of workers forgotten by this government. On Sunday 27 September, Dede Fredy died following a cash with a car in Marrickville three days earlier while working for Uber Eats. He leaves behind his wife and family in Indonesia. On 29 September, Xiaojun Chen died in a crash with a bus in Zetland while working for Hungry Panda. He was working in Australia and financially supporting his wife, two children and their grandparents back home in China. He leaves behind his dependent family, now unable to make ends meet without the money that he was sending home. Xiaojun's wife is now urgently seeking a visa to come to Australia to collect the body of her husband and grieve for him. The deaths are tragedies to their families and friends. Their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children are now deprived of their loved ones by an industry that looks the other way on safety, cares nothing about the pressure it places on its workers and neglects to fulfil its obligations to them. Too often these deaths are not reported to the relevant agency, as their companies view the drivers as contractors. I, along with the Transport Workers Union, am calling for SafeWork NSW to investigate these cases and the companies involved and to clarify what obligations must be placed on their employers.
For too long, our federal parliament has sat idly by while the future of work has well and truly arrived. No longer the sharing economy—its supporters like to trumpet—this has become the gig or on-demand economy in which workers sit anxiously by an app waiting for the next pay cheque. Just like the Hungry Mile of the Depression, you can walk the busy streets of any commercial area in our capital cities and see tens of people with helmets and bikes queuing and checking their phones, waiting for a job to be given to them. A recent survey of food-delivery riders and drivers found that more than 70 per cent were struggling to pay their bills and pay for groceries. A third of them had been hurt or injured while working, whilst the vast majority receive no support from their employer. Eighty-eight per cent had seen their delivery payments decrease over the time they had worked in the industry. One rider said: 'We are hardly making $10 an hour. Please help us.'
The coalition has sought too long to ignore the problems of the gig economy and simply hope to reap the benefits. These politicians have championed innovation while ignoring the growing electronic hungry mile of many desperate workers, working too many hours for too little pay, putting their safety at risk for the sake of making ends meet. While we fail to regulate these new forms of work, the benefits of convenience for this industry will never outweigh the cost to our society. Our laws have become hopelessly out of step with the changes in our economy.
It's not just employees who need rights. All workers need rights. Companies are increasingly dreaming up new ways to shirk their responsibility to their workers, using technology to allocate work to supposed contractors, whilst denying their rights to bargain, to set their own wages or to own their own data. The gig economy has become just another loophole for companies to fit through. Just like reducing their tax obligations through creative accounting, they evade their industrial obligations through creative software.
This parliament must act to grant workers' rights, irrespective of whether they are a part-time, full-time or casual employee, or a contractor. If you are a worker, you should have rights—working rights, rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association and representation. The rights of employees should include all workers. Our tribunals should be given the power to inspect and intervene in all emerging forms of work to protect all workers. It is for the family and friends of Dede Fredy and Xiaojun Chen that we take up this fight.
Last week I visited Port Stephens to meet with community members who have been raising the plight of koalas in the area, in particular the destruction of 52 hectares of prime koala habitat for expanding the Brandy Hill quarry. Thank you to Brandy Hill & Seaham Action Group, Port Stephens Koalas, EcoNetwork and countless people who have been campaigning with passion, with commitment and with resilience to save our irreplaceable wildlife. They are rightly concerned about the irreversible loss of koala habitat and koalas in this area if this mine expansion is allowed to go ahead.
In New South Wales, at least 5,000 koalas died in the climate-induced bushfires earlier this year. Since the Liberal-National government in New South Wales introduced their land-clearing laws, under which 99 per cent of koala habitat can be chopped down, we have seen a 13-fold increase in land-clearing approvals. Even before these disastrous laws, koala populations had already shrunk by one-quarter over 20 years, according to the New South Wales chief scientist. We are sitting on a time bomb here. Koalas are facing extinction by 2050 if we don't take urgent action.
My fear is that, if we continue on this trajectory, our next generation will not see any koalas in the wild, in the bush, in our national parks. The only koalas that they might see will be in a zoo or a museum. That would be devastating. An Australia without koalas; that doesn't even bear thinking about. But not only must we think about it, we must do everything possible to prevent it. That's why it is crucial that the federal Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, rejects the proposal to expand the Brandy Hill Quarry. She has the power to do something good here. This is the time to stand up for the environment, not against it, in contrast to the reckless, irresponsible New South Wales government, which fast-tracked the approval of the quarry expansion a couple of months ago, knowing full well that it will affect koalas and other endangered species such as the grey-headed flying fox.
The Port Stephens koalas are at high risk of local extinction. The koala survey report completed on behalf of the developer found that the project would result in a significant impact to the koalas. A recent assessment of the impact of the quarry expansion on the koala and its habitat, undertaken by experts from the University of Newcastle, found koalas breeding within one kilometre of the current quarry boundary. Expansion of the site will be a disaster for koalas, as it will destroy critical habitat. No amount of biodiversity offsetting can bring back habitat that has been destroyed. Offsetting is a total and complete scam. Once a critical habitat is gone, it's gone forever. We also know that there's no quality assurance process and no appropriate system to map offsets and that offsets for some matters of national environmental significance are increasingly not possible due to lack of suitable locations.
You can't say koalas are a national treasure and then green-light their destruction. It was so hypocritical of the New South Wales environment minister, whose government fast-tracked koala destruction, to then turn around and effectively ask Minister Ley to stop it. It's also an admission of wilful wrongdoing, and that's exactly what the New South Wales government do again and again, egged on and held to ransom by their junior partners, the koala-hating, anti-environment Nationals. I note the recent revelations that New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro insisted that logging continue in state forests after the devastation of the bushfires and against the pleas of the New South Wales EPA. The koala implosion they had a few weeks ago shows us the rot that is at the heart of the National Party when it comes to the environment. They don't even pretend to care anymore. They are completely disconnected from the people they represent. They are nothing but greedy, hollow men.
Luckily, we still have laws under the EPBC Act that are a line of defence against weak state environmental protections. The fate of the Port Stephens koalas is now in the hands of Minister Ley. You have the power, Minister, to save these iconic koalas. I know you care for animals. As the environment minister, you have an obligation to stop the decline and demise of koalas. There is only one decision that you should make: reject the Brandy Hill quarry. The koalas and future generations will be forever grateful.
The budget we have received tonight is an important one for the Australian people, but it was made possible because of the excellent economic management of this government before the COVID virus hit and because of the strong and decisive leadership of the Morrison government post-COVID. It recognises that the best way to pay off a nation's debt is to grow the economy and that the best way to do that is to promote investment, to invest in infrastructure and to leverage more investment from Australians in the businesses and jobs that are needed for economic recovery.
But it is with great sadness that I say that right now Queensland does not have that same kind of leadership. Queensland had the worst unemployment rate well before the COVID virus hit. It had the highest debt of any state government in the country before the COVID virus hit. It lacked leadership. It was just lazy and populist politics every day of the week. But there's an opportunity to change that coming up very soon, and that is by electing a majority LNP government on 31 October.
To get that, Queenslanders must vote 1 for the LNP. What history tells us time and time again is that having a flutter with the minor parties simply delivers a Labor-Greens minority government. Don't risk it, there's no time for that. Going into the end of this month, nine seats are needed for the LNP to win government—and it doesn't need to be just any; it can be more, that's fine! There are many great candidates from our side, right across the state. I am hugely proud that there are now more than 20 outstanding female candidates that have been selected by the LNP to go into this election. They were selected on merit. They were selected because of the attributes they bring, from quality life experience, to the job. They are ready and rearing to go, and they are already working hard in their local communities to contribute. So I thought I would mention a few of them who are really very impressive. In Gaven we have Kirsten Jackson—a mum, a business owner, someone who understands the daily challenges faced by small businesses. And boy, is she a stark contrast to the political hack incumbent! The incumbent was handed the plum assistant ministry for tourism but has absolutely abandoned Gold Coast tourism operators during their time of need, when COVID has meant they are most in need. Kirsten Jackson has a passion for the industries and people that make the Gold Coast great.
In Springwood we have Kirrily Boulton running for the LNP against yet another Labor union hack turned underwhelming minister whose greatest achievement this term was not being sacked for blatantly misusing taxpayer funds in the way members opposite have complained about so much in the past—
Senator Stoker, I would just remind you of standing order 193, which says you should not use offensive words against members of either this House or of a state or territory parliament.
I withdraw, Mr Acting Deputy President. Thank you. On the crossroads of the M1, the Gateway and the Logan Motorway, the potential of the Springwood electorate is enormous—and it can only be achieved by electing a majority Frecklington LNP government, including the great benefits that will be reaped from the second M1 at that important location.
In Mansfield we have the amazing, dynamic Janet Wishart. She has had a career that is all about public service—helping people work through a time of need, working through a disability, working through some of the most heart-wrenching experiences people could possibly have. In Maiwar we have Lauren Day—a former journalist, a mother of two and the wife of a policeman. She is an utter superstar, an energetic achiever who would kick goals for those in her local area.
For those in Aspley, Amanda Cooper needs no introduction. For over a decade, she has represented and delivered for this region as a member of the Brisbane City Council. She and her husband have raised three children in that local community.
In Mirani is a favourite of mine, Tracie Newitt. 'Trucker Trace' drives a road train. She's got everything you need to succeed. And there are so many more— (Time expired)
What a speech from the senator opposite! She talked about the next Queensland election and the absolute hypocrisy of the fact that the LNP supposedly wants a majority government yet they've chosen to preference minor parties across the state. But I'll get to that a little later.
Last week we saw millions and millions of dollars taken out of local economies all across regional Queensland when JobKeeper and JobSeeker were cut in the communities that need it most. JobKeeper cuts in Leichhardt affected 7,179 businesses and 27,000 workers. That's equivalent to $24.3 million per fortnight coming out of the economy in Cairns and Leichhardt. The communities that need it most had the money and the support they need right now cut back by the Morrison government. In Leichhardt, when the JobSeeker cuts came in, $5.82 million was ripped out of the economy per fortnight. That's an extraordinary amount of money being cut by the LNP.
We know from experience that the LNP likes to make a lot of promises and announcements before elections, but they're not very good at following up on the delivery of those announcements. It is only after polling day in Queensland that Queenslanders actually find out what the LNP stands for and what nasty surprises they have waiting for them. Queenslanders will never, ever forget when Campbell Newman promised public servants that they had nothing to fear under an LNP government. Fast forward to three months after the election, and Campbell Newman unveiled plans to sack 20,000 workers. Twenty thousand workers lost their jobs under the LNP after Campbell Newman promised them that they had nothing to fear. The axe finally fell on 14,000 workers. Guess who Campbell Newman's apprentice and Assistant Treasurer was. Who was the Assistant Treasurer when 14,000 public servants were sacked in Queensland? It was none other than Deb Frecklington. She was right there next to him, making every single decision, sending 14,000 public servants on their way home. She sacked them. She made sure that 14,000 people in Queensland wouldn't be able to provide for their families.
Order! Standing order 193 prevents reflections and imputations of improper motives and personal reflections on members of this Senate, the House and state chambers. I require you to withdraw that.
Thank you. I withdraw. It is true, though, that 14,000 people were sacked in Queensland under Campbell Newman's government. We know that. What we also know is that the LNP opposition, under Deb Frecklington right now, have $23 billion in election promises, but they are unable to tell the people of Queensland right now how they're going to pay for those promises. That is because we know that in the LNP DNA it's cuts, cuts, cuts.
Public servants weren't the only ones to get the chop under Campbell Newman. Who will they cut this time? Last time they cut nurses and police officers, and people in regional towns will never, ever forget that. Knock on doors in regional Queensland and you'll meet nurses who got sacked under Campbell Newman. The LNP won't maintain the growth needed for health staff to keep up with the demand over the next four years. That is what we know.
An honourable senator interjecting—
I'll take that interjection because the scars that went deep, inflicted by Campbell Newman when Deb Frecklington was his Assistant Treasurer, will never be forgotten by the people in Queensland.
Order! Senator Green, you are still required to use the correct titles even though they're members of another parliament.
She was the Assistant Treasurer, and now she's the Leader of the Opposition. When she was the Assistant Treasurer she cut the guts out of the Public Service in Queensland, including nurses. Imagine what would have happened under the LNP in a health crisis. A government that cuts nurses cannot keep Queensland safe.
In late June this year I received an email from a constituent on the north-west coast of Tassie. What I want to do—it's quite bizarre—is read her email out. She wrote to me after an experience with a number of paramedics and a number of doctors. She wanted to somehow express her gratitude to those people for the support they had given her, and she didn't know how to do it. So I wrote back to her and I said, 'I'm very happy to raise that matter through the Senate and give those people the recognition that they absolutely deserve.' The subject in her email line was, 'A heart song story in a time of COVID-19.'
She said: 'Two weeks ago I survived a massive heart attack and within two hours was treated by two paramedics and a cardiac nurse at my home in Latrobe. I said my goodbyes to my 17-year-old son in case it was a forever goodbye. Then to the Mersey Community Hospital and back into the ambulance, rushed to Launceston General Hospital. I had a stent inserted into an artery which was 100 per cent blocked. They saved my life, and today my son sits his last year 12 midyear exam. The reason it was so significant is that I have complex PTSD, severe depressive disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, body dysmorphia and agoraphobia. I have rarely left my house in 2½ years. Being in lockdown was easy for me. Three days in hospital should have had me reeling, but it didn't.
'In fact, these amazing people, from the paramedics at my home to the nurse who walked me out, helped me with more than just my heart health. They have given me hope that there can and will be a new chapter in my life, that there will be another heart song to a life of many experiences and traumas but now with a lighter heart and thirst for life that has long since left me. They are miracle workers, and I need your assistance in acknowledging these paramedics and emergency personnel at Mersey Community Hospital and Launceston General Hospital's coronary care unit and pharmacy. I would appreciate that they receive a letter of recognition, an award or a bouquet for the work that they do, particularly when they're in a new physical premises due to COVID-19. They also operate as a day procedure unit, the feet on the ground at the front line, the givers and the selfless helpers of our Tasmanian health system.'
Lara then goes on to address the letter to the magical staff at the LGH coronary care unit. This is to those people at the coronary care unit and in the paramedic family back home in Tassie: 'Thank you for keeping me alive. My son still has his mother, my parents still have their daughter, my sister still has her sister and now I have hope. You're all special people with skills like superpowers. I'd give you all a medallion of honour if I could for your kindness, compassion, humility and humour. You truly cared for the whole of me, and holistic care is the best care. I wasn't a patient; I was a human being. It takes unique gifts to do the work you do. I am ever so grateful.
'Not only were you dealing with my heart issues but my mental health issues, which are severe, but I felt so safe and secure in your presence that my usual fear of strangers, being anywhere outside my home and countless doctors after five years of treatment for my mental health. My workplace accident may have robbed me of my teaching career, but the other symptoms have brought my life to a plateau of being merely functional. My only job was being a great mother and keeping our world turning. Then my heart stopped working, and you cured it. And, in curing my heart, you reminded me to treasure my life, that I can still laugh and joke. I can listen. I can empathise. I felt at peace. I felt normal for the first time in five years.
'The team in particular are the two nameless paramedics and the cardiac nurse who attended my home on Wednesday 10 June 2020, the emergency room team at Mersey Community Hospital and the paramedics who got me to Launceston so quickly. Within the coronary care unit, I specifically remember my main nurses: Di, Robin-Anne, Mishy, Paul and John. If I have forgotten someone, my apologies. Dr John Esho, Dr Raj and, of course, Dr Herman. Doctors, in my experience, are often cold and clinical. Not the doctors in this unit. No blame. Kindness and acceptance, heartfelt advice and a sense of humour that is so important in a place which is so serious. Each of these doctors is amazing. They're among the best I've experienced, having lived in three states and overseas, in private and public hospitals.
'My nurses were funny and sweet, serious and helpful. The most important gift they gave me was my voice. I started to talk, to relax and to accept help—even the smallest thing, like making a cup of tea in a China cup, sitting with me for a few minutes to and reassuring me that I would recover. Without question the most knowledgeable, inspiring and lovely nurses to ever have cared for me.
'I was never made to feel guilty or that my life choices and family history had caused the heart attack. I deeply appreciate that, as I was punishing myself on the inside. Now I feel, after the last five years of deep trauma, surviving family violence, raising a son solo, smoking on and off for 30 years and a family history, my heart simply broke. It had sung all the stories it could, had felt as much pain as it could and loved more than it should, but your team provided the jump start it needed because they are a team of excellence, of honesty, professional, highly educated and perceptive, vigilance, being human, a calm in the storm of day-procedures, humour, advice with a cup of tea, compassion, education, patience—greatly assisted by the package provided by Di—diversity of backgrounds and experience, kindness, humility and laughter. When I got home and had a question, I simply rang and my panic subsided as I was advised on my question. I start rehabilitation on Monday.
'My new heart is stronger and it was laid with the best foundations in the critical care that I received. We are all ordinary people but with a little extra heart and soul, spirit and determination we become extraordinary individuals. My deepest gratitude. Kind regards, Lara Watchman.'
I wrote to Lara, as I said, and indicated to her that I was prepared to share her story, to have it recognised and to make sure that we recognise these heroes within our medical system, which is pulled to pieces in Tasmania. The paramedics, who suffer so much with their own mental health issues, often don't get recognised. When I wrote to her, she came back to me and said, 'Thank you for your kind words and well wishes, but more importantly thank you that my everyday heroes will be acknowledged.' I think it's important that we do that. So for Lara and for the people at both the Mersey Community Hospital and the Launceston General Hospital to the fantastic nurses and the fantastic paramedics, who keep our health system together: I also say thank you very much.
Dr Bernadette Boss has been announced as the interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention. When the government announced they were going to go ahead with this interim commissioner model, I said to them that it wasn't going to work if it was someone who was a current or former serving member of the ADF. I asked the Minister for Defence if it was going to be, and she said no. She said to me unequivocally: 'No, it won't be.' I asked the Minister for Finance, and he said no, unequivocally. Ask them if they deny it. Let them go on the record and say that didn't happen.
The decision of who to put in as interim commissioner was one for cabinet. The Minister for Defence sits at the cabinet table. The Minister for Finance sits at the cabinet table. They told me the national commissioner wouldn't be ex-ADF, but guess what? Yep, she is. One of two things happened: either they lied then or they were telling the truth and just didn't have the numbers around cabinet. If they lost the vote around the cabinet table, it's because someone else in the room, when the decision was being made, fought against someone independent being put into that role and pushed instead for someone who's got that khaki tinge to them. I don't know which one it is, but, if you're saying one thing will happen and the exact opposite thing happens, it's either because you were overconfident and you lost or because you lied. There isn't another option, so which one is it? Let's say someone at the cabinet table didn't want someone independent in charge. Ask yourself: Why is that? What do they have to lose from someone asking questions without fear or favour? I'll tell you what I think. I think this government doesn't want an independent investigation because it has a sneaking suspicion of what they'll find.
I didn't ask the question for no reason. There's no way the commissioner can do their job if they don't have the confidence of the community they're supposed to be assisting—that would be the service organisations—which they don't. So now you've blown the trust thing. Let me put it to you this way: it would be like putting John Setka in charge of the trade union royal commission or Ken Henry in charge of the banking royal commission. You don't put someone in to investigate an institution if they're tied at the hip to that institution. It makes no sense—unless, of course, you're going for a cover-up. You don't do it unless you don't want them being independent.
Why wouldn't you want someone independent investigating? Independent investigations don't give a damn about who they offend, who they drag out to front up to the tough questions. They don't care who is upset by a finding, because that is their job—to find and tell the truth, not to cover up. Their obligation is only to find out what's going on and to be honest about it—and for people to trust that what they're telling them is the truth. I'm not saying Dr Boss is a bad person. I'm just saying that she spent 20 years as part of an institution and she's now being asked to do the impossible, to separate herself from it. Come on! These veteran suicides, some of them have been caused by the brass in the Armed Forces and their decisions. She's tied at the hip to these people. You don't become de-institutionalised after coming out of the Army after 20 years. It's just rubbish; it doesn't work that way. You can't spend that much time rising through the ranks of an institution without becoming attached to it. And if you're loyal to the institution you're not loyal to the people who are supposed to be coming forward with claims against it, nor do you have the trust that you can do that. If you're even perceived as being loyal to the institution, who's going to come forward? And if people don't come forward it's not because they don't have problems, it's because they don't trust that their concerns will be given a fair hearing—and they won't.
Let's not forget that we have a Minister for Veterans' Affairs who thinks a royal commission would be a waste of money; he supports a national commissioner. The Department of Veterans' Affairs was flatly opposed to a royal commission; it supports a national commissioner. The RSL has criticised the idea of a royal commission as being costly and unwarranted; it supports a national commissioner. You have to ask yourself: if there's nothing different between a royal commission and a national commissioner, why do DVA, the RSL and its president and the minister all like the national commissioner but not the royal commission? Why is that? If there's no difference between the two, why do they only like one of them? It's because they aren't the same at all, and everybody knows that. Royal commissions are completely independent. Nobody tells a royal commission what to investigate. The national commissioner has their terms of reference written by the institutions they're supposed to be holding to account. That's not independent! And that's not fair to those veterans who are taking their lives out there. It's just not fair at all.
Royal commissions get every resource they need to do their job. The national commissioner has one-quarter of the budget of the trade union royal commission—one-quarter! That's what a veteran is worth. If you ask the national commissioner to do the same job as a royal commission but cut three quarters of their budget before they start then you've already set them up for failure: it's finished—it's over, it's gone. So having a national commissioner, or an interim commissioner, is a waste of our time. You've tied their laces together before the race kicks off. You make a joke out of them and that's exactly what you over there are doing. Royal commissions are flexible, responsive and dynamic. They're able to adapt their focus and their priorities around what is happening in real time. It's not once you're dead; it's too late then! You can't just say: 'Hey! You up there! Can you come down for a few minutes—beam down here, Scotty!' It doesn't work like that.
You won't find any mentions of COVID-19 in the aged-care royal commission's terms of reference, but that doesn't stop it from looking into its impacts. That's because royal commissions interpret their own terms of reference without any interference from the government of the day. The national commissioner is a prisoner to their terms of reference. They can't stray outside what they're told to look into and, if they do, they're liable to be pulled into line by the government that controls them. That's the other thing: the national commissioner can be fired or replaced for any reason at any time. Their terms of reference can be changed with the stroke of a pen. If a government doesn't like what the commissioner is looking into it can change the rules halfway through the investigation. It can make it unlawful for the commissioner to keep looking where they're looking. If they're getting too independent then the commissioner can be fired. If they're getting too powerful, the commissioner's budget can be slashed. If they're getting too much done, they can be axed altogether. The government says they're permanent, but that's only until it changes its mind.
Royal commissions deliver a single set of recommendations to the government. The national commissioner just says: 'G'day, I'll check in today—a good day for it. No worries there, mate,' and delivers a report to parliament that will get filed away in a drawer, and not even journalists will bother to open it. It is not out in the open. That's the other thing: royal commissions get public attention and they use that public attention to demand a public response—a response that demands accountability. They get governments to do something. The national commissioner doesn't have an end date, so never delivers a final list of recommendations. I'm sure that suits you guys over there. I'm sure it's just fabulous! The commissioner just delivers the same recommendations year in and year out, and they never get the public attention that forces the government to respond. So they get ignored and they become part of the furniture.
Do you want to know why DVA, the minister responsible for DVA, and all those ex-services organisations that rely on DVA funding are opposed to a royal commission? Because a royal commission would hold DVA to account and would also hold defence to account; it would hold the ministers to account and it would hold the ex-service organisations that aren't doing the right thing to account. It would hold them to account without fear and without favour, with a commitment to nothing other than preventing suicides by current and former defence members. The organisations that don't want to be put under the microscope are opposed to being put under the microscope. That's not a shock. The organisations that are trying to avoid scrutiny all support the national commission. That is a shock, because isn't it exactly the same as a royal commission? If you want to know if there's any difference between a national commission and a royal commission, ask yourself if there's any difference between who supports one or the other. The families of veterans who have taken their own lives support a royal commission. The institutions who are being blamed for those suicides support a national commissioner. Well, what do you know!
I don't think Dr Bernadette Boss is a bad person, although I haven't seen her in action yet. I think she has been put in a bad position, and you've done that to her. And now I'm going to be chasing her, so good luck with that. She's being asked to fix a problem with none of the tools she needs to fix it. She's expected to succeed while she's being set up for failure. Her job is not really to fix anything. As far as the government is concerned, as long as she's not a royal commission then she's done all she needs to do. There's nothing else left for her to do but to show up, nod her head and expect everybody to agree with her on why veterans' deaths continue to rise, and that's exactly what's going to happen. For God's sake, do the smart thing and call for a royal commission!
'Women's sports, women's toilets and women's change rooms are designed for people of the female sex, and should remain that way.' These are the words that the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner deemed to be potentially prohibitive conduct under the Anti-Discrimination Act. How is it, in a democratic country, that it can be prohibited to say that women's sports and women's toilets are designed for female people? The Orwellian powers granted to unelected, antidiscrimination bureaucrats are being used as a weapon by aggressive activists to stop Australians speaking about the realities of biological sex.
The recent complaint against me for speaking about safety and fairness in women's sport has been dropped, only because I'm an elected parliamentarian who has the platform to speak up and fight back. But this backdown brings little comfort to the millions of Australians who will have no such protection when the thought police come for them. Tonight I want to put on record the way the complaint against me was initiated and manipulated to pressure me into silence. I have no doubt that these actions, directed against someone who isn't a senator, would have had the result of permanently preventing an Australian citizen from exercising their democratic right to speak freely and openly. While these unjust laws remain on the books and are wielded as a weapon by activists to shut down legitimate debate, free speech is absolutely under threat this in this country.
On 3 September I received an email stating that a complaint had been made about me and that I must attend a compulsory conciliation. The complaint, lodged on 18 July this year, said, 'Senator Claire Chandler had an article published on the 'Talking Point' page in The Mercury on 17 July 2020.' The complainant said: 'I despair that Senator Chandler's conduct'—that is, writing an article about free speech—'is being seen as acceptable by way of being published in a mainstream newspaper. I would, at the minimum, expect Senator Chandler to receive education, apologise and never engage in this kind of behaviour again.' These were not idle wishes by the complainant. The Anti-Discrimination Tribunal does indeed have the power to order apologies and retractions, and can compel a person to never engage in certain behaviour again. Had the complaint not been dropped, I would have been ordered by the tribunal to never again say that women's sport is designed for people of the female sex. Such powers are absolutely incompatible with free speech and with our democracy.
It was immediately clear, on receiving the direction to attend conciliation, that something very strange and legally questionable was occurring. In the complaint against me, dated 18 July, the complainant specifically said, 'Since publication of the opinion piece, I have sought clarification on Senator Chandler's views by contacting her office by telephone and email, but I have not heard back.' The complainant did indeed email me on Saturday 18 July, the same day he lodged the complaint. He said: 'I'm writing as one of your Tasmanian constituents, seeking clarification on your article in The Mercury yesterday. I wonder if you could clarify that you understand the difference between sex and gender, and whether you believe trans women are women?'
I was asked a direct question by a constituent and I responded honestly and politely. I do understand the difference between sex and gender. That's why I made the point in my article that women's sports, women's toilets and women's change rooms are designed for people of the female sex and should remain that way. These single-sex facilities exist for the privacy, safety and dignity of women and girls, and we should not be required to give up those rights in the name of inclusiveness.
In the decision letter I received from the commissioner, she said, 'I decided possible breaches are disclosed by the following conduct: Senator Chandler's letter to the complainant sent around July 2020.' Strangely, the commissioner's decision omits the exact date on which I responded to the complainant's email. The date I sent this email was Monday 20 July, two days after the complaint was submitted. How can the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner assert that a complaint made on 18 July refers to an email that wasn't sent until the 20th? Clearly, inconvenient facts have been ignored in order to compel me to attend conciliation. No complaint relating specifically to my email of 20 July has ever been provided to me. The only document to refer to this correspondence was the assessment decision of the commissioner. I was given no opportunity to respond to point this out and the other errors before I was directed to attend conciliation. When I was able to provide a detailed written response to the commissioner, it was ignored. To this day, she hasn't written back.
Given the complaints seemed to have no legal basis, I made a request to Equal Opportunity Tasmania that my lawyer be able attend conciliation. Permission was denied. Several days later, I was advised that the complainant had been granted permission for a support person to attend with him. The following week, Equal Opportunity Tasmania emailed me to complain about my public comments and threatened legal action against members of the public who found the complaint to be vexatious and had written to the commissioner asking she drop my case. The email said, 'Please see attached a sample of emails that the commissioner has received since your public statements in the media about your complaint. I note that legal action can be taken against any person who uses insulting language towards any person exercising any power under the Anti-Discrimination Act'.
Later that week, still with no acknowledgement of my response pointing out the lack of legal substance to the complaint, Equal Opportunity Tasmania sent me a preconciliation confidentiality agreement that I was instructed to sign. Not only did they want to compel me to attend conciliation for writing an article about free speech, they now wanted me to surrender my right to talk about how the commission itself was limiting free speech. I refused to sign the confidentiality agreement. Less than 24 hours before conciliation was due to take place, it was suddenly cancelled. Then 24 hours after that, something remarkably convenient for the commissioner happened: the complainant withdrew the complaint. I learned of this not from Equal Opportunity Tasmania but from the media.
Because the complaint has been withdrawn, the commissioner now never needs to acknowledge the complaint had no legal substance. Most troubling, we are left no clearer about what Tasmanians and Australians can say in defence of sex based rights or safety and fairness in women's sport without being hauled before the commission. Presumably, if the commissioner thought it appropriate to summon me to conciliation for saying that women's sports and women's change rooms were designed for females, she may take the same action against any other citizen for saying the same thing in the future.
It is one thing to be on the end of this absurdity as a senator. I was fortunate enough to have a platform to let the public know what was happening and let them know how free speech in defence of women's rights is being targeted. But this could easily happen to one of the millions of other Australian women who acknowledge the reality of biological sex and support women having access to female sports and female facilities. Completely out of the blue, any of these women could receive a legal direction to explain to a man they don't even know why they made comments about women's sex based rights. If they don't attend, they will be fined nearly $2,000. The commissioner refuses permission for you to have a lawyer at conciliation. You're provided with a preconciliation confidentiality agreement and told to sign it, with a strong implication that you have no other option. This process is highly stressful and intimidating for any private citizen targeted by Equal Opportunity Tasmania. You're on your own, you're out of pocket and you've had to ask your boss for time off work because you've been accused of engaging in prohibited conduct. You're up against the power of an anti-discrimination commission that seems determined to put you through the wringer for saying that women's sports and change rooms are for females. This whole process is designed to operate in secret, behind closed doors where you're guilty until proven innocent. It's unfair, it's undemocratic and it's an affront to freedom of speech.
I want to conclude tonight by reflecting on a comment made by the complainant. He suggested in his statement to the media late last week that the only reason he lodged a complaint was to force me to go to conciliation to enable 'an open and frank conversation'. Let me be absolutely clear: if you initiate legal action against a woman for expressing her views about women's rights, you don't want an open and frank conversation; you want to control what she says. My response is the same as my message to those who threatened and vilified JK Rowling for defending sex-based rights and to the Australian Labor Party, who smear Australian women who speak up, myself included, as transphobic. We will not be controlled and we will not be silenced.
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, on this budget day I will address corruption in Queensland local government—corruption that is ripping off millions of dollars of Commonwealth and state taxpayer money and local ratepayer money. We cannot afford corruption at any time, especially not in today's economic climate. The corruption in Queensland local government is systemic and criminal to the extent that people are essentially stealing from taxpayers and ratepayers. Government-provided taxpayer moneys are redirected, not spent on their intended purposes, not spent at all or corruptly provided to persons in exchange for overvalued materials and service.
The Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, NDRRA, governs disaster-recovery funding. The Australian government reimburses 75 per cent of the cost of the works and the state government reimburses the other 25 per cent of the cost of the works. Emergency Management Australia administers NDRRA funding on behalf of the Australian government. The Queensland Reconstruction Authority and Emergency Management Queensland coordinate the NDRRA funding in Queensland. Councils regularly rort this arrangement with the assistance of the Local Government Association of Queensland, the LGAQ, through several of its business entities, including Local Buy.
Take, for example, the Tablelands Regional Council. It made a claim for road damage which allegedly occurred during severe weather and flooding in February 2016. No disaster event was declared—in fact, the dates council provided were not consistent with any particular event at all. Local residents confirmed there was no damage to the road during that period—no damage. The council directed that sections of a perfectly good, undamaged road be dug up. It was replaced with inferior materials at half the cost claimed for specified suitable replacement material. This was coupled with shoddy workmanship. All parties to the project knew that the road was substandard, dangerous and would fail, yet it was signed off as satisfactory and completed. Council correspondence states that the road would be expected to have a design life of 12 years; this road did not last 12 weeks. And this is not an isolated example; similar practices have occurred under previous administrations in the Central Highlands, Fraser Coast and Charters Towers regional councils, as well as Carpentaria and Cook shire councils.
The councils and the LGAQ are facilitating and encouraging a system where contractors fraudulently make unreasonable profits on road building. They fraudulently claim payments and strip 40 to 60 per cent out of NDRRA project funding as private profits. They do this inferior work using road materials of substandard quality from private and unlicensed quarries. The net result is fraudulent expenditure on roadworks that has rorted millions of dollars in Commonwealth and state moneys. Substandard materials and works also contribute significantly to more rapid deterioration of local assets. These rorts mean that taxpayers pay up to 40 per cent more than they should.
Substantial misuse of Local Buy contracts contributes to the fraud.
Local Buy is a wholly LGAQ owned company, set up with the stated aim of meeting the needs of local councils and with a procurement process that arranges contractors to fill council contracts. In reality, it's a way to rip off ratepayer money, especially where the complaints processes and the anticorruption body, the Crime And Corruption Commission, the CCC, are so ineffective. Local contractors are often sidelined when contracts are given to outside contractors who don't satisfy the required standards. Once Local Buy gives a contract to a contractor, a percentage of the contract price must be paid to the LGAQ for arranging the contract through Local Buy. The Local Buy concept is widespread and is clearly a front to gouge profits of up to 60 per cent from ratepayers' money. The LGAQ protects Local Buy.
Corruption by Queensland council members is a reality, and the number of Queensland council members and officers convicted and jailed in recent years is the proof. This, though, is just the tip of the iceberg. In recent times, corruption in local government seems to have been centred on Ipswich, arguably the corruption capital of Queensland. Former Labor mayor Paul Pisasale was convicted of extortion and related offences and jailed. His successor, former mayor Andrew Antoniolli, with close connections to Labor, was convicted of multiple fraud charges. Fortunately, though, former state MP Jo-Ann Millar and honest Ipswich locals like Gary Duffy and his wife, Conny Turni, worked hard to expose this corruption. Yet they were thwarted at every step and bullied at every step. The corruption has been linked to the Queensland Labor state government. After 16 years of Jo-Ann Millar's hard work, the entire Ipswich city council was sacked and court proceedings against individual councillors and officers remain ongoing—there are so many of them.
This level of corruption is not isolated. Our sources from right across Queensland confirm this. We have many examples. In Logan City Council, seven councillors and the mayor were charged with corruption and conspiracy offences, and the entire council was sacked. A common link to this local government corruption has been the Local Government Association of Queensland, the LGAQ, a private company limited by guarantee, which many people think is a government instrument, but it's not. The association's principal activity is said to be representing Queensland local governments in their dealings with other governments, unions, business and the community. What makes the Local Government Association of Queensland unique are the special statutory provisions that made the LGAQ virtually unaccountable for their actions. Under rule 234 of Local Government Regulation 2012, a council is exempt from calling contracts to tender or calling quotes 'if the contract is entered into under an LGAQ arrangement'. This includes a contract made with the LGAQ. Every contract the LGAQ enters involves a substantial fee being paid to the LGAQ. It is the classic cartel arrangement, prohibited in every other state except Queensland, where rule 234 legalised it. Rule 234 must be repealed to ensure transparency and integrity.
As for audits, under section 591 of the then Labor government's Industrial Relations Act 1999, LGAQ Limited are exempt from appointing an auditor to inspect the accounting records and issue an audit report, as is usually undertaken under the Corporations Act 2001. There is no independent audit. The LGAQ is a powerful organisation that is well protected from revealing the murky side of operations. How such an organisation can have such wide exemptions from integrity checks and balances must be explained and remedied. The Queensland Labor government has failed the people of Queensland—again. It is equally difficult to break through the corruption when incriminating evidence is disclosed to authorities who do nothing to stop the corrupt practices. Much of this information has been disclosed in the Queensland state parliament and directly to the CCC, which, inexplicably, declined to investigate. Many complaints to the CCC about a council are simply referred back to the council to investigate itself: no problems found; complaint resolved. Really?
The LGAQ must be brought to account. The LGAQ is supporting, if not directly funding, the current fabricated proceedings brought by its CEO, Mr Greg Hallam, against former state member of parliament the courageous Mr Rob Pyne and Queensland resident Ms Lyn O'Connor as an attempt to silence or punish them for challenging the LGAQ practices.
It's hard to argue that, while these corrupt councils have rorted the finances of the Commonwealth, the state and taxpayers, ministers for local government, including former minister for local government Ms Jackie Trad, have been blind to the extensive corrupt practices going on around them. Wilfully blind? The mechanics of the corrupt practices are known and they've been brought to the attention of authorities. The ministers for local government cannot say that they are unaware yet still do nothing. This is corruption. It must stop. Tomorrow I will submit a motion calling for a Senate inquiry into the corruption in Queensland local government that has cost—and, unless stopped, will continue to cost—millions of dollars of Commonwealth and state moneys, all ultimately paid by the taxpayer. It's estimated that stopping the corruption will halve council rates, a huge saving every year for honest, hardworking Queenslanders. (Time expired)
It's perhaps timely that I should give this adjournment speech following Senator Roberts, because Senator Roberts has spoken about some of the bad history of previous councils in the Ipswich region, yet I would like to talk about the Ipswich region's future.
Last month my office, in fact, moved to within the area of Ipswich regional council. Ipswich is one of Australia's most historic cities. It was founded in 1824 and was named in 1843. The school I went to, Ipswich Grammar School, was actually the first secondary school established in the state of Queensland. A new council was elected this year. Senator Roberts has referred to some of the issues with the previous councils. I actually would like to pay tribute to all those members of Ipswich City Council, including employees, who blew the whistle on previous practices—
Senator Roberts interjecting—
'Hear, hear,' Senator Roberts says—I acknowledge that interjection. I also pay tribute to all of the great people in the Ipswich community who stood up to those practices. Justice has now been done. It is now time to move forward. Ipswich has a new regional council and Ipswich has a new senator based in the region. I'm delighted to be there.
Ipswich has an extremely exciting future in front of it. There is extraordinary growth occurring in the region. The population grew by 4.1 per cent between 2018 and 2019 and is expected to grow to 558,000 residents by 2041. My office is located in the city of Springfield, within the Ipswich regional council area, and Springfield itself encapsulates everything great about this country. A great Australian by the name of Maha Sinnathamby, who is chair of Springfield Land Corporation, looked upon vacant land and saw a city. He saw a city and then went about building it. Just as Michelangelo looked at a piece of marble and saw a statue, Maha Sinnathamby looked at vacant land—bush—and saw a city and proceeded to build it. Since then, $18 billion has been invested. Springfield, Australia's second master plan city, already has investment in education, technology, health, defence services and the arts. It is an extremely livable city, and it's an absolute joy to have my office located there.
Last weekend, an event occurred which sums up the future of Ipswich—not the past, which Senator Roberts referred to, but the future—and I was delighted to participate. On Saturday, I attended the sod-turning for a new STEM building at the Hymba Yumba Independent School, which received $2 million in support from the federal government. Just to give you a feeling for this event, I thought I might walk through the agenda. Hopefully, I can give you some sort of appreciation of what a great event it was.
First, there was an acknowledgement and welcome to country from patron Uncle Albert Holt. Uncle Albert Holt is a great Australian—a great Indigenous Australian. A respected Aboriginal elder from Inala in Brisbane's south-west, he grew up at the Cherbourg mission in my home state of Queensland after his family were forcibly removed from their home. He overcame that adversity to become a respected role model. Towards the end of 2001, Uncle Albert Holt retired from his full-time work. His last job was, in fact, as a police liaison officer, and he served in that role for more than seven years. He then went about driving a vision for the creation of this school, the Hymba Yumba Independent School. 'Hymba' means development of skills in listening, reflecting, evaluating and planning. 'Yumba' means building and support for learning. The school started. Uncle Albert Holt's vision was realised in 2011, with 50 jarjums. That's how they refer to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are students—jarjums. They were being taught in rented premises. Now, in 2020, there are 213 jarjums and growing, now based in beautiful premises in Springfield. When Uncle Albert Holt was speaking about his passion for education, it reminded me of the great Neville Bonner, who preceded me in this place as a Liberal senator from my home state of Queensland and who was also based in the Ipswich region.
After Uncle Albert Holt's welcome and acknowledgement of country, a choir then performed—the junior choir from the Hymba Yumba school. The choir participants were Yvonne Jones, Kahlani Jones, Talaii Brady, Tameeya Brady and Summah Wylie-Coolwell. They sang the Australian national anthem in the Yugambeh language, and it was just beautiful—absolutely beautiful.
Principal Peter Foster then set out the vision for the school: respect for self, respect for elders, respect for family, and respect for community and country. He described how it's become a really special place, and I must say that the first time I attended the school I felt that. I really felt that I was in a special place, with this holistic education. The commitment is that all graduates from this school are either earning or learning. A senator then gave an address, and we can pass over that! Minister Wyatt then spoke by videoconference, and how special it was for our first Indigenous Indigenous affairs minister to speak to those kids and for them to see him by video! He promised to visit the school once restrictions had been lessened.
Then we had the opportunity to put our hands in the concrete to leave a lasting impression, as this school will leave a lasting impression on the students who attend it. I got to put my hands in the concrete with elder Uncle Albert Holt and also with the school captain, Jahmarlah Bonner, great-granddaughter of Neville Bonner. How proud would he be—a man who came to serve in this place with barely two or three years of formal education—to see his great-granddaughter as school captain of the Hymba Yumba Independent School and on the way to university? How proud would he be? This is the Australia he dreamed of, which is there in living reality at the Hymba Yumba Independent School.
I'd like to pay tribute to the members of the board: Mrs Karla Brady, the chair; Kerry Silver, the deputy chair; Stan Sielaff, the treasurer; Yvana Jones; Michael Bong; Roxanne Ware; Christine Figg; and Niel Bosman. I'd like to pay tribute to all of the staff, past and present. I'd like to pay tribute to the elders and local community supporting the school, including Vivian Bonner, who was Neville Bonner's daughter-in-law. She's the community engagement officer driving that engagement with the local Indigenous communities and the broader community. I pay tribute to Springfield Land Corporation. Raynuha Sinnathamby, the managing director, was in attendance. Her father, Maha Sinnathamby, the chair of Springfield Land Corporation, had education at the core of his vision for Springfield, and you can see that at the Hymba Yumba Independent School.
I'd also like to pay tribute to the builders of the STEM building, which is currently under construction. It was quite inspiring to have representatives there from Hutchinson Builders, a great Queensland company, established in 1912—'Hutchies', as we call it in Queensland. They weren't just constructing a building; they were taking the opportunity to show the Indigenous kids: 'This is what we do. This is what you could do. These are the sorts of opportunities open to you.' They were broadening their horizons. It was quite outstanding. I pay tribute to Deicke Richards, a design firm, the architects who designed this beautiful building, nestled in its environment, and everyone else involved in this project in the Hymba Yumba community.
If you seek hope, if you seek inspiration and if you seek a raising of the spirits in these hard times then go to Hymba Yumba school in Springfield, a place where education is transforming the lives of our Indigenous children.
In February 2022, just 15 months away, the People's Republic of China will host the 24th winter Olympic Games. This will be a big moment for China. The attention of the world will be focused on Beijing, the first city ever to have hosted both the summer and winter Olympic Games, having previously hosted the 2008 summer Olympics.
The Olympics are supposed to be an apolitical event, and many people like to think that sport should be separate from politics. But the reality is that sport is, and always has been, inextricably linked to politics, to national pride and to the interests of governments which seek to use sport to boost their prestige domestically and internationally. When China hosted the summer Games in Beijing in 2008, the Chinese Communist Party promoted the occasion as a demonstration of China's new-found status as a global power. The 2008 Games attracted plenty of criticism, especially with regard to China's poor human rights record, including repression in Tibet and the Chinese government's violation of a pledge to allow open media access. However, the Chinese Communist Party went all out to present the Olympics as confirmation of a long-held nationalist dream. Any criticism was denounced as an insult to China.
Many people will remember the highly organised demonstrations of strident Chinese nationalist sentiment that accompanied the Olympic torch relay as it progressed throughout Australia's cities. The 2008 games gave the Chinese Communist Party more leverage to suppress political dissent. Efforts to suppress any political unrest before and during the games contributed directly to the rapid expansion of China's internal security forces, and that all-intrusive power has grown every year since then.
In 2015 Beijing was selected as the host city of the 2022 winter Olympics, beating Almaty in Kazakhstan by just four votes at the International Olympic Committee. The IOC's 2015 decision aroused further concerns and complaints from human rights groups. Two years later, in February 2017, the IOC belatedly introduced human rights principles into its future host city contracts, the agreements between the IOC and the cities chosen to host the Olympic Games. The key provisions of the new host city contracts provide that a host city's national Olympic committee and organising committee for the games agree to prohibit any form of discrimination, to protect and respect all internationally recognised human rights and to implement internationally recognised anticorruption standards. The IOC is to establish a reporting mechanism covering these principles and standards. These principles and arrangements will first apply in the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France.
But where does that leave the 2022 winter Olympics? Beijing has already started the Olympic countdown clock, but the human rights concerns that cast a shadow over the 2008 games have grown a hundredfold. Early last month, more than 180 human rights groups from around the world called on the IOC to pull back from holding the winter Olympic Games in Beijing. Weeks before that, the campaign of US presidential candidate, Joe Biden, declared that the Chinese Communist Party's repression of the Uighur population in Xinjiang amounted to genocide—the gravest charge that can be made under international law. US President Donald Trump's administration is reportedly considering making a similar declaration.
There is no denying the deeply sinister developments in Xinjiang. In what amounts to a massive exercise in political, religious and ethnic cleansing, the Chinese government has forced a massive number of Uighurs, probably upward of a million, into internment camps. It has pressured them to relinquish their language, culture and religion while subjecting them to forms of political indoctrination—something human rights groups have called brain washing. Torture and other brutal punishments are also reportedly widespread. There are also reports of forced sterilisations and abortions as part of a state-sanctioned effort to drive down the Uighur birth rate. Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have meticulously documented evidence of the Chinese government subjecting Uighurs to forced labour, including selling that labour to companies across China. This industrial-scale repression is supported by a vast array of identity checks, sensors, cameras and tracking and monitoring technology in what is arguably the world's first high-technology surveillance state. All the while, the Chinese Communist Party churns out propaganda claiming that its policies towards the Uighurs are necessary for national security and warns Western media and governments not to pry into its internal affairs.
Of course, China's human rights violations are not limited to the mass persecution of Uighurs. Across China, President Xi has cracked down on any free expression of opinion, employing the Ministry of State Security to harass, detain and prosecute any person seen to express dissent. We've also seen the effective end of the special status of Hong Kong and the one country, two systems policy—enshrined in international treaties—through the use of the new national security laws to crush democratic freedoms in the territory. China has also cracked down on the international media, and engaged in what amounts to state directed hostage taking. A prominent Chinese Australian writer and a Chinese Australian journalist are amongst those held in arbitrary detention, facing potentially grave national security charges.
These circumstances have led the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China to call on the IOC to reconsider staging the 2022 Games in Beijing. Senator Eric Abetz has also included himself in that call. The standing of the IOC will be gravely harmed if they allow themselves to provide a global, public relations platform for a brutal, authoritarian and, indeed, totalitarian regime that, as Joe Biden rightly says, has engaged in what amounts to genocide. However, we must be realistic about the IOC's keenness to deal with this issue. They are affected by the delay of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021. That will have affected their funding, and they won't have much appetite realistically to call for the Beijing winter Olympics to be moved elsewhere.
We need to think about this. It's my considered view that Australia must take a lead and say 'no' to the winter Olympic Games. After all, the Australian government's current advice to its citizens is that, quite apart from the circumstances of COVID-19, they should not visit or remain in China owing to the risk of arbitrary arrest and detention. Are we seriously thinking of sending media and our athletes and spectators to China under those circumstances? If we think things are going to change, then we're wrong. The circumstances are getting worse and worse in China. President Xi intends to go harder in suppressing dissent and dealing harshly with ethnic minorities in western China.
As I said, there are people already arguing that we shouldn't boycott the winter Olympics. Liberal MP, Dave Sharma, has claimed that any boycott would be counterproductive. Senator Wong, the foreign affairs spokesperson for Labor, has said she wants the Olympics to put a spotlight on China, including its human rights record. I'm more inclined to agree with former Socceroos captain Craig Foster, who has said that while international sporting organisations are not responsible for human rights violations in a host country they are directly responsible if they allow 'mega events to be used to whitewash broad scale abuse occurring under the shadow of the stadia'. Some will say that an international boycott won't be effective—that it won't change China's policies. That could be so, but that's beside the point. The question is whether Australia is prepared to lend legitimacy to a deeply authoritarian and morally bankrupt regime. I don't think we can afford to do that. It would send precisely the wrong message to the world about the values we advocate and support.
Australia should boycott the Beijing winter Olympics, and we should announce that decision soon. We shouldn't leave it to the last minute; we should allow for this to be organised. We should compensate the Australian Olympic Committee and the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, and we should let our athletes know and support our athletes. We cannot go and stand on the playing fields of a regime responsible for genocide and human rights abuses on a vast scale. Australia should boycott, and take the lead in announcing that decision.
The 2020-21 federal budget, handed down tonight by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, is all about jobs. This is the most important federal budget since the Second World War. Whether it's tax cuts for workers and businesses, infrastructure spending, investment in manufacturing, support for young jobseekers or massive investments to drive business investment, the Morrison government stands with the Australian people to do whatever it takes to drive jobs growth and our economic recovery. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Morrison, and in the wake of devastating drought and bushfire, Australians can be incredibly proud of how we have responded to this global pandemic, protecting lives and livelihoods. Victorians, of course, have had it particularly tough.
Underpinned by our unprecedented economic plan, the federal budget will support all sectors of our economy at this critical time for our nation. Of the new announcements we have heard tonight, the tax cuts for low- and middle-income workers—11 million Australians—and the investment incentives for businesses, which allow businesses to write off 100 per cent of their purchases, are absolute game changers. The JobMaker hiring credit, along with major investment in apprentices and trainees, will provide unprecedented support to get young Australians into jobs. More people in jobs means a stronger budget position and a stronger nation.
As the Treasurer said tonight, the Morrison government has your back. Our economic plan will provide the fiscal firepower our nation needs to recover from this economic and health crisis, a crisis which has crippled thousands upon thousands of businesses through no fault of their own—particularly in Victoria, where, because of hotel quarantine and contact tracing disasters imposed by the Victorian government, community transmission has run out of control, leading to many draconian and economically crippling restrictions.
Our economic recovery plan for Australia will create jobs, rebuild our economy and secure Australia's future, including in Victoria. Under our plan around three million taxpayers in Victoria will receive tax relief for the 2020-21 financial year, with 2.6 million taxpayers to receive up to $1,080 for low- and middle-income earners and $2,160 for dual-income families. This means more money in the pockets of local households, not only to assist with the cost of living but also to generate economic activity and create jobs, because this is a budget all about jobs. Since the onset of the pandemic the government has provided $257 billion in direct economic support to cushion the blow and strengthen our recovery. This includes $17 billion in JobKeeper payments and $7 billion in cash flow boost credit amounts to Victorian residents and entities.
The 2021 budget commits a further $98 million nationally, including $25 billion in direct COVID-19 response measures and $74 billion in new measures—again, all to create jobs. Other key measures include the extension of the first home buyer deposit scheme; an additional $1 billion to support the construction of affordable housing; a $500 boost for pensioners; and a $1.5 billion modern manufacturing strategy to ensure we have an internationally competitive and resilient manufacturing sector and, in the process, create more high-value jobs. Tax relief for Victorian businesses will allow 99 per cent of businesses to deduct the full cost of depreciable assets in the year they are installed, and will allow companies with a turnover of up to $5 billion to offset losses against previous profits on which tax has been paid to generate a refund. This will drive incredible confidence and investment by every business, small, medium and large, across our country.
There's a $2 billion investment in road safety upgrades to save lives; an additional $1 billion to support local councils to immediately upgrade local roads, footpath and street lighting; $2 billion in concessional loans for farmers; $2 billion for vital water infrastructure; and $200 million for the Building Better Regions Fund, which will include significant opportunities, including in the Corio, Corangamite, Ballarat and Bendigo electorates. There's record funding for health, education, disability services and aged care, including 23,000 new home-care packages to support older Australians to stay at home longer. And, once the aged care royal commission hands down its findings next year, more significant funding will flow.
I am incredibly proud that the budget is funding major local projects in my region to drive jobs and investment. These include $292 million to duplicate Barwon Heads Road from Settlement Road to Reserve Road, including a new bridge over the railway line at Marshall, creating 292 jobs. This, regrettably, is the road which Labor forgot. It committed to fund it at the last state election but, so far, not one construction dollar has been allocated in the state budget. There's $200 million for upgrades to the Warrnambool line, which will deliver track works to deliver the ride quality, reliability and resilience of the line for passenger and freight rail services. This will create another 640 jobs.
There is $30 million to support planning for the extension of the Melbourne electrified network to Wyndham Vale on the Geelong line and Melton on the Ballarat line, and a massive $605 million has been brought forward into the forward estimates for the accelerated planning and delivery of stage 2 of the Geelong rail duplication between Waurn Ponds and South Geelong, delivering 1,300 direct and indirect jobs as well as faster and more reliable passenger and freight rail services. For a very long time, I have called on the Victorian government to bring forward this project. We now have this agreement in place, and that is wonderful news for our region. I have advocated for this project for many years, and this is a great day for the people of the Geelong and Corangamite regions.
There is, of course, a critical investment for Geelong. The fuel security package will deliver a major boost to Viva Energy's Geelong refinery, including an estimated $70 million per annum in a refinery production payment. And let's not forget the two incredible defence vehicle manufacturing projects. We've announced a $2.3 billion extension of the howitzer defence project to be based in Geelong. This is an absolute game changer and one of the biggest investments we've ever seen in our region, a program which will deliver up to 350 jobs. And then there is the decision to go to full-scale production of the Hawkei defence vehicle in Bendigo, delivering more than 200 jobs.
After what we have endured as a nation, after this shocking year, our economic recovery plan delivers economic resilience and support, hope and opportunity ahead. We have climbed mountains before as a nation and we will do so again. Thank you.
Senate adjourned at 22:25