by leave—I move:
That—
(1) The hours of meeting for today be 10 am to 8 pm, and
(a) divisions may take place between 6.30 pm and 7.20 pm; and
(b) the question for the adjournment be proposed at 7.20 pm;
(2) The hours of meeting for Tuesday, 31 August 2021 be midday to 8 pm and the question for the adjournment be proposed at 7.20 pm.
Question agreed to.
I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021. At its heart this private senator's bill seeks to acknowledge a simple truth—that parents of stillborn babies are parents too. In Australia six babies are lost to stillbirth each day. That's approximately 2,200 babies every year, or roughly one in every 135 births in our country. The rate of death from stillbirth is higher than the national road toll and remains the No. 1 cause of death for infants. Sadly, it has been like this for a very long time. The rate of stillbirth has remained stubbornly high in Australia for over 20 years, and 20 years is about as long as we have been keeping track of the statistics.
Since 2018 this chamber has sought to shine a light on this particular issue. These efforts have been uniformly bipartisan and have delivered real outcomes for Australian families. In particular I reflect on the work of the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education, an inquiry that I believe demonstrated the very best of what we can achieve in this place. Through that inquiry the committee heard evidence, both in person and through written submissions, from hundreds of parents, advocates, medical experts and researchers about the impact of stillbirth in our community. Their testimony shaped and informed a set of recommendations designed to address the tragedy of stillbirth in this country. For the first time in our nation's history we now have a firm foundation to shape and inform our efforts to address stillbirth in Australia, to save babies' lives.
I thank my colleagues across the chamber for their support for this inquiry and other related motions that have sought to highlight the experiences of parents of babies born still and to commemorate their immeasurable losses. I particularly acknowledge the chair of that inquiry, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy; the deputy chair, Senator Jim Molan; and Senator Janet Rice and Senator Catryna Bilyk.
Now that we have these recommendations from the Senate select committee on stillbirth, it's important that we implement them. We have a long way to go in addressing the issue of stillbirth in our community and much of the committee's work remains unrealised—although I do acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of the Minister for Health and Ageing, Greg Hunt, to ensure the delivery of a national stillbirth action plan. Today, with this private senator's bill, we seek to continue the work the committee started, with the welfare of Australian families and particularly parents front of mind.
This amendment to the Fair Work Act seeks to address inequalities in our employer paid parental leave scheme. We don't often talk about stillbirth in our society. It is too traumatic; it is tragic; it is raw. We often don't talk about the experiences of parents whose child is stillborn—what it means to be the parent of a child you don't get to bring home. The unique parental responsibilities required of parents of stillborn children include making decisions about autopsies, attending follow-up medical appointments, selecting gravesites or organising cremation, and arranging funerals and other commemorative services. Parents are required to do all these things during a time of intense mourning and grief while attempting to recover both physically—the same as any other parent who gives birth—and psychologically, given the extreme trauma and grief of stillbirth. We rarely, if ever, talk about these experiences. Is it any wonder workplace paid parental leave policies haven't considered these experiences either?
The Senate select committee heard evidence from many parents about the impact of employer paid parental leave policies that do not include provisions relating to stillbirth. We heard that workplace policies are often too narrow, too rigid, too prescriptive—or, indeed, silent. We heard that these policies rarely consider the realities of being a parent of a stillborn baby or even the reality of stillbirth itself. The impact of this blind spot is immense. In one case, a mother who gave evidence to the committee was forced by her employer to return to work just 11 days after her baby was stillborn. She had given birth. She had barely recovered from the physical act of giving birth. She had not in any way completed the recovery from her grief and her trauma. Yet she was required to return to work.
The committee did not find malice or ill intent in how these policies are formulated. It is simply a consequence of our silence on stillbirth—a repercussion of our inability to discuss things that are tragic and difficult and therefore tacitly allowing gaps in the safety net that is designed to support all parents. The system is failing because of a misunderstanding of the realities of stillbirth and ambiguous workplace policies that fail to acknowledge a public health issue that impacts more than 2,000 Australian families every year. A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that mothers who returned to work for financial reasons following a stillbirth had a productivity rate of 26 per cent of their normal rate after 30 days. Clearly employer paid parental leave schemes that ignore stillbirth help nobody. There is a better way. We know that, because a number of major Australian companies have led by example and changed their policies to acknowledge stillbirth and to ensure that their employees are properly provided for, regardless of the circumstances of their baby's birth.
I thank those companies for their leadership on this issue and the support they extend to families in a time of immense pain and grief. This is best practice in this space, and as a parliament we should enshrine it in law in order to protect all Australian families. I note that the public paid parental leave scheme that is provided by the Commonwealth already grants paid parental leave to parents of stillborn babies. We should expect that employer paid schemes do the same.
The very first unanimous recommendation of the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education was:
… that the Australian government reviews and amends the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and provisions relating to stillbirth in the National Employment Standards (NES) to ensure that:
In line with this recommendation, this bill provides clarity by enshrining in law an expectation that employers will provide the same support to parents regardless of the circumstances of the birth of their child.
So much of what we learned from the stillbirth inquiry can be distilled into this: silence is deadly. Our inability as a community to discuss stillbirth has driven tragic outcomes for too long. We have allowed stillbirth to be suffered in silence, as a personal tragedy rather than as a public health issue. It is through acknowledging this issue that we can achieve better outcomes for parents of stillborn children. This private senator's bill reflects this by shining a light on the issue of stillbirth. We can help Australians in their time of need.
With this bill Labor seeks to bring necessary reforms to our paid parental leave scheme in line with recommendations of the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education. This bill will amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to ensure parents of stillborn babies can access the same quantum of employer paid leave they would have been entitled to if the pregnancy had ended in live birth. For parents of stillborn babies, this bill would explicitly preserve their entitlements to employer paid parental leave regardless of whether the entitlement is legislative or one arising under an industrial instrument. The bill further outlines the standard evidentiary requirements for accessing said leave, outlines the requirements for an employee to alter or cancel their leave, in full or in part, and ensures that an employer can't cancel the leave, in full or in part, in the event of the employee having a stillbirth.
The bill will complement a previous bill introduced by the government, the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Unpaid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies and Other Measures) Bill 2020, which improved access to unpaid parental arrangements for parents of stillborn babies but did not consider issues surrounding employer paid parental leave entitlements as recommended by the committee. This was the intent of the committee and its recommendations and we ought to address it fully.
I am grateful to the Senate for the opportunity to speak to this bill today. Since my time began in this place, I have always found this chamber to be supportive of any effort to address stillbirth in our community. I note that we will soon commemorate International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, on 15 October. It is the first time that the parliament will formally recognise this day after a motion passed in this place in February to officially and eternally honour that date in remembrance of the many, many lives lost to stillbirth and miscarriage each year. That motion was but another step in a sustained effort in this place over the last few years to recognise, understand and ultimately reduce stillbirth in our community. Like all such efforts, that motion enjoyed the broad support of this place, as all efforts to address stillbirth should.
It was in this spirit that I wrote to the Attorney-General, Michaelia Cash, about this bill, and I thank her for agreeing to work constructively with Labor as we pursue these reforms. I will continue to work with the Attorney-General to ensure that we can secure an outcome for Australian families. I also want to acknowledge the support of industry stakeholders, including the ACTU, the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The broad support for this bill is heartening and it reflects the determination of the broader community to reduce the rate of stillbirth in our community and support those who experience it.
I would also like to acknowledge and congratulate Stillbirth Foundation Australia for its efforts in the past six years to champion the cause of ensuring that parents of stillborn babies are able to access paid parental leave. One of Australia's greatest prime ministers, Paul Keating, once said:
… the great things about Australian social democracy reflect a fundamental belief in justice … our capacity over the years to go on extending the realms of participation, opportunity and care.
With this bill, we seek to continue that tradition here today. These reforms are just, because they reflect the reality of stillbirth for so many Australian families. They shine a light on this issue that is often ignored by society because it is too difficult or tragic to contemplate.
I again reiterate that this legislation is a response not to nefarious practices by employers but, rather, to a lack of clarity that exists in the shadow of an issue that impacts so many but is so rarely discussed. We have an opportunity here today to remove that ambiguity. This bill will expand our circle of empathy on a subject that for too long has been considered taboo. With it, we explicitly acknowledge the role of parents with children who are stillborn, and we seek to do more to increase their participation by expanding a scheme that is designed to support parents regardless of whether their child is born still or born alive. By doing so, we increase their opportunities and their access to care and support at a time when they need it most. I thank senators for the contributions that they have made to date and that they will make on this bill. I acknowledge the work of families, parents, advocates, medical professionals, counsellors and others who work tirelessly to address stillbirth in our community, and I commend this bill to the Senate.
Having a baby is one of the most exciting, wonderful and scary times in anyone's life. I know how hard I had to try to fall pregnant, but that was just step 1. My mother had seven miscarriages before I was born, and one came very close to full term; I've only ever heard her referred to as Sally. It's not something my mother really spoke about, and unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to speak with her about it now. But, as you can imagine, after my mother's seven miscarriages, neither she nor I were particularly calm women during my first pregnancy.
Because I was on fertility treatment, everything was closely monitored, so I knew I was pregnant at five weeks. But this silly old rule still exists that you don't tell anyone until 12 weeks because miscarriage is most likely to occur in those first three months. You get through those first 12 weeks, and you hold your breath at every obstetrics appointment until you hear that heartbeat. That sound—every parent knows it—you think, at the time, is the best sound in the world, and that sound is only overtaken when you hear the first laugh and giggle from your child. Those laughs cancel out every sleepless night and nappy blowout.
My beautiful baby was born after being induced. She was quite happy where she was, and, 10 days past the due date, it was time for her to face the world. But during the induction her heartbeat started to go up and down, and there were concerns around the cord. I'd always told my obstetrician I wanted a healthy baby and I didn't care how he got them out, so we went to plan B. Millicent May Hughes then entered the world within eight minutes, with a gorgeous big cry as she was lifted over my head into her dad's arms.
Whilst we had a beautiful baby girl at the end of this pregnancy, when we were being taken back to my room, one of the nurses said to Millie's dad that they'd moved me to a different room because the bigger room with the ensuite that I was supposed to be in had been given to another mother—a mother who was coming in to deliver her stillborn baby. As anyone who's ever had an emergency caesar knows, the painkillers coupled with the postpartum hormones can make everything a bit of a blur—let alone having this beautiful baby lying next to you in the crib, learning to feed and having skin-to-skin contact—but neither Stewart nor I have ever forgotten that moment. I think we both held our precious little girl that little bit tighter, knowing how lucky we were to have her.
In some ways, that wasn't the worst stillbirth experience that I saw after I had Millie. As a new mother, you're invited to mothers group. Sometimes you make lifelong friends and sometimes the only thing you have in common with those women is that you're all new mums, but it's a really important experience. You learn from each other, you learn that you're not the only one doing something wrong, and it's a place where hormonal and exhausted tears are supported and usually shared. At the end of the six-week community health path, my group split into two. One decided they wanted to meet at the park and go for walks, in the middle of winter in Orange. Needless to say, that was not my group! Mine decided we would meet for lunch every week.
As Melbourne Cup approached, I asked the mothers group to come to my place for lunch, and one of the girls asked if they could bring with them a friend who had a baby the same age as ours. When Jodie arrived and I had a cuddle with her beautiful boy, I asked her why she hadn't been in our mothers group, since her baby was the same age as ours. Was she perhaps in another group?
Jodie told me she wasn't invited to mothers group as this wasn't her first birth. Two years earlier, Jodie had delivered a stillborn baby girl. The emotion was so raw in Jodie's voice as she spoke to me about it, and all I could feel was building rage. In what world do we exclude a woman with her second baby from mothers group after her first was stillborn? To this day, I still get so upset about it.
We need to bring miscarriage and stillbirth out of the closet and into the light. Every woman who has fallen pregnant has felt the butterfly flutters, the gymnastic rolling around and the odd the serious kick. The loss they experience at any stage of the pregnancy is raw and real, as is the grief. I know that this is something that Senator Keneally understands. I have supported her motions in this area to recognise the tragedy of stillbirth and the awful situation those families face. Sometimes in life there are things you simply can't understand until you experience it. I know what our family's gone through in having a special needs child. People can empathise, but they can never fully understand. So, whilst my heart breaks for all the mothers and fathers who have experienced this grief, I can only stand here in empathy and, quite frankly, in awe. They pick themselves up, and many who are lucky to then have a rainbow baby go on with their family life. As a mum who was lucky to deliver three beautiful and healthy babies, I can say I'm not sure I'd be as strong as them.
Thank you, Senator Keneally, for advocating in this space and being so open about your gorgeous girl Caroline and the contribution she's made to your family. I am pleased that we've taken a step to ensure that there is a clear and consistent minimum standard when it comes to parental leave for parents who experience this tragic loss. These parents would be able to take paid parental leave as they planned, without having to worry about returning to work before they're ready and without facing additional bureaucratic hurdles. I look to this place to support the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021 currently before us that enables an employee to take compassionate leave if they or their partner experience a miscarriage. We need to bring this into the open and acknowledge the loss that's felt that requires time to grieve.
What we do as a government is legislate the minimum standard. There are over 60 organisations that we know of that provide more generous provisions to parents who experience a stillbirth: organisations such as Bunnings, HSBC, Woolworths, BPAY and Cricket Australia. We commend those organisations and really would encourage all employers to understand the emotions and the psychological and physical impacts of pregnancy loss or a stillbirth and provide extra support, as best they can, to the employees in need. I promise them that loyalty to their staff at that horrific time in their life will be repaid tenfold.
Again, I want to commend Senator Keneally for her advocacy and for working with Minister Cash in close consideration of this bill. By talking about things such as miscarriage and stillbirth, we bring them out of the shadows and we remove any stigma around the issues—stigma that should never have existed in the first place. By talking openly and by government legislating a minimum standard, organisations and employers will be encouraged to think more about this issue: how it affects their staff and how they can best support them through such a tragic event.
( [by video link] I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021. This bill would ensure employer related paid parental leave is available to parents affected by stillbirth. Stillbirth, miscarriage and infertility are issues that affect so many families and, sadly, are issues which continue to be considered taboo. The silence around the issue can compound the grief, trauma and isolation experienced by many families.
I will only speak briefly on this bill today to make space for those in the chamber who have personal experience with the profound loss of a stillborn baby; my heart goes out to all of them. I'd like to acknowledge all of the senators in this chamber who have experienced stillbirth. In particular, I thank Senator Keneally and others for continuing to talk about stillbirth as a public health issue, a mental health issue and a social issue.
I'd also like to acknowledge the work done by my colleague Senator Janet Rice on the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education. A few years ago, that select committee recommended that employment laws be reviewed to ensure that provisions for stillbirth and miscarriage are clear and consistent across employers and meet international best practice and that legislative entitlements to paid parental leave are unambiguous in recognising and providing support for employees who have experienced stillbirth.
The profound grief caused by the loss of a child can be as all-consuming for parents as the experience of having a child born healthy. For many, returning to work when they expected to be on parental leave can exacerbate their trauma. Many grieving parents are unable to return to work and bear the costs of extended periods of unpaid leave, part-time work or unemployment on top of medical costs and counselling expenses.
Stillbirth is not about numbers and it's not about dollars, but a study by PwC for the Stillbirth Foundation demonstrates the impact of failing to provide parents affected by stillbirth with adequate leave to support their recovery. That study estimated that the cost of absenteeism by parents and family members, presenteeism—a loss of focus, enthusiasm or inclusion while at work—and loss of productivity from bereaved parents leaving the workforce was $368 million.
The government's Paid Parental Leave scheme recognises the need for support and provides parents who have experienced stillbirth with the same PPL entitlements that they would have been entitled to had the unthinkable not happened. It's time for employer-paid parental leave schemes to do exactly the same.
In addition to recommendations around parental leave, the select committee made a suite of suggestions to improve support for families who have experienced stillbirth, including improved data collection to support research, facilitating stillbirth autopsies and investigations, national guidelines for hospitals and health centres on best practice, support for bereaved families, developing education and awareness-raising materials and a national action plan to reduce stillbirth. Implementation of the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan will go a long way to addressing those objectives.
It's critical that society start to talk more openly about stillbirth, miscarriage and infertility and provide support for those affected, including partners and family members. The Greens support an expedited rollout of the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan.
We also support continuity-of-care models, particularly the Birthing on Country and Birthing in Our Community initiatives, which have been shown to reduce stillbirths and infant mortality in First Nations communities.
Last year the Greens championed the removal of the unfair discrepancy in eligibility for stillbirth payments, and we welcome the government's decision to finally adopt that reform.
We support giving leave entitlements to workers affected by miscarriage. We support this private member's bill today to remove barriers for parents who experience stillbirth from accessing employer-paid parental leave entitlements.
Whilst we're talking about parental leave, I might just add—slightly off topic—for those families who are lucky enough to have a baby born healthy, we do need to do more to align paid parental leave with international expectations. We need to remove the discriminatory impacts on families where the birth parent is the higher income earner, because it's 2021; it happens these days. We need to support families to share leave more equitably. Parents should be entitled to a minimum of 26 weeks of paid leave, and more action should be taken to encourage and facilitate fathers to share the leave and the care load.
With those brief comments, out of respect for those in the chamber who have more experience with this issue than I do, I commend this bill to the chamber. I thank all senators for their work on this very important topic.
I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021, which has been placed in front of us today by Senator Keneally. I would like to start by commending Senator Keneally on her advocacy for this issue. Thank you very much, Senator.
When I read the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education's final report, the words that really hit me were that this was 'a hidden tragedy', because I don't think the topic of stillbirths can be described in any other way. This is not something that you hear talked about in the news, in the media or around the dinner table with friends and family, yet it affects thousands of Australians every year. In 2018, 2,789 babies died in the perinatal period; of those, three-quarters were stillbirths. Despite the numerous medical and technological advancements that we have achieved in recent times, the rate of stillbirths has remained the same for the last two decades. This truly is a hidden tragedy that is occurring within our country and one that is not widely discussed. As such, parents and families often suffer through this process alone. I know we did. Open and public discussion about the topic of stillbirths is vitally important. The more awareness we raise around this, the better society can support and assist those who are afflicted with the pain of going through a stillbirth pregnancy. The loss of a child of any age is unthinkable and often goes unspoken; however, it is important that we speak about it.
The Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education's final report outlines how many of our societal attitudes towards death underpin the silence and stigma surrounding stillbirth. Therefore it is important—for those who have suffered from a stillbirth, as well as those who may be afflicted by this in the future—that we talk about this. Open and honest discussions with family and friends can and will raise awareness around this issue and can only help those who suffer in silence. In our roles as senators for our various constituencies, if we do not speak about such important issues then they will remain hidden and unaddressed.
To go through such a tragedy at any stage of your life would be horrible, but to feel as though you're going through it alone would make it that much worse. This is why the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan is so important. Released in December last year, the plan provides a range of actions to reduce stillbirth in Australia. While this is a crucial first step, stillbirths will not stop happening overnight. The plan has a primary goal of reducing stillbirths by 20 per cent over five years. To achieve this, the plan aims to address five priority areas:
With this plan in place, I'm hopeful that we can make some real progress in reducing the number of stillbirths occurring in Australia. This will improve the lives of thousands of Australians and is a worthy goal to pursue. It is important that we support Australian families, especially when they're doing it tough and going through all the emotions that come from suffering a stillbirth. The Morrison government is committed to this end.
This government understands that, in starting or raising a family, people are presented with a unique set of challenges and that many of these challenges impose on an individual's ability to participate effectively in the workforce. This is why the government has committed to supporting Australians in the workforce through pregnancy and parenthood and to improving workplace settings for employee parents and those who are expecting. Action taken by the government through the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Unpaid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies and Other Measures) Act 2020 ensured that all provisions related to unpaid parental leave in the Fair Work Act provide a clear and consistent minimum standard, with improved support for those employees who have experienced stillbirth, to recognise the grief and emotional trauma of such circumstances. While recognising that most employers are obviously supportive of their employees, particularly when their employees have suffered such a tragic loss, this act ensures that the entitlement to unpaid parental leave for a parent whose baby is stillborn is precisely as it would have been if their baby had lived. The legislation also ensures that parents of stillborn babies or children who died during the first 24 months of life can take compassionate leave while on unpaid parental leave. It also reduces the rigidity of parental leave for parents of babies born prematurely and newborns who require hospitalisation immediately following birth, providing an opportunity to effectively put their leave on hold and return to work until the baby is ready to go home.
In recognition of the suffering caused by stillbirths, the Morrison government has also amended the stillborn baby payment to provide increased financial support to families who lose a child through stillbirth or within the first year after birth. Since the beginning of 2021, a single higher payment of $3,601.81 has aligned the assistance available to families who experience a stillbirth, regardless of whether it's their first or a subsequent stillbirth, with the assistance available to families who lose a child after birth. This support will go a long way to supporting those who suffer from a stillbirth.
Currently before the Senate is the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill 2021. This is also an important bit of legislation. It will enable an employee to take compassionate leave if the employee or their spouse or de facto partner has a miscarriage. It is important that this bill be passed. Like stillbirths, the topic of miscarriages is often not widely discussed, and therefore parents and families often suffer in silence. This legislation, however, provides further evidence of the Morrison government's wide-ranging commitment to addressing workforce issues, regardless of whether these are front-page news or hidden tragedies such as stillbirths and miscarriages. We want to ensure that everyone, regardless of the situation, has access to the leave requirements they need to properly heal physically, emotionally and psychologically.
While the government legislates minimum conditions for compassionate leave, many employers offer more than this minimum. In fact, there are 60 large organisations in Australia, such as HSBC, Bunnings, Woolworths, and many others, who provide specific leave entitlements through their workplace policies and enterprise agreements, in addition to the minimum standards in the Fair Work Act, to employees who suffer a stillbirth. It is heartening to know that there are many employers out there who understand the emotional, psychological and physical impacts of pregnancy loss and provide a level of support to their employees beyond what is required. This is why advocacy around this issue is so important. The more awareness is spread, the more compassion we are likely to see. Careful consideration of these important issues is necessary. While ensuring that these issues are adequately addressed, it is important to also consider whether legislative change is the best vehicle to promote cooperation between employers and employees. As I've mentioned, there are a number of companies who are going above and beyond to support employees through the trauma of a stillbirth. This is something that, as a government, we want to encourage.
Currently, the Fair Work Act does not mandate conditions beyond minimums. This is a longstanding principle that has been in place since the establishment of the Fair Work Act. As it stands, the Fair Work Act promotes enterprise bargaining that is critical to productivity growth and cooperative workplaces. In this context, regulating employer paid parental leave would be a significant departure from this longstanding principle and would have the capacity to damage the spirit of cooperation between employers and employees and their willingness to bargain. We want employers and employees to work together on issues such as this to come to agreements that are mutually beneficial for all parties involved.
The Morrison government is currently considering non-legislative mechanisms which may be appropriate to effect change at the workplace level. This could include educational materials and the championing of best practice to prompt employers to think beyond their obligations under the minimum standards and review their parental leave policies to provide more support to parents of stillborn babies. As discussed earlier, this is a hidden tragedy occurring within our society. Many employers may not be aware of the number of Australians that this affects and therefore have not acted to address this issue within their businesses.
In concluding, I would again like to commend Senator Keneally for her work on this. As with the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education, this is a bipartisan issue that the government wishes to remain bipartisan on. Helping those who have been dealt such a difficult hand goes beyond politics, and it should remain this way into the future. I commend the bill to the Senate.
[by video link] The Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021 represents an absolutely remarkable achievement by senators in this place, and it would not be possible without the dedicated work of Senator Keneally, who introduced it, and the hardworking members of the Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education—Senators McCarthy, Molan, Bilyk and Rice. I want to acknowledge what is clearly very personal, raw and present grief for those senators who have contributed to the debate so far. It's an incredible thing to channel personal pain and tragedy, to take it out of the shadows, out of the place of personal and family grief, and to use it to drive policy change. It is remarkable, and I commend and acknowledge those senators in this place who have done that, as well as those here who may have felt or experienced it but aren't yet ready to speak and share it.
For too long those experiencing the pain of stillbirth and the grief which comes from it have done so alone. This bill is part of broader efforts in this place and in the community to take stillbirth out of the shadows, out of a world of personal pain and grief, and bring it into the open to talk about it and share in it so that we can right the policy wrongs and the policy failures that have for too long compounded this grief and pain.
The measures in this bill will provide support to families, and especially mothers, during what are undoubtedly the most difficult moments, hours, days and months of their lives. It corrects a historical wrong which prevented parents who experienced a stillbirth from accessing paid parental leave. It means parents will have the space and time to grieve without being forced to return to work. According to stillbirth awareness charity Still Aware, six babies in Australia are born still every day, and the rate of death from stillbirth among infants is higher than the national road toll—indeed, it is the No. 1 cause of death for infants. The parents of babies that are stillborn do not wake up the next day no longer parents or without parental responsibility; they deal with profound grief, unimaginable for many of us. They go through the traumatic experience of medical procedures, autopsies and funerals, and the physical and psychological challenges which will prevent them from working in any productive capacity in the weeks and months after their baby's death.
This committee's work was remarkable, and the committee heard significant numbers of stories and horrific accounts of mothers required to return to work in incredibly short time frames—in one case 11 days after giving birth to a stillborn baby. From this committee's work and these personal stories and tragedies comes important legislative reform. I acknowledge those organisations and businesses, and the trade union movement, who have already led in this area to provide support for families, mothers and parents. They have recognised not only that this is the right thing to do morally but that it makes economic sense to support parents going through this. However, the ultimate responsibility to ensure these measures reach the parents who need them lies with this parliament, with legislative reform and with bipartisan efforts to do better and to fix these historical wrongs and policy failures which have compounded grief.
Again, I thank the senators whose work has brought this bill before us for bravely sharing their grief with the parliament and with the nation, and for channelling that grief to make a difference to the lives of many mothers, fathers and families who were struggling in silence and in the shadows. Your voices, your advocacy and your work mean they will be a little bit less alone.
[by video link] I support the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021. On 4 December 2018 I tabled a report as chair of the Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education. I carried that report into this place on a coolamon, symbolic of the way First Nations people have carried their cherished babies. I said at the time that this committee and the recommendations contained in the report would make a change and would make a difference. I'm incredibly proud of the work of this committee and the change that it has driven so far—change to make a difference in the lives of parents and in the lives of babies. But, importantly, change must happen to honour the babies that have been lost, to honour the spirits of the children yet to come and to honour and recognise the stories that families shared on this committee's journey, the stories of loss and grief and ongoing trauma.
This legislation is part of that journey, part of the ongoing work of the committee to acknowledge and honour all of those who participated in it. I am proud of the work that has carried on since the report was tabled in 2018, but there is still an enormous amount of work to do to tackle the fiscal, social and emotional toll of stillbirth in our country. In Australia six babies are lost to stillbirth each day, or approximately 2,200 babies every year. The rate of death from stillbirth is higher than the national road toll, and stillbirth is a No. 1 cause of death for infants. Stillbirths directly and indirectly cost the economy $681 million between 2016 and 2020.
Senator McCarthy, we seem to have lost the audio. We might have to go to Senator Bilyk.
In rising to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021, I want to begin by thanking the parents who told their brave stories at the inquiry. It's been a journey for everybody. Some parents had very, very recently had their little person born still, and for them to come forward and tell their brave stories was of great significance and obviously helped us to write our report. I also want to thank Kristina Keneally for bringing up this topic. Although I am the parent of a stillborn child, it's not a topic that I thought would get any resonance during the time I've been in the Senate. So I'm really grateful to Senator Keneally for bringing this forward, which enabled us to carry out the committee work that we did. I also thank the other members of the Senate committee. I thank each and every one of you for the respect, care and dignity you gave to parents of stillborn babies.
When my first child Timothy was born still back in 1983, the hospital staff suggested they would take him away immediately. I refused, and I'm really glad I did. We held on to our baby, we bathed him, we dressed him and we said goodbye to him and then we could let him go. I can't say we were ready, but we let him go at a time that was of our calling, not of the hospital's calling. Since I gave birth to our beautiful boy Timothy, a much greater understanding has developed of the importance of parents having time with their stillborn babies as part of the grieving process. But, while some aspects of our approach to supporting parents of stillborn babies have improved substantially, there are others, I'm afraid to say, that are still stuck firmly in the Dark Ages.
One approach to paid parental leave seems to follow an attitude that, if you don't have a live baby, you're not a parent. Well, take it from me, we are. Parents of stillborn babies are still parents and deserve to be treated as such. A mother who experiences stillbirth needs time to recover from the birth, not just mentally but physically. All parents need time to be with their babies, to hold them and to be able to say a proper goodbye. They need time to make funeral arrangements and autopsy arrangements should they choose to have an autopsy. They need time to seek support and comfort from family, friends, loved ones and mental health professionals. They need time to provide support to their own family and their stillborn baby's living siblings, if they have them. Most of all, they need time to grieve. For most parents, the grief of stillbirth will never leave them, but, given the right amount of time and support, a parent can at least come to terms with their grief and not have it dominate their life. It's often misunderstood how traumatic a stillbirth is. It can be just as distressing for a parent as the death of an infant or another child. So the amount of time that is needed to grieve is substantial.
The Fair Work Amendment (Improving Paid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies) Bill 2021 addresses an issue that arose from the Senate inquiry into stillbirth, which concluded almost three years ago. The Senate inquiry's report noted that, according to the International Labour Organization, compulsory leave of six weeks should be provided to all women in the event of a stillborn child as a health related measure. But, currently, only 12 of 170 countries with maternity benefit policies include any specific provision for stillbirth related leave. Unfortunately, a number of employers have unclear policies on parental leave for parents who have experienced stillbirth, and often decisions on when an employee returns are made by middle managers, usually with little understanding of the impact of stillbirth.
The first recommendation of the Senate inquiry's report was to ensure legislative entitlements for employees who experienced stillbirth. Despite the government agreeing to this recommendation, they extended only unpaid leave for employees who have experienced stillbirth. While any extension of leave provision for parents of stillborn babies is welcome, extending only unpaid leave does not go nearly far enough. It does, thankfully, mean that employees can have some peace of mind knowing that it will not cost them their job if they refuse to return to work too soon. But, under the current arrangements, financial pressure will compel many workers to return to work before they are ready. For employees who return to work too soon following a stillbirth, it can't help but delay their emotional recovery. The damage this could do to an employee's emotional wellbeing will ultimately cost that workplace, too.
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers released in 2016 estimated that the direct and indirect costs of stillbirth would total $681.4 million in the five-year period from 2016 to 2020. Of that cost, $278.4 million, or just over 40 per cent, would be in absenteeism and presenteeism. In cases where a bereaved mother returns to work for financial reasons following a stillbirth, the PwC study found that she maintains 26 per cent of the normal workplace productivity 30 days after her return. I think it's worth reflecting on this statistic. It makes you think about what kind of emotional trauma someone must be going through if they can only produce a quarter of their normal output. Is having to work through this trauma delaying the mother's ability to recover? Yes, it is. What flow-on effect is that having on the productivity and the morale of work colleagues? But, if parents don't return to work, the alternative may be to add more financial stress on top of funeral expenses and possibly also hospital expenses. Mr Troy Wright from the Community and Public Sector Union's New South Wales branch highlighted to the Senate inquiry the disparity between leave entitlements and the return to work. He said:
The Fair Work Act makes provision for two days of compassionate leave, which parents can access in the event of a stillbirth. Employment agreements may provide further leave entitlements not specifically related to stillbirth, but often these are not enough for parents to recover.
A submission to the inquiry from parents Tim and Leanne Smith explained how long recovery can take. Leanne wrote:
I was not a functioning member of society or the workforce for at least 6 months. I believe that people need to be given sufficient time away from the workforce in the first instance to deal with the emotional and physical turmoil.
Another submission, from Annette Kacela and Christopher Lobo, highlighted the vast differences between workplaces in their approach to supporting employees. Annette wrote:
Following the stillbirth of our son Thomas, neither Christopher nor I were capable of immediately returning to work due to the sheer devastation, grief and crippling mental effects. We have since returned to our respective employers to different departments. Christopher's employer granted him paid leave for 2 months who was exceptionally supportive of the circumstances and even contacted him on multiple occasions to ensure his and our family's wellbeing. My employer dealt with Thomas's passing in stark contrast, I was on leave for four months where I was required to use all of my personal and annual leave entitlements which I had been accumulating in preparation for Thomas live birth, the remainder of the time was un-paid.
… … …
The non-supportive work culture demonstrated by my employer compounded the situation we were already in. I was also requested to complete my 'on-call' shifts over the Christmas period that I had to decline, this gesture clearly demonstrated the lack of awareness …
Among the parents giving evidence to the inquiry, the shortest period of time given to them before they were required to return to work was 11 days. After 11 days this poor woman had to return to work. I can only imagine what sort of trauma that caused.
I am pleased to find out that a number of employers have taken it upon themselves to make specific provisions of paid leave entitlements for stillbirth. There's a list that the Stillbirth Foundation Australia maintains, and so far there are 51 businesses on the list, covering close to 800,000 employees. I'd love to be able to name them all in this speech and thank them individually, but I simply can't in the time I have.
I know there is a time limit for this speech, and I know that Senator McCarthy is back online and would like to continue her speech. As she is the chair of the committee, I think it's only fair that I give the rest of the time to Senator McCarthy. I just want to say this: I commend Senator McCarthy—so much—for her very capable chairing of the committee, because, as I said earlier, it was a very sensitive and, at times, a very emotional inquiry. It's a tragedy that is so shocking. A stillbirth is so painful that you never fully recover from it, even several decades later. Last night, when I was thinking about this speech, I was crying. I don't say that to garner support from people; I say it so that people understand that, 38 years later, that grief is still real. Yes, my life has gone on. Yes, we've managed to go on and have other children. Not everybody is that lucky, of course. I will say this: if there's been something positive that's come out of our experience, it's our appreciation for and understanding of the deep, profound grief that is still confronting so many families today—six families a day in Australia—and what we need to do to help them through it. It's a shared experience that I believe has brought me, Senator Keneally, Senator McCarthy and other colleagues closer together. I would also like to quickly acknowledge and thank the shadow minister for industrial relations, Mr Tony Burke, for his work on this bill and for his advocacy for stillbirth leave more generally.
I've spoken at length about the impact of stillbirths on parents, because that's what this bill addresses, but our colleague Chris Bowen's mother suffered a stillbirth and that's an important reminder to people. It's wonderful to have so many strong advocates for action on stillbirth in both the House and the Senate. We're starting to break that silence. We've made significant progress on the issue over the past few years, and I hope that with this bill we can make even more. I commend the bill to the Senate.
[by video link] by leave—A key issue raised by witnesses and submitters in relation to employment matters concerned leave entitlements for parents who experienced a stillbirth. We heard evidence from women who had been made redundant while recovering from a stillbirth. The first recommendation in the bipartisan report of the Senate select committee on stillbirths was to amend the Fair Work Act to ensure that legislative entitlements to paid parental leave are unambiguous in recognising and providing support for employees who have experienced stillbirth. The government agreed to this recommendation. However, in 2020 the government amended the Fair Work Act to extend unpaid parental leave to parents of stillborn babies, but this did not include paid leave. This bill will fully implement the committee's bipartisan recommendation and equalise paid parental leave entitlements for all parents.
The Commonwealth's parental leave pay already provides parents of a stillborn baby with the same leave entitlements as parents of a baby born live. However, in the private sector, without explicit entitlements for employees who have experienced a stillbirth, often it is a manager or direct supervisor making the significant decision as to whether parents of a stillborn baby can access paid parental leave. During the Senate select committee's hearings, we heard evidence about the difficulties and inconsistencies experienced by employees in the private sector when seeking access to paid parental leave after stillbirth. Some of those stories were truly horrifying. In one case, a mother gave evidence to the committee that she was forced to return to work by her manager just 11 days after her baby's stillbirth. Parents of a stillborn child have to deal with the physical trauma as well as the emotional. Like any mother of a new baby, she must recover from the birth, and this includes the usual experiences for women after birth, such as lactation, hormone fluctuation, and the healing of any incisions or surgery the birth may have required.
A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that mothers who returned to work for financial reasons following a stillbirth had a productivity rate of just 26 per cent of their normal rate after 30 days. This was supported by evidence given to the Senate inquiry, such as that from one mother, who told us:
...I now find myself mentally unprepared to re-join the workforce in the immediate future due to a lack of drive and mental capacity to be able to fulfil work obligations. Re-joining the workforce too soon may result [in] a phenomenon known as presenteeism, where an employee is physically present, but mentally absent. Further, the prolonged period of remaining at home without an active income will eventuate in financial burden, and potentially a strain on the relationships within the household.
The ambiguity in existing company parental leave policies is most likely through oversight or misunderstanding of stillbirth rather than an ill intent, but there is no misunderstanding the traumatic and long-term impacts that a forced return to work after such a tragedy can have on a family. This bill will fully implement the committee's bipartisan recommendations and equalise paid parental leave entitlements for all parents.
In 2018, Stillbirth Foundation Australia established a registry of private sector employers that provide specific paid leave provisions in their employee agreements for parents of stillborn babies. The registry now includes 51 businesses, covering nearly 800,000 employees, including Bunnings, Woolworths, Cricket Australia, Optus, Wesfarmers, Telstra, PwC and Origin Energy. I acknowledge these companies and the many more that have set up or are looking to establish these paid leave provisions, but the entitlement can still vary widely from company to company. This legislation will ensure that employees can access the same entitlement to employee paid parental leave regardless of whether the pregnancy ended in a stillbirth or with a live birth and regardless of whether the entitlement is legislative or one arising under an industrial instrument. It makes economic sense for a company to help parents recover from their baby's birth and death. The move to introduce PPL for the parents of stillborn babies would not cost companies anything additional, given that they have already made provision for paid parental leave for applicants.
According to the Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth, the economic impact of stillbirth is significant and far reaching and extends further than just a direct cost to the healthcare sector. One important area in which major employer groups might see benefits from targeted stillbirth research is in the impact of pregnancy loss on women and their families in terms of time off work, altered work performance and other employment-related impacts. Improving bereavement care and recovery after stillbirth has potential beneficial spin-offs for employers and the broader economy, and this could encourage investment from the corporate sector.
As I said, the work of the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education continues to make a very real difference. Our report called for a national stillbirth action plan to reduce the rate of stillbirth, and I was pleased to see the government take up our recommendation and commit funding towards a 10-year national stillbirth action and implementation plan in December 2020.
I'd also like to note the development of the Safer Baby Bundle. This evidence based package aims to reduce risk factors for stillbirth and improve clinical management of pregnant women who may be at increased risk of stillbirth. The Safer Baby Bundle is currently being implemented in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria and will be extended to all states and territories. It's jointly funded through a National Health and Medical Research Council partnership project and the Medical Research Future Fund. The evidence based components of the Safer Baby Bundle are: smoking cessation support, improving awareness and management of women with decreased foetal movements, improving detection and management of impaired foetal growth, provision of maternal safe sleeping advice and improving decision-making around timing of birth for women with risk factors.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widescale changes in the way antenatal care is provided and has resulted in some delays in implementing the SBB. Despite these challenges, there are currently 82 maternity services involved in varying stages of implementation across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, accounting for approximately half of all births in these states. I'm informed that all other jurisdictions are planning to implement the SBB over the coming year, which is very welcome news.
The Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education's report examined the risk factors, which related not only to individual maternal health factors but also to issues such as geographical location and race. Around 33 per cent of all stillbirths in Australia happen to women who live in regional and remote areas of our country. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data, the further women are from a major city, the higher the rate of stillbirth, and the rate for First Nations women is double that. There are higher stillbirth rates amongst culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia, so our women from non-English-speaking backgrounds suffer a great deal in silence.
There is a clear need to improve the cultural protocols around dealing with families who have suffered stillbirth The committee heard very disturbing evidence about six stillborn babies of Indigenous descent who remained in a morgue at the Katherine hospital for a number of years, six years in some cases. Evidence was presented in relation to the difficulty of contacting families who lived in very remote communities and the lack of resources available for locating and working with bereaved families. It was noted that there may also be financial issues. Since the report was handed down, I have heard of similar situations with babies in morgues long term in other locations around Australia.
While I'm heartened to see action on so many fronts in terms of stillbirth prevention, the fates of these babies still disturbs me deeply. Every preventable stillbirth is a tragic outcome of pregnancy. Stillbirths still affect more than 2,000 Australian families each year. For too long there has been a culture of silence around stillbirth, regarded as a hidden tragedy with personal, social and financial consequences. I am proud that the work of the Senate select committee has gone a long way to breaking that silence. There have been significant commitments made to reducing the rates of stillbirth and the impact it has on our families and the wider Australian community.
I believe the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education demonstrated how this parliament can work in a collegiate and bipartisan manner to drive positive change. In the words of Senator Jim Molan, one of my colleagues on the Senate committee, on the occasion of the tabling of the report, 'This is how parliament should work.' This was endorsed at the time by committee member Senator Rice, who said, 'It is truly representative of the Senate working at its best.'
This legislation encompasses the very first recommendation of the select committee and corrects the oversight in the government's recent legislation introducing unpaid parental leave for the parents of stillborn babies. I urge senators to support Senator Keneally, Senator Bilyk and me in the work that still needs to be done here to continue the work of the committee as a whole and support this bill introducing much needed paid parental leave for the parents of stillborn babies. They have suffered enough, and worrying about their next pay packet should not play a part in their grief.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
[by video link] The Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020 comes before the parliament at a vital time, as the Australian community looks on with sadness and great frustration as a humanitarian crisis unfolds in Afghanistan. At the end of Australia's longest war, it is vital for us to immediately analyse how it came to this and take urgent steps to ensure that we never again are involved in a colonial war of aggression.
There are many aspects and many issues that led to the Australian engagement in Afghanistan. It's a complex topic that has been the subject of much academic debate in the last two decades. However, it is clear that one of the key factors which led to our initial engagement and continual presence in Afghanistan—under conditions where there was a profound lack of mission clarity, in that the enemy was unidentified and the general purpose of the deployment unclear—was that the Australian people were taken to war via the unilateral decision of a prime minister. In the ensuing 20-year period, there was no requirement to seek the authorisation of the Australian parliament to continue that deployment, and there were very few mechanisms by which, publicly, the aims of the war—its scope, its duration and its legal basis—could be transparently analysed.
This is not a situation that is unique to Afghanistan. It is the case that, right now, the Australian Prime Minister and cabinet is empowered to unilaterally take Australia to war. In the previous decades we have seen this happen on multiple occasions: first in Vietnam, then in Afghanistan and also in Iraq. In each of these conflicts, there is a connecting thread. It is a connecting thread of allegiance and of self-interest. We went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan for one reason and one reason only: because it served America's strategic interests and it therefore served Australia's strategic interests. John Howard took us into those colonial wars of aggression because it suited the United States and it therefore suited him, strategically and politically, and we stayed there for 20 years, in the case of Afghanistan, because it suited the United States and, therefore, it suited the Prime Minister of the day and the Labor Party. We are now leaving primarily because it suits the strategic interests of the United States and therefore it suits the strategic interests of the Morrison government.
Any and all arguments as to the humanitarian nature of these engagements—putting aside the oxymoron that is the idea that you can bring peace and humanity at the end of a gun—are made to justify and to overcover the central reason for the presence. At this moment, there is an urgent need for this parliament and for this government to act in a multiplicity of different ways to support the people of Afghanistan in the middle of this unfolding humanitarian crisis. We must also look to the legislative mechanisms that would, in the future, prevent such a war from being engaged in, and one of those mechanisms is this bill.
This bill would do a few very simple yet powerful things. It would require a vote of both houses before Australian personnel could be deployed overseas and it would require—should that resolution and empowerment be given—the Australian defence minister to provide to both chambers a comprehensive report, every two months, speaking specifically to the scope of the engagement, the legal basis for the engagement, the duration of the engagement and what is being done to ameliorate, to end, the conflict and crisis, to enable the resolution to be withdrawn. This would have a couple of effects—and I note here that, within this legislation, there are very carefully crafted carve-outs and instances to allow for emergency situations, and I also note that this bill speaks specifically and exclusively to the deployment of Australian forces beyond our territorial boundaries. The bill would have a number of beneficial effects. It would play a number of roles in ensuring that we do not end up in a situation like Afghanistan again—and let me be really clear: when I say 'we do not end up in a situation like Afghanistan', I am also talking about ensuring that no nation is ever again subjected to the humiliation and degradation of colonial occupation.
So the bill would do the following things. Firstly, by placing the authorisation for an armed conflict within the parliament, it would put many a barrier between the authorisation to deploy overseas and unscrupulous, egotistical and misguided politicians who may seek to exploit a national or international crisis for their own personal or strategic aims. It would require every senator and MP to actively scrutinise the case for war and to actively scrutinise the intelligence being placed before us, because we know what happened without this level of scrutiny and accountability, particularly in relation to the purpose of armed conflict deployments and the impacts on the nations in which they are deployed. If parliament is not given the opportunity—if the public are not given the opportunity—to scrutinise legislation, then we go to war based on lies. That is what happened in Iraq. That is what happened in Vietnam. We went to war based on lies because we were not able, as a community, to scrutinise and get to the bottom of the case being put to the people.
I also note that this ability to maintain clarity and to have accountability in relation to the purpose, scope and legality of an engagement also serves the purpose of maintaining greater scrutiny and accountability of the armed forces. I note here the comments from Justice Brereton's report, that part of the culture that developed in our armed forces in Afghanistan—part of the toxic mixture that came together to enable such horrific alleged war crimes in Afghanistan by our special forces—was the lack of mission clarity and the nature of fighting an unidentified enemy in an insurgency environment for a prolonged period of time. This legislation would give us the ability to be continually scrutinising—continually asking the questions: Why are we there? What are we doing? What is being done to get out? These are the urgent questions that need to be considered. We need to put these barriers between politicians and their ability to deploy the ADF to armed combat, because 20 years of war have shown that they cannot be trusted with this power.
The Australian Greens have the view, alongside the community, that we should, as I say, never again participate in one of these colonial wars of aggression. Our goal must always be peace, and it is not lost on any member of our community that at the time of both of these engagements there was great community uprising and opposition to them, which was blunted again and again by the absence of an opportunity to pressure members of parliament into reflecting that view in the parliament, in their chambers. This bill would ensure that, should America or any other power ever ask us to go with them into war, should an Australian Prime Minister ever again come before the nation and make a case for war, that would have to be fully and transparently scrutinised by the parliament not once but continually over the life of the deployment, the goal being to bring that deployment to an end and restore peace.
Perpetual war at the behest of the United States must be a thing of the past. We must consign it to the dustbin of history. The blood that has been spilt, the lives that have been ruined, the countless decimated villages of Afghanistan and Vietnam and Iraq call on us to take this action, as do the mortally wounded, the maimed psyches of so many of our returned service personnel, who did a job that they should never have been asked to do, in an environment they should never have been asked to work in, to an unclear brief that was beyond their skillset or their training. The worst thing of it all, the worst shame of it all, is that prime minister after prime minister, defence minister after defence minister, one after another, the politicians in this place, knew. They knew that there was no point to these conflicts other than serving America's interests. They knew that there was no way out. They knew that there was no clear purpose, yet they kept sending Australian personnel over there and they kept a presence in a nation which caused incredible harm and damage.
There must be political transparency. There must be political accountability. This parliament, representative of the community, must take upon its shoulders the full responsibility of ADF deployment. It is not good enough that the closest many MPs get to the reality of warfare is shaking the hand of a veteran on Anzac Day or participating in carefully stage-managed exchanges in nations like Afghanistan. It is not good enough. If the families of Australian service personnel have to sit up through the night wondering whether their loved ones are okay, if the families of folks in Afghanistan have to sit up through the night wondering whether the throw of that chopper means the Red Beards are inbound, that of their loved ones is going to be taken, then MPs too should sit with that burden, should sit up through the night wondering if the case was good enough, feeling the responsibility. This we must do. This is what this legislation is focused on, and I commend it to the Senate.
[by video link] I'll just point out to Senator Steele-John that Australia, since Federation, has not participated in colonial wars of aggression. I remind listeners to this debate of the connection between the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. I can give 2,977 reasons, the lives lost in the US, and 202 reasons, the lives, including 88 Australians, lost in Bali, as to why Australia was involved in that conflict in Afghanistan.
As I commence my contribution to the debate on this draft legislation that has been introduced on behalf of the Greens by Senator Steele-John, I do note that I have spoken on previous Greens bills seeking to reform war powers. Given that this bill, the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020, does not address the concerns that were raised with previous attempts, including concerns highlighted by the scrutiny of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, I will flag upfront that I will not be supporting the bill.
This bill is a revised version of the one introduced in the Senate in 1985 by Senator Colin Mason, a Democrat from New South Wales. The changes in this bill consists mainly of detailed provisions relating to emergency situations which occur when the parliament is not meeting and the information which is required to be provided to the public and to the parliament. This bill would insert a new section in the Defence Act 1903 under which the service of members of the Defence Force beyond the territorial limits of Australia in warlike actions would require the approval of both houses of parliament, with some exceptions. The bill is similar in effect to a bill which was introduced in the Senate in 2014 by Senator Ludlam. As I noted when I spoke in 2014, his bill then was essentially unchanged from the 2008 bill of the same name which was also introduced by Senator Ludlam.
Given that this bill has origins in previous bills, it is instructive to go back and look at the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee inquiry that examined the bill put forward by the Greens in 2008; the report also referred to the original bill put forward by the Democrats. The Senate committee inquiry was comprehensive. It received a range of submissions from civil society and the department. In the concluding remarks of its report, the committee, whilst acknowledging 'the critical importance of parliamentary debate', 'stopped short in accepting the requirement for both houses of the parliament to approve the deployment of Australian troops'. It particularly focused on the issue of the treatment of classified material, observing:
… the disclosure of classified or sensitive intelligence may well compromise an operation and the safety of Australian forces or those of their allies.
The report also made the point that if in order to protect our forces or our allies classified information had to be withheld from the parliament then those that this bill would require to make the critical decisions about deployment of forces would not be fully informed, and that would be 'an equally concerning situation for the security of the nation and its forces'.
Some proponents of reform have suggested that a small group of opposition MPs could be briefed and that this would facilitate an informed parliamentary debate. An example of that is the article in August 2013 by the group Be Sure On War. But to accept this premise actually supports the current situation, whereby a small group is briefed and the majority of members and senators have to take their word for the veracity of the information upon which the decision to deploy was made. It's unclear how parliamentary debate under the circumstances proposed would be any more informed and effective than the status quo.
The committee found, after some deliberation, that 'the process of seeking Parliamentary approval may, in some circumstances, cause difficulties for the effective and safe deployment of Australian forces'. It also had 'concerns about possible unintended consequences that may arise including implications for the Defence Force should approval not be forthcoming after forces have been dispatched in response to an emergency'. I notice that this current bill has similar provisions, whereby the Prime Minister could advise the Governor-General, who can make a declaration of an emergency and forces can be dispatched and then you can have the debate. But this creates the possibility of parliament not approving the deployment after troops are already in combat. That means you then have to go through the dangerous, logistically difficult and morale-sapping act of withdrawing forces who may be tactically engaged with the enemy. It would also fundamentally affect Australia's reliability as an ally at a time when the strategic update of 2020 has highlighted that our alliances with other nations with whom Australia has a defence and security agreement are more important than ever.
Finally, the report talked about a range of activities where Australia deploys forces in a situation where they may have to use force. Antipiracy operations are a classic example. The report concluded that the executive must retain the ability to deploy forces. Let me turn to how these decisions are made here in Australia.
Here the power to make war, deploy troops and declare peace are part of the executive power of the Commonwealth. The executive power is recognised in section 61 of the Constitution. While executive power of the Commonwealth is exercised by the Governor-General on the advice of the federal Executive Council or responsible ministers normally, it is contemporary practice that decisions to go to war or deploy troops are matters for the Prime Minister and cabinet. The National Security Committee of Cabinet was established in 1996. This body is now the primary body—in fact, I would argue the only body—that has access to all the classified information and briefs from departments to inform decisions.
A common argument from proponents of war power reform is that Australia is one of the few remaining democracies, particularly Westminster democracies, that can legally deploy its defence force into a conflict zone without recourse to the parliament. As I outlined in 2014, that is incorrect. Let's look at the Five Eyes partners, starting with Canada.
Under Canadian constitutional law the federal cabinet can without parliamentary approval or consultation commit Canadian forces to action abroad, whether in the form of a specific current operation or possible future contingencies resulting from international treaty obligations. Under the Canadian Constitution—and that's their act of 1867—sections 15 and 19, command of the armed forces is vested in the Queen and exercised in her name by the federal cabinet acting under the leadership of the Prime Minister. So Canada has exactly the same executive power that exists here in Australia.
In New Zealand the formal right to declare war was clearly part of the royal prerogative inherited from Great Britain in 1840, and it remains an acknowledged part of New Zealand law. Defence and wartime prerogatives include the right to declare war and peace and the deployment and armament of defence forces. The royal prerogative is exercised by the Governor-General of New Zealand on the advice of elected ministers or executive by the authorities of the letter patent constituting the office of the Governor-General.
In the United Kingdom—and this is the case that's often quoted by people who think Australia is out of step—the deployment of troops and the issuing of orders to engage in hostilities are matters of royal prerogative exercisable by ministers. The government has freedom of action in this regard and the parliament does not need to give its approval. I repeat that: parliamentary approval is not required in the UK. It is true that Labour MP Tam Dalyell introduced the Military Action Against Iraq (Parliamentary Approval) Bill in 1999. That was the first of a number of bills challenging the royal prerogative, including the monarch's war powers, to be codified and subject to parliamentary scrutiny. None of these bills have passed the House of Commons.
It's also true that, despite there being no legal requirement to consult or seek approval, both the Blair and Cameron governments have sought in principle support from the House of Commons for potential UK military action. While some, including Prime Minister Cameron, have described this practice now to be a convention, it is not codified in law and the scope of obligation and the application of this practice are not universally supported.
In the case of the United States, their constitution—article I, section 8, clause 11—grants the Congress the power to declare war, to raise and support armies and to provide and maintain a navy. The President is made the Commander in Chief of the armed forces under article II, section 2, clause 1. The specific power to deploy US armed forces is covered by the War Powers Resolution of 1973, also known as the war powers act. The War Powers Resolution imposes on the President that the President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing US forces into hostilities or into a situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstance, but the terms 'every possible instance' and 'consult' are not defined by the resolution and they've been interpreted in different ways at different times. Notably, the term 'consult' does not equate to approval of Congress—a matter that is contemplated by this bill before our Senate today.
Many US presidents have claimed that the War Powers Resolution is an unconstitutional infringement on their authority as the Commander in Chief and have refused to be bound by it—the courts likewise. In 2003 a judge of the district court rejected the contention that the President must have congressional authority to order American forces into combat, saying that the case law makes it clear that the Congress does not have the exclusive rights to determine whether or not the United States engages in war.
Whilst at a broad level I understand that our parliament has an interest in what is occurring and a moral obligation to hold the government to account, I have deep concerns about the unintended consequences of the parliament being involved in executive decisions around the use of force. In this debate and previous debates people have referred to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in those cases would parliamentary debate really have made a difference as to whether forces were deployed or, more particularly, in the outcomes that were achieved? I, along with many others, will doubtless analyse and debate the decision to withdraw NATO alliance troops in the time frame and manner we have witnessed in recent weeks, but it raises the question: if the parliament had to give approval to deploy forces, would we have had a different outcome? The answer is: not necessarily, because the decisions regarding the withdrawal were taken by the US decades after the context of the initial response to the 9/11 attacks, which had widespread support around the globe.
If the ongoing approval of the legislature is required, the logical question then is: how deeply will parliaments become involved in the strategic, operational and tactical decisions of armed forces when approaching the issue? You could argue that requiring a postwar plan is a strategic consideration, but it opens a grey area about how deeply parliaments will reach into decisions beyond the decision to commit troops. That is what they do in theatre. Vietnam is a case in point where political interference in how the war was fought resulted in bad outcomes, as opposed to just setting a clear military objective and then allowing the military to use the most effective means to achieve the outcome,.
As I draw my contribution to a close, I note for the benefit of people listening to this debate who have an interest in this subject that, since I last spoke on a Greens bill—which was in 2014—Dr Brendan Nelson, who was defence minister when I was a member of the House of Representatives in the Howard government, has published in Papers on Parliament No. 63 in 2015 a very informed discussion on this issue, titled 'The role of government and parliament in the decision to go to war'. I commend his paper to those who are interested in the subject.
In conclusion, it's important for Australia's ability to shape, deter and respond to threats to Australia and our national interest that we do not remove from the executive the powers that it currently has, particularly if doing so is on the basis of false assertions. The assumption that our allies and the majority of democracies do not give their executives this power is not correct. There has been consideration in detail of similar bills that have been moved by the Democrats and the Greens in the past. The consideration of committees with members from multiple parties has reached the conclusion that the bills in question should not be supported.
Senator Steele-John made the point that many members of parliament don't have much contact with the military. As somebody who spent over two decades in the military and who has spent most of his time in the parliament involved with foreign affairs, defence and trade and intelligence and security work, I support the measures that we currently have in place. In the absence of detailed measures that have been analysed and found to address the concerns of previous committees, and the concerns that I have raised previously, I cannot and will not support this bill.
I rise to speak to the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020, a private senator's bill brought to this place by the Greens for debate today. The tragic events that have occurred in Afghanistan over the last few days have brought the intent of this bill into sharp focus. The ease and pace with which the Taliban swept across Afghanistan took intelligence services by surprise, resulting in a rapid deployment of troops to conduct evacuation missions. In a speech in the second reading debate on a previous version of this bill in 2011, then Senator Faulkner said:
We live and operate in the real world, and any legislation in here that we enact must be able to work in real life situations and it must be able to pass the real world test.
The real world consequences of this bill would have meant that while we were still here debating about deploying troops the window to evacuate Australian citizens and visa holders would have shut.
The purpose of this bill is to ensure that, as far as is constitutionally and practically possible, Australian Defence Force personnel are not sent overseas to engage in warlike actions without the approval of both houses of parliament. The bill would insert a new section into the Defence Act 1903 under which service of members of the Defence Force beyond the territorial limits of Australia in warlike actions would require the approval of both houses of parliament, with certain exceptions. As with previous versions of this bill, Labor believes that this bill leaves too many unanswered questions and may have unforeseen and unintended consequences. The existing practice in Australia is that any decision to deploy members of the ADF beyond Australia's territorial limits is at the sole prerogative of the executive of the Commonwealth. Federal Labor have supported and continue to support that power remaining a prerogative of the executive.
Under Australia's constitutional arrangements, the executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and exercisable by the Governor-General, who customarily acts on the advice of the government of the day. This power includes the decision to deploy the ADF to undertake combat operations as well as a range of activities other than war fighting, such as peacekeeping operations, disaster relief and evacuation missions such as that carried out in Kabul last week. In practice, this power is exercised by the Prime Minister and other ministers. These decisions do not require an act of parliament or a decision of the parliament. They are an exercise of executive power under section 61 of the Australian Constitution. Labor regards this longstanding constitutional practice as appropriate and does not support any proposal to alter these arrangements.
One of the arguments put forward by proponents of this bill is that other countries require parliamentary approval before deploying troops on overseas service. It is disingenuous to argue that such a position should apply in Australia. While it is true that forms of parliamentary consultation are required in some other systems of government, it is very important to realise that such comparisons or analogies are, if not invalidated, certainly complicated by the major differences in the constitutional frameworks of these countries. Various iterations of this bill have been introduced into the parliament over the past 35 years, first by the Australian Democrats and more recently by the Greens. Labor's position has been consistent throughout these debates.
It is imperative that the executive have the power to act swiftly and decisively when deploying our troops, not only for the security of our nation and our allies but also to ensure that our troops are operating with legal authority and legal protection. While we believe it is critical that the executive have the flexibility to deploy troops when urgency is required, we also believe it is critical that the decision to deploy is subject to public and parliamentary scrutiny. This scrutiny can take place after the deployment rather than as a prerequisite to the deployment and should not be used as an impediment to commit our troops when the government is required to make quick but considered decisions.
While we on this side oppose this bill, we are firmly of the belief that openness and transparency in government are at the heart of any democracy. Further to this, at this year's Labor Party Special Platform Conference it was resolved that an Albanese Labor government will refer the issue of how Australia makes decisions to send service personnel into international armed conflict to an inquiry to be conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. This inquiry would take submissions, hold public hearings and produce its findings during the term of the 47th Parliament. The government is not currently required to consult parliament once troops have been deployed. But history has shown that, following overseas deployments, lengthy and robust debates have taken place in this place, as they should. It was a result of these debates that in 2003 the Senate censured the government of the day, the Howard government, following the Iraq invasion. This option will, as it should, remain available to the parliament.
This version of the bill, like all other previous iterations, leaves too many unanswered questions and may have unforeseen, unintended and unfortunate consequences. Thirteen years ago Senator Ludlam of the Australian Greens introduced the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2008 [No. 2] to the Senate. He said at the time:
The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that, as far as is constitutionally and practically possible, Australian Defence Force personnel are not sent overseas to engage in warlike actions without the approval of both Houses of the Parliament.
On 20 August 2009 the Senate Standing Committee for Selection of Bills recommended that the draft bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. In February 2010, that committee recommended that the bill not proceed, saying:
It is of the view that the bill leaves too many critical questions unanswered to be considered a credible piece of legislation. It believes that, while well intended, the bill may have unforeseen and unfortunate consequences that need to be identified and resolved before further consideration could be given to proposed legislation.
However, the committee did support debate in parliament on any anticipated, proposed or actual deployments to overseas warlike operations. Senator Mark Bishop, as chair of the committee, said:
The committee has identified a number of deficiencies in the bill that need to be attended to by those who are interested in this debate if the bill is going to be brought forward this time or some time in the future for passage.
Any decision to deploy military forces to combat is the most onerous and serious decision for a government to make. It is a heavy responsibility. It is a life and death decision. This bill does not address the deficiencies identified by the committee and, as such, Labor will oppose the bill.
[by video link] I want to briefly comment on one of the things that Senator Fawcett said in his contribution to this debate, talking about the need for us to go to war in Afghanistan in response to an attack on the United States. It is worth noting that at the time we chose to go to war the goal was in fact to honour our ANZUS commitment but also to rid Afghanistan of the al-Qaeda threat. Somewhere along the way, the mission evolved into something different, and I think we need to recognise that as we discuss this further.
I want to speak on the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020. I strongly support the aims of the bill—that is, to make overseas deployment of the Australian Defence Force subject to parliamentary approval by both the House of Representatives and indeed the Senate. I commend the Greens for bringing this bill before the Senate, picking up, as they acknowledge, the initiatives of the former Australian Democrats, going back as far as 1985.
Six years after the first proposal, the Hawke Labor government committed the Australian Defence Force to the first Gulf War, back in 1991. In the three decades since, we've seen further overseas ADF deployments, notably as peacekeepers in East Timor in 1999 and in the Solomon Islands in 2003, and in the war in Afghanistan from 2001 and in Iraq from 2003. Those deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have now thankfully come to an end, with the war in Afghanistan being the longest-ever overseas military conflict for Australia.
Engagement in military conflict overseas is a potentially momentous national decision with far-reaching consequences, not only in terms of potential casualties and economic costs but also in terms of political and social division. Such decisions should not be the exclusive preserve of the executive government or, as is actually the case, the highly secretive, exclusive club of the National Security Committee of cabinet.
This bill includes provisions for immediate executive actions in times of emergency, subject to subsequent referral to the parliament for approval by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. I note that that is an approach adopted in some overseas jurisdictions. It also requires regular reporting to the parliament on ongoing overseas deployments. There may be argument about the details, but the underlying principles of this bill support democratic accountability.
There should be no doubt about the authority of the Australian Defence Force to act in its own defence—for example, in naval exercises involving freedom of navigation. We also need to think about the potential involvement of allied military facilities in Australia and the use of Australian and joint facilities here. The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is not only a strategic intelligence collection facility; it directly supports intelligence collection of high tactical relevance. The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap will be directly involved in any military conflict the United States is engaged in across Asia and the Pacific. The Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt at North West Cape supports the US Navy's submarine operations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. US marines and other US forces are now a permanent presence here in Australia, in the Northern Territory.
We also have to carefully consider Australia's changing strategic circumstances. For more than a century, with the exception of the war in the Pacific from 1941 to 1945, Australia's military engagements have taken the form of sending expeditionary forces overseas to fight alongside either the United Kingdom or the United States. The design of this bill broadly reflects historical experience. In the future, Australia may face a much more strategically contested environment much closer to home. We need to think carefully about precisely how enhanced processes of democratic decision-making and parliamentary approval of military operations will function in our changing strategic circumstances.
The coalition government and the Labor opposition are not supportive of this bill. They are at one in the view that decisions of war and peace should be in the sole hands of the executive government. However, this is an issue that cannot be swept aside and should be the subject of further debate and consideration. For that reason I believe the next appropriate step would be for this bill to be referred to the Senate's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry and report. I do note what Senator Keneally said about a referral in the next parliament. I don't understand why the Labor Party always target measures in the next parliament; they always procrastinate. I accept what Senator Keneally says about the need to examine this issue in more detail, but there is no reason to wait until we enter into a new parliament. I commend the Greens for bringing this bill to the Senate.
[by video link]. The Greens bill before us today is potentially well-meaning, but it is seriously ill considered and provides another example of and insight into how Green ideology is never tested against the practicalities of real life. The name of the bill is the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020. It sounds good and, at first sight, it might arouse some interest amongst colleagues. But they should not be misled. Laudable as the title may be, its practical consequences are very real, and, as a result, it needs to be defeated. The amendment bill being proposed by the Greens could rightly be renamed the 'Prejudicing Our Troops and Giving our Enemies a Head Start (Another Bad Idea by the Greens) Bill'.
Defending our nation and its interests is the most important task of any government. If you can't protect your borders, your integrity as a nation state and all the blessings that go with that are compromised. Thankfully, we have men and women willing to defend us. They are highly trained and are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our protection. They are our flesh and blood. They are our fellow Australians. We celebrate them and their forebears each Anzac Day. Their lives are precious. When they respond to the call of active service, they can be guaranteed that their Commander-in-Chief, the Governor-General, will not be sending them without having thoroughly weighed up all the alternatives. The Governor-General relies on the advice of the Executive Council, which is formed from the democratically elected government of the day. Ultimately, the government is answerable to the parliament and the people. Our founding fathers gave the power to the executive in section 61 of our Constitution, a constitution ratified by the people of Australia, our forebears. They knew what they were doing.
We all aspire to avoid conflict and warfare. But, human nature being as it is, we'll continue to be engaged in warfare. That is a matter of great regret but also a reflection of the unfortunate reality. We need to be prepared and nimble, and this may require covert activity and it may require pre-emptive activity. If one were to be an enemy of Australia, one would be salivating at the prospect of the Greens' bill being passed and they would be dejected at its failure. Imagine a two-day or even two-minute parliamentary debate on whether to attack somewhere. Pre-warned or forewarned is forearmed. How could anyone think that that is a smart, strategic idea?
We live in a complex and uncertain strategic environment. Intelligence may advise of enemy troop movements which could be landed within the hour. Things are a lot more nimble and quicker these days than when our forefathers quite rightly gave the executive the right to commit our troops to war. Today, in the 21st century, it is all the more important that the executive and the National Security Committee have the flexibility that is needed. Should we lamely wait for the enemy to arrive or pre-emptively strike them before they reach our airspace and our land mass? These are the real questions that need to be dealt with and asked.
I, for one, hate the prospect of war. I dislike it immensely. It is something that we should all seek to avoid. But, unfortunately, we do know that from time to time war is needed, and peace is not simply the absence of war. We recognise that there is, from time to time, the need to defend our country, our values and indeed the values and interests of like-minded nations who have come to our defence in the past—and, similarly, we have a right and duty to come to their aid in the future. Every now and then in these debates people like to have a whack at the United States, gratuitously so, but let's not forget the Battle of the Coral Sea, where US personnel—men mainly—died to protect Australia from direct invasion. These troops were deployed overseas by another country to protect us. Similarly, from time to time, our men and women are being sent overseas to protect the interests of other countries. It is the right and proper thing to do. It is what friends do for each other.
Under this bill, a report, along with a proclamation, would need to be tabled in the parliament, which would compromise the operational security of our Australian defence forces. I, for one, cannot and will not be party to such a change. Under the provisions of this ill-conceived bill, the enemy would be provided with a notice of the expected geographical extent of the deployment, the expected duration of the deployment and the number of members of the ADF proposed to be deployed. My goodness, what more do we want to feed the enemy! What more do we want to tell them about our manoeuvres, their geographic location or how many soldiers we're going to send in? This is all vital tactical information which should never be disclosed to our enemy. Armed with such information, those forces opposed to our interests could and would reconfigure and take tactical advantage in preparation. And the winner is? Not Australian troops, not Australia and not Australia's interests—let alone our democracy. The only winner will be the enemy. Surely it is our duty to avoid such risks being placed on our personnel? They deserve better, as do their families.
The geographic restrictions in the Greens bill do not reflect the modern strategic environment. It makes one conclude that the drafters of this bill have drawn deeply on their experiences of playing board games like Risk, without having a genuine appreciation and understanding that, today, the domains of space and cyberspace are also part of the equation. This bill also gives no consideration to a situation where we might be serving with like-minded freedom-loving countries. Surely they need to know that they can rely on us, not that the plug might be pulled every couple of months by a moving majority in the Senate?
Let's be exceptionally clear: under our parliamentary democracy, if the executive does something which the parliament disapproves of, a motion of no confidence in the government can be passed in the House of Representatives, and then there are flow-on consequences of that. To suggest that the National Security Committee or the executive has unfettered powers in this space is, of course, wrong. It's false. It serves a particular narrative but it does not represent the truth. The parliament still is the ultimate arbiter. If troops are sent in in circumstances where the parliament is in strong or strenuous disagreement with that action then the parliament can take the necessary activity. But to say that parliamentary approval has to be given in advance, with those matters that I outlined before, would be to give the enemy a great strategic advantage, to the detriment of our operations and, most importantly, to the detriment of the wellbeing of our Australian Defence Force personnel, to whom we owe the greatest responsibility in seeking to preserve life and limb.
Further, the bill suggests that there should be two-monthly reports to the parliament as to the extent of the operation. Can you just imagine saying in the parliament, 'We expect this to only go for another one month, or an extra three months,' or, 'We hope to withdraw within the next six weeks or eight weeks, depending on particular strategic circumstances'? What does that tell the enemy about how to position themselves?
To broadcast these matters would do a great disservice to Australia's interests and of course to our personnel.
As to subsection 10 of the bill, in paragraph 17 of the explanatory memorandum we are told that this subsection provides that, when members of the Defence Force are deployed overseas in the circumstances, the minister must report in writing to each house of the parliament every two months on the status, the legality and the scope—the scope!—and anticipated duration of the deployment. Well, my goodness! If I were the enemy, I would be demanding this. I would be loving it. I would ensure that, as soon as this statement were tabled or given in the Australian parliament, I would be there, feeding it in to those who were organising the enemy side.
It is, I suspect, well-intentioned, but it really is majorly flawed to have this bill come before our parliament. I trust that the Senate will see the unwisdom—if that is a word—of this bill. It sounds good on the surface: 'Yes, let's have parliamentary democracy involved; let's have a full debate before sending people.' But during that debate the enemy can marshal. We could deny ourselves a pre-emptive strike. With the reports every two months, the enemy would get a very strong insight as to what we were thinking and what our strategy was. And, of course, it stands to reason that, in circumstances of war—as horrific as they are and as much as we try to avoid them—there will be the need for very quick strategic advances, or, indeed, withdrawals. There may be very tough decisions to be made. And we'd have that broadcast, for the benefit of so-called democracy, when we know that the real benefit will not be for democracy but for the enemy.
I would encourage the Australian Greens to reconsider this bill. We have a wonderful parliamentary democracy. It has worked exceptionally well for us since the Commonwealth of Australia was brought into being by a vote of the Australian people, by which vote section 61 of our Constitution empowered the executive to undertake military action when and as required by the new nation-state, Australia, now well and truly into its second century of existence. I would encourage all colleagues, in considering this bill, to give due consideration to the wellbeing of our nation's interests and to our personnel's interests. This bill does not deserve the support of the Senate, and I am pleased to note that the Labor Party, the other party of government, also opposes this bill.
[by video link] The Greens have brought on this bill, the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020, today, while the situation in Afghanistan is raw and tragic—while, in Kabul, we have seen days of chaos on the ground. While some very fortunate people have been able to be flown to safety—and we are grateful that that has been the case—we mourn the loss of life that has occurred and will occur. As the final US troops withdraw tomorrow, we've got people being killed on the ground by the Taliban and by terrorist bombings of ISIS-K and by US drone strikes. We have brought on this bill today because it's important—while we are reflecting on this tragedy and while it is raw—to ask ourselves: could we, should we, have done something differently so that we wouldn't have ended up as we have today? If we had had parliamentary oversight of sending Australians off to war as we did 20 years ago, would we have made a different decision?
I've listened to the debate this morning, and the arguments that have been put forward against this basically seem to boil down to three things. One is that there's a security justification: we can't have the parliamentary debate because we would have to share information that the public can't know—that would be problematic to share. Frankly, I don't buy this at all. If you are making the serious decision to send Australians off to war then you need to be able to justify it to the public to say: 'Australians are going to die. People are dying. We are going to be at war.' There needs to be the ability to justify that to the public in no uncertain terms.
The second reason seemed to be that if under the emergency provisions that are in this legislation a decision were made to send troops off to war and then the parliament decided against that later on we'd be in a tricky situation to withdraw. I don't buy that either, because if parliament made that decision it would mean that there was a huge amount of controversy over that decision and we would have had troops going off to war very uncertain as to whether it was an appropriate war to be part of.
Thirdly, in Senator Abetz's contribution he was basically saying that we need to have the ability, the nimbleness, to go off to war. Again, this bill contains emergency provisions that give the executive the ability to make that decision, if indeed that is an appropriate decision to make.
I think it's important to be discussing this today and reflecting upon those two decades in Afghanistan. It has been two decades since we joined the United States. The scenes across Afghanistan show the fundamental failures of the approach that we had in making that decision. When Australia first joined the US in invading Afghanistan then Prime Minister John Howard stated:
We should be clear about our aims in this operation. The immediate goal is to seek out and destroy al Qaeda and ensure that Afghanistan can never again serve as a base from which terrorists can operate.
Twenty years on it seems that the words of my former colleague Scott Ludlam were all too prescient. In 2011 he said:
The mission fulfilled the political aim of showing solidarity with United States, but if you measure progress against the goal of stabilising a country and a region, then the mission has failed.
And that's even more starkly the case now a decade on.
The evidence is very strong that the last 20 years have made the world less safe, that there is more terrorism, that al-Qaeda is stronger. You cannot invade your way to peace. You cannot bomb your way to justice. As Nathan Sales, a former US state department coordinator for counterterrorism, has said recently:
…the terrorism risk to the United States is going to get dramatically worse…it is virtually certain that al-Qaeda will reestablish a safe haven in Afghanistan and use it to plot terrorism against the United States and others.
Tragically for too many years Afghanistan has been a graveyard for Afghans all too often killed by white invaders, and that's the sad reality of the situation. Rather than being a graveyard for empires, it has been a graveyard for Afghans. Ministers who wanted to be there for the photo-ops with the international handshakes and fighter jets—it's not the ministers who order the invasions that dig the graves, particularly for the thousands of civilians who have been killed.
Our support for the US invasion has also tarnished our approach to whistleblowers. We have spoken out for a long time in support of Julian Assange, who has been unjustly jailed for making public the secrets of war and war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Fundamentally, we reiterate our call for Australia to rethink our relationship with the US. The presidency of Donald Trump highlighted the dangers and the risks to Australia of outsourcing our decision-making to another country with a history of military follies.
Here inside Australia we must rethink our asylum seeker policies as well. We're now providing airlifts to some from Afghanistan, but we've spent decades locking up those who sought to come to Australia, often from Afghanistan. It's worth remembering that those on board the Tampa 20 years ago were Afghan asylum seekers fleeing the Taliban. That contrast between our invasion and our treatment of those seeking asylum from Afghanistan highlights the fundamental contradictions of Australia's approach. It was a decision made by white ministers to invade Afghanistan, to arrogantly and recklessly pretend that we could create peace through war and to lock people up when they tried to flee to Australia.
We think that a parliamentary debate, as is outlined in this bill, would have led to important scrutiny and accountability. It's sorely lacking and desperately needed. It's too late for the people of Afghanistan on the ground that we are having this debate today, but we must make sure that we do not make the same mistakes again. Part of ensuring this is this bill, which would make it far more difficult to make instant decisions to send Australians off to war. Thank you.
It being 12.20, the time allocated for the debate has expired.
I rise to contribute to the debate on the Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2021. I indicate from the outset that Labor will support this bill. The Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill amends the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to incorporate customs tariff proposals that provided concessional rates of customs duty to a number of products. Firstly, the bill will amend and extend the free rate of customs duty for prescribed medical or hygiene products that are capable of use in combating the novel coronavirus that causes the disease known as COVID-19. The products include face masks, gloves, clothes or gowns, goggles, glasses, eye visors, face shields, soaps, COVID-19 test kits and reagents, viral transport media and disinfectants. This is obviously an important step as we continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, although it goes without saying that our fight has been made all the harder by the failures of the Morrison government in managing the pandemic. Prime Minister Scott Morrison had two jobs this year: a speedy, effective rollout of the vaccine, and quarantine. He has failed both. As such, this measure is now more necessary than ever.
The bill also lists new items to provide a free rate of customs duty for goods that are for use in the program known as the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program. Under the memorandum of understanding for the development of the Joint Strike Fighter, Australia has committed to achieving tax neutrality under the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program. However, goods imported for use in this program, such as parts for general use and certain textile items, may have an applicable rate of customs duty of up to five per cent. As such, this bill will provide a free rate of customs duty for goods, ensuring we meet our obligations under the MOU.
The bill will also add new items to provide a free rate of customs duty for prescribed motor vehicles and motor vehicle components for research and development activities by automotive service providers previously registered under the Automotive Transformation Scheme. Registrations of automotive service providers under the Automotive Transformation Scheme ended on 31 March 2021, by operation of the Automotive Transformation Scheme Regulations 2010. As such, automotive service providers are no longer able to access the concessional rate of customs duty. The explanatory memorandum to this bill states:
Automotive service providers maintain a significant Australian presence, including through the engineering services and design and product development.
The prescribed motor vehicles and components are those which are used in:
… testing, quality control, manufacturing, evaluation or engineering development of motor vehicles designed or engineered, or in the process of being designed or engineered, in Australia by a person who was registered as an automotive service provider under the Automotive Transformation Scheme …
Labor supports all of the measures outlined in this bill. We will move to pass it quickly, and we will not support any amendments in the committee stage. As such, I commend this bill to the Senate.
I must say it's pleasing to follow my friend from Queensland and to hear that the Labor Party, the other governing party of this country, is prepared to support this legislation and to do so as efficiently and quickly as possible, so I won't speak for too long. I want to make a few points. The first is that the Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2021 amends the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to incorporate three proposals. Shortly I'll speak to each of them. The first is with respect to medical and hygiene products, the second is with respect to imported goods for the F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program, and the third is with respect to certain motor vehicle components.
Firstly, in relation to medical and hygiene products, as Senator Watt mentioned, the specific ambit of this proposal is to capture those medical and hygiene products which have a role to play in combatting the COVID-19 virus. Putting to one side Senator Watt's somewhat gratuitous comments with respect to the federal government, I would commend all the Australian companies within our borders that have been manufacturing those products. They've been doing a sterling job in ensuring that we have the sovereign capacity to manufacture those products which are needed by the Australian people. Having said that, it is important that we remove the customs duty with respect to the products which need to be imported. It should be noted that there will be $3.8 million of costs incurred in the budget over the estimates period in relation to this measure, but I certainly would have thought that it's clearly to the benefit of the Australian community for those costs to be borne and for those medical and hygiene products to be imported free of customs duty and used by the Australian people.
Secondly, for one moment I want to touch on how significant the MOU is that was entered into with respect to the Joint Strike Fighter program. This is an MOU that was entered into by the Australian, Canadian, Danish, Italian, Norwegian, British, US and Turkey governments in relation to the Joint Strike Fighter. It's an extraordinary achievement for those nations to enter into that agreement. I want to read some of the recitals from that MOU to underline the importance of this agreement, because there may be an amendment coming from some in this chamber on this issue. The first is:
Recognizing the benefits to be obtained from international cooperation regarding standardization, rationalization, and interoperability of military equipments ...
The second is:
Desiring to cooperate in the production, sustainment, and follow-on development of the Joint Strike Fighter ...
The third is:
Recognizing the benefits of continued cooperation in the JSF Program ...
The fourth is:
Seeking to establish a model for international cooperative acquisition programs ...
That underlines the significance of this MOU: 'Seeking to establish a model for international cooperative acquisition programs'.
The fifth is:
Affirming their intent to use their best efforts to ensure that international cooperation under this ... MOU will maximize benefits ... that will accrue to each of them ...
That includes the Australian people and the Australian government with respect to manufacturing within the country. The sixth is:
Seeking to establish a robust vehicle of cooperation that will span the life cycle of the JSF Air System ...
The seventh is:
Recognizing the importance of technological and industrial cooperation to the national security of all Participants ...
And the eighth is:
Recognizing that industrial participation will be an important parameter in the Participants' various national decision-making processes ...
You can see the significance of the MOU that was entered into in relation to the Joint Strike Fighter program. It is extraordinarily significant. Nine countries are engaging in international cooperation with respect to a major military procurement project. It's an extraordinary MOU and an extraordinary precedent, which is extremely important.
In the second part of the bill, providing that the custom duties will be free with respect to the Joint Strike Fighter program—and I'll speak about that in a moment—gives effect to the obligations that this country has entered into under the MOU. Australia actually has obligations under the MOU in this regard. We already have those obligations under that international agreement which has been entered into by this country, and everyone in this chamber should recognise those obligations which have been entered into under that agreement.
I want to talk about section 16 of the MOU, the agreement which has been entered into by the Australian government. Section 16.1 provides:
Customs duties, import and export taxes, and similar charges will be administered in accordance with each Participant's respective laws and regulations.
So it is recognised on the face of the MOU that our customs duties will be governed by Australian laws—Australian customs governed by Australian laws, and that's as it should be. Second, it says:
Insofar as existing national laws and regulations permit, the Participants will endeavor to ensure that such readily identifiable duties, taxes and similar charges, as well as quantitative or other restrictions on imports and exports, are not imposed in connection with work carried out under this MOU …
That's the obligation in the MOU which has been entered into by the Australian government. It requires the Australian government to actually go through the process, which has now been gone through, with respect to the Joint Strike Fighter Program, so we're actually meeting our obligation.
It should also be recognised that, if this legislation were not passed for any reason—and that obviously isn't going to occur given the opposition is supporting the government in relation to this legislation—that wouldn't change the situation; the Australian government would still have to bear the cost of the duties, because there's another clause under section 16 which provides that, in the event this legislation were not passed, that cost would simply be added to the costs Australia has to bear under the Joint Strike Fighter program. Some may wish to vote against this bill, and we'll wait and see if they do, but, under section 16 of the MOU, even if they did, it wouldn't change the economic result at all. Australia would still have to bear the cost, which has been estimated to be in the order of $6.7 million. Australia would still have to bear its share in relation to that customs duty. So, even if those who are thinking of voting against this bill were to do so, it wouldn't really change the economic consequence, which I again stress has been entered into by the Australian government.
The third section of this bill deals with the motor vehicle industry and componentry industry with respect to goods imported in pursuit of the Automotive Transformation Scheme. In that respect, I fully support all of the government's measures; I'm passionate about all of the government's measures with respect to enhancing manufacturing in Australia and my home state of Queensland. Senator Stoker, who's in the chamber at the moment, would know there are great companies in Queensland doing wonderful things in the manufacturing space, and that's absolutely important for our Australian manufacturing sovereign capacity. With that, I commend the bill to the chamber.
At the request of Senator Steele-John, I move:
At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that the continued rollout of the Joint Strike Fighter program:
(a) is a profligate and unnecessary waste;
(b) is marred by technical failures and of increasingly limited strategic value; and
(c) should be immediately cancelled".
The Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill amends the Customs Tariff Act to implement measures that encourage continued research and development in the automotive sector, enable Australia to fulfil defence commitments and facilitate access to supplies that support the health and wellbeing of the Australian community.
The bill incorporates three customs tariff proposals that were tabled in parliament earlier this year. Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1), which was tabled in February, extended to 30 June 2021 the free rate of customs duty for prescribed medical and hygiene products, such as face masks and certain disinfectants. Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2), tabled in March, provided for concessional treatment for imported goods for use in the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program. Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 3), which was tabled in May, provided for the concessional treatment of prescribed goods that are for use in research and development activities in motor vehicles or their components where they are designed or engineered in Australia. In accordance with these customs tariff proposals, the amendments in this bill will extend existing schedule 4 item 57 and insert new items 51 and 39A into the Customs Tariff Act.
I thank senators for their contributions to the debate, and I commend the Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill to the Senate.
The question is that the second reading amendment in the name of Senator Steele-John moved by Senator Hanson-Young be agreed to.
Question negatived.
by leave—I seek to have the Greens vote recorded properly and those against in order to avoid having to call a division.
That's fine. The question now is that the bill be read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
[by video link] I will speak to the amendments offered by the Greens in the committee stage. Let me just firstly make an observation in relation to the legislation. I think what we have before us here today is a bit of a nonsense sandwich, really. We've got two aspects of a three-part bill which are more or less innocuous or in some ways to be supported. Part of this legislation goes to import duties on PPE in relation to COVID-19, and that's perfectly reasonable. Another part of this bill goes to import duties in relation to the car industry or what remains of the car industry here in Australia.
On that note, I can't pass by without reflecting on the dark humour of the Liberal government putting forward a piece of legislation with the aim of supporting what remains of the Australian motor industry after they comprehensively failed it through their failure to support the continuation of the car industry here in Australia. On behalf of the many folks who lost their jobs, particularly in South Australia, Victoria and elsewhere, we can't forget that it was literally the dogged hatred of the Abbott government, particularly in relation to the union movement, that led them to quite spitefully remove the subsidy and the government's support for the car industry here in Australia, despite the fact that Australia at the time subsidised our motor vehicle industry to a lesser extent than other comparable nations. So they basically just did it because they don't like the union movement. It was a heavily unionised workforce and they took the opportunity to get rid of it. What we lost in that process and the exodus of the car industry from here in Australia was not only the capacity for complex manufacturing, not only jobs, which are very difficult to replace, and not only careers spent in devoted service to the creation of Australian-made vehicles but also the opportunity to gain an upper hand in the electric vehicle market.
South Australia is noted and known for its incredible strides forward in the renewable energy system and it would have been a very easy and desirable thing for a large part of the Australian car industry to transition to the manufacture of electric vehicles. Yet, once again, we see the after-effects of the Liberal Party's terrible industrial policy wreaking havoc upon communities and robbing them of opportunities to benefit from the renewable energy transition which is underway.
Let me get to the middle of the nonsense sandwich which is this piece of legislation. The section refers to bits and pieces, parts and what have you, in relation to the Joint Strike Fighter program—a multibillion dollar defence debacle. Let me say really clearly, the Joint Strike Fighter program is a laughing stock. It has been subject to criticism and thinly veiled derision from experts from the United States and the European Union to Australia and everywhere in between. It is being continued solely because of a sense of bureaucratic momentum, and upon its scale-up to full capacity it will be rendered almost obsolete. It is a product of a period of defence thinking in the United States where buzz words like 'interoperability' and 'multifunctional battle platform' were thrown about with reckless abandon. It shares, I think, a common ancestry and thinking with failed projects such as the Zumwalt class American warships developed around a similar period. It is a program which the Australian Greens wholeheartedly oppose. If we had anything to do with it, we would see it scrapped and the money returned to the public for services such as health, education and housing—things in the public good.
This is really one of those situations where you can't help but giggle at the absolute cheek of the people who put this stuff forward. This bill suggests that parts relating to a multibillion dollar defence project should have no import duties. Meanwhile, if you import or buy from overseas a hair straightener, or a product that has come from somewhere other than Australia, you pay imports. It's an absolute joke. What this amendment seeks to do is separate the two bits of the bill which we support from the bit that is nonsense, and to have them considered and voted on separately. I commend the amendment to the chamber and I move:
(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 3), omit the table item.
And I also oppose schedule 1 in the following terms:
(2) Schedule 1, Part 2, page 4 (lines 1 to 13), to be opposed.
The CHAIR: The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 1395, as moved by Senator Steele-John, be agreed to.
Question negatived.
The CHAIR: The question now is that schedule 1 stand as printed.
Question agreed to.
by leave—I would like the Greens' support for that amendment, and the government's and the opposition's opposition to the amendment, noted.
Bill agreed to.
Bill reported without amendments; report adopted.
I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Labor supports this bill, the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, which does two things. It amends the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2014 and it amends the Sport Australia Integrity Act 2020. 2021.
The Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2014 provides protection for major sporting events against ambush marketing, which is when unauthorised businesses associate their names, brands, products or services with a major sporting event. The act needs to be updated because it currently includes schedules for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games—a great event which is now in the past—and the postponed ICC T20 World Cup 2020. Specifically, the bill, if passed, will remove references to the ITC T20 World Cup 2020, which has been postponed due to COVID-19, and the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games and add references to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup and the rescheduled ICC T20 World Cup in 2022. The amendments make the FIFA 2023 Women's World Cup and ICC T20 World Cup 2022 'major sporting events' under the legislation; insert information required to protect related intellectual property, that is, name, logo, branding et cetera; and set a period of protection.
In addition, this bill amends the Sport Integrity Australia Bill 2020. The government has tacked the amendment to the Sport Integrity Australia Act 2020 onto this bill because it is the first sport related bill before the parliament since the last amendment to the act. This bill amends the Sporting Integrity Australia Act 2020 by correcting references to articles of the World Anti-Doping Code. As a signatory to the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport, Australia is required to implement anti-doping arrangements in accordance with the principles of the wider code. Revisions to the code earlier this year resulted in changes to the numbering of articles within the code. The amendments proposed in this bill simply update the Sport Integrity Australia Bill 2020 to reflect the current article numbering.
Amendments circulated by the government respond to feedback from the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, and Labor also supports those amendments.
Finally, I refer to the proposed second reading amendment circulated by Senator Griff. Labor does not support this second reading amendment. We share and acknowledge concerns about the impact of gambling in our communities; however, holistic consideration of this important issue is needed, particularly in light of the impact of COVID-19. In 2017, Labor moved an amendment calling on the government to work with the sector on a transition plan to phase out gambling ads during live sports broadcasts. The government is running late and must implement urgent consumer protections as part of the national consumer protection framework for wagering. Labour opposes Senator Griff's second reading amendment. We support the bill and the amendments circulated by the government. I commend the bill and the amendments to the Senate.
I rise to speak in favour of the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. After Senator Brown's thorough contribution to this debate, there is no need for me to speak too long on this matter. I do want to make a few points, though.
Senator Brown said that the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast were a past event. I say to Senator Brown, through you, Madam Deputy President: it still lives on in our memories. It still does. There were three highlights from my perspective as a Queensland based senator. One was, of course, our wonderful 4 x 100-metre freestyle relay women's team, who broke a world record at the Commonwealth Games in 2018—
Hear, hear!
'Hear, hear,' says Senator McKenzie, as a sports lover herself. We must remember the Commonwealth Games is a very special institution. It brings together the countries of the Commonwealth, who have that special bond through their common heritage. The second highlight was that Malawi beat New Zealand in netball at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast—the first time ever that Malawi beat New Zealand in netball. Thirdly, Bermuda got its first ever gold medal for a female athlete at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. So, whilst the event is over, Senator Brown, it lives on in our memories and in the memories of all those who attended, which is one of the reasons why these sporting events are absolutely crucial and why the parliament need to do all we can to ensure that the revenue streams from these sporting events are protected.
One of the key reasons for doing that is to ensure that the athletes are fully compensated and rewarded for their efforts. From my perspective, it comes back to the athletes and ensuring that the athletes are fully compensated and rewarded for their efforts. Ambush marketing, where commercial players who have not paid the piper—they haven't paid legitimately to take advantage of the event—seek to ride on the coat-tails of others, undermines that effort to make sure that the athletes in particular are fully rewarded for their efforts and the sacrifices they've made.
The two events which are covered by this legislation are, firstly, the ICC T20 World Cup, which is to be held in 2022. I wasn't a huge fan of the T20 when it started, but I've become a fan. Maybe we should have a 'T20 debate' in the Senate—a 10-minute debate instead of, at times, a 10-hour debate; that would be the Senate equivalent of T20. I love my test cricket, but I think there's a place for the T20, and I've become a fan of T20. So it's wonderful that we're getting the ICC T20 World Cup in our country.
The second event is the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023, and what a great event that's going to be. I'm sure all the senators in the chamber today will take advantage and attend the event if they can. They'll have an opportunity to attend the event in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth, and it's also going to be held in New Zealand. That's a wonderful event as well. The reason I'm so passionate about this bill is that it makes sure that the revenue streams generated by these great sporting events are maximised in favour of the athletes. With that, I commend the bill to the chamber.
I'm standing up particularly to focus on the issue that Senator Griff also wanted to speak about, which is gambling and sport. In fact, Senator Griff has circulated a second reading amendment, which I will move for him very shortly. Basically, his second reading amendment acknowledges that the current rules around gambling ads appearing on TV or radio or online are harming Australian children and are not fit for purpose, and it calls on the government to ban all gambling ads.
The problem here is the proliferation of gambling ads during streaming and while these events are being broadcast on TV and radio and online. Anybody that has tuned into some of these events can see these gambling ads. It's extremely concerning. The impact on Australian children is concerning. This is about addicting Australia's children to gambling. I acknowledge it interacts with other issues around gambling, but it's habituating children to this, and children are being exposed to it far too often. So I move the second reading amendment that Senator Griff has circulated in the chamber:
At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:
(a) acknowledges that the current rules around gambling ads appearing on TV, radio or online are harming Australian children and are not fit for purpose; and
(b) calls on the Government to ban all gambling ads".
My advice is that gambling promotion is regulated by an entire suite of separate frameworks, depending on the content. Scheduling of gambling promotion is regulated by co-regulated codes of practice developed by industry in consultation with the Australian Communications and Media Authority. I table a supplementary explanatory memorandum relating to the government amendments to be moved to the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021.
The purpose of the bill is to protect sponsorship and licensing revenue from the FIFA World Cup Australia New Zealand 2023—and I, like Senator Scarr and probably everyone else in this chamber, can't wait for that fabulous event to arrive on our shores—and the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 from being undermined by ambush marketing. Ambush marketing is the unauthorised commercial use of event expressions and images. This will be achieved by including the FIFA Women's World Cup and the T20 World Cup as recognised major sporting events under this legislation.
The bill also removes the schedule relating to a historical sporting event that will no longer provide protections under the act, being the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. In addition, the bill makes a minor and technical amendment to the Sport Integrity Australia Act to correct an erroneous reference to an article of the World Anti-Doping Code. The code's article numbering changed due to revisions that commenced from 1 January 2021.
The bill is consistent with the approach that the Australian government took when it legislated to protect these images for the ICC T20 Women's Cricket World Cup 2020, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, the AFC Asian Cup 2015 and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. It also meets a commitment by the government to provide such intellectual property rights protection for both the FIFA Women's World Cup and the T20 World Cup.
The hosting of these two events in Australia provides a unique opportunity to showcase our country to the world from a tourism, trade and event delivery perspective. It will further strengthen Australia's reputation as a world-class host of major international sporting events, with the Australian government playing a critical role in facilitating the appropriate environment that makes such success possible.
The FIFA Women's World Cup will see 32 teams compete across Australia and New Zealand. It will be the first FIFA Women's World Cup to be held in the Asia-Pacific region and the first ever to be held in the Southern Hemisphere. The FIFA Women's World Cup teams will include many of the world's most talented female footballers and will showcase international football to diverse audiences in Australia and around the world. The FIFA Women's World Cup tournament is scheduled for July-August 2023, with five Australian cities to host match content.
The T20 World Cup will see 16 of the world's-best men's teams come to Australia to play T20 cricket, with potential broadcast and digital audiences reaching in excess of 1.5 billion people from more than 200 countries worldwide. These T20 World Cup teams will represent the pinnacle of international sporting competition and include some of the world's most talented male cricketers. The T20 World Cup tournament is scheduled for October-November 2022.
For the owners and organisers of these events, this international profile provides the opportunity to showcase the sports of football and cricket to existing and new audiences, to build a legacy and to attract commercial partners that will invest in the event and the sports of football and cricket in the future. Event owners and organisers rely heavily on the revenue generated by television rights, ticket sales, sponsorship and licensing to ensure their event can be delivered and continues to be an attractive and viable financial proposition to future host countries. It is this profile and the commercial realities that necessitate the sorts of protections for the FIFA Women's World Cup and T20 World Cup that are in the bill.
Major events have long been targets of those who would seek to create an impression of association with an event in order to achieve commercial gain without having purchased the rights and, therefore, invested in the sport to claim that association. This act is known as ambush marketing by association. It has the capacity to diminish the value of sponsorship, reduce the incentive for organisations to enter into commercial arrangements with events and reduce the overall event revenue. In turn, this has the ability to increase the financial impact on government to support such events.
The bill will protect the use of a range of expressions associated with the FIFA Women's World Cup and the T20 World Cup from ambush marketing and unlicensed commercial use in the lead-up to, during and in the immediate aftermath of each event. In addition to protecting specific event related terminology, the bill also provides protection to certain images that, in the circumstances of their presentation, suggest a connection with the FIFA Women's World Cup or the T20 World Cup. These images may be either visual or oral representations.
While it's important to protect tournament sponsors from ambush marketing, the rights of the community to freedom of expression must also be respected, particularly in relation to words that have passed into common usage. A pragmatic approach has been taken with generic words and references excluded from the list of protected expressions. It must also be emphasised that restrictions on the usage of FIFA Women's World Cup and T20 World Cup indicia and images will apply only to their unlicensed commercial use. A number of exceptions will exist in relation to the FIFA Women's World and the T20 World Cup, allowing for the continued operation of rights and liabilities under the Trade Marks Act 1995, the Design Act 2003 and the Copyright Act 1968; the provision of information, criticism and review of the FIFA Women's World Cup and the T20 World Cup, such as in newspapers, magazines and broadcasts; use of the protected indicia and images for the reasonable needs of sporting bodies in relation to fundraising and promotion; and engagement by communities and businesses in city dressing and festival promotions supporting these events in non-commercial ways.
In line with the Australian government's deregulation agenda, the bill is not intended to increase the burden on business or affect their everyday operations. The bill fully protects the rights of existing holders to use FIFA Women's World Cup and T20 World Cup images and indicia to carry out their business functions. The new protections will cease to have effect after 31 December 2024 for the FIFA Women's World Cup and after 13 November 2023 for the T20 World, approximately one year after the completion of each event. This is consistent with other major sporting events protected by the act.
The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Siewert on behalf of Senator Griff be agreed to.
Question negatived.
by leave—Could you record the Greens' support for that amendment, please.
by leave—Could I register my support for that amendment too, please.
The motion now before the chair is that the bill be read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—On behalf of the government I move the amendments (1) to (4) on sheet TK303 together:
(1) Schedule 1, page 3 (before line 5), before item 1, insert:
1A Section 9
Before "In this Act", insert "(1)".
(2) Schedule 1, page 3 (after line 7), after item 1, insert:
1B Section 9 (at the end of the definition of event body )
Add:
Note: See also subsection (2).
1C At the end of section 9
Add:
(2) For the purposes of the definition of event body in subsection (1), the rules may prescribe a body for the purposes of a Schedule to this Act that covers a major sporting event only if:
(a) the authorising body for the event requests the Minister in writing to make those rules; and
(b) the Minister is satisfied that:
(i) there was a delay in the establishment of the body that prevented the body from being specified by name in that Schedule; or
(ii) there has been a change of name of an existing event body for the event.
(3) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (line 27), at the end of clause 3 of Schedule 1, add:
; (e) a body that is prescribed by the rules.
(4) Schedule 1, item 3, page 5 (after line 28), after paragraph 3(b) of Schedule 2, insert:
(ba) FWWC2023 Pty Ltd (ACN 650 853 302);
Question agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Bill reported with an amendment; report adopted.
I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
The Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill 2021 would make a number of largely administrative amendments to various acts of parliament relating to Federal Courts and tribunals. Among other things, the bill would empower the president of the AAT to direct that a proceeding in the Social Services and Child Support Division be referred to an alternative dispute resolution pre-hearing process. It will amend various acts to allow the president of the AAT or an authorised member or officer of the AAT to summon a person to give evidence or produce documents across all divisions of the AAT, including the Taxation and Commercial Division and the Social Services and Child Support Division.
The bill would clarify that the AAT's power to correct errors in the text of a decision or in a written statement of reasons for the decision can only be exercised by the president or the member who presided at the proceeding. It would clarify that hearings conducted remotely using video-conferencing technology in a Federal Court, including the Family Court, are in open court. It would update terminology In the Judiciary Act regarding the jurisdiction of a single justice of the High Court sitting in chambers or of another court exercising federal jurisdiction sitting in chambers from the existing references to a justice 'sitting in chambers' to a justice 'sitting other than in open court'. Finally, the bill will amend the Admiralty Act to bring the Admiralty Rules into alignment with other rules of Federal Courts, such as by, among other things, declaring the Admiralty Rules to be rules of court. These are all useful amendments and Labor supports them.
There are, however, three aspects of the bill we do not support. The first of these relates to the role of the Governor-General in the appointments process for members of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Currently, a person may not be appointed as a deputy president or as a member of the tribunal unless, in the opinion of the Governor-General, the person has special knowledge or skills relevant to the duties of a deputy president or member. While the bill would not change the fact that appointments would still be made by the Governor-General, the bill would amend the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act to require the minister, as opposed to the Governor-General, to form an opinion as to whether a person has special knowledge or skills relevant to the duties of a deputy president or member.
While the amendment is unlikely to have any significant practical impact on the appointments process for tribunal members, the government has failed to make the case for why such a change is necessary or desirable. Given the Morrison government's shameful record of appointing almost 80 Liberal Party associates and former Liberal Party politicians, staffers and donors as members of the tribunal, Labor will not support an amendment which, even just at the level of perception, further undermines the independence of the appointment process.
The second aspect of the bill we do not support is the extension of the same protections and immunities to Immigration Assessment Authority reviewers as are currently provided to High Court judges and members of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recently completed an inquiry into this bill, and, as Labor senators of the committee pointed out in their minority report, the submissions from the Department of Home Affairs and the Attorney-General's Department did not advance a single argument in favour of this aspect of the bill. The half-page submission from the Department of Home Affairs merely acknowledged the amendment. The submission from the Attorney-General's Department did not refer to the proposed amendment at all. By contrast, the Law Institute of Victoria, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and a number of other submitters made detailed and cogent arguments opposing this amendment. These submitters drew the committee's attention to the fact that, unlike members of the tribunal, reviewers of the so-called Immigration Assessment Authority do not have to take an oath of office, do not have to have special skills or knowledge, do not have terms fixed in advance and are not statutorily required to disclose conflicts of interest. Unlike AAT members, Immigration Assessment Authority reviewers are also not required to afford procedural fairness to applicants. Labor has long held concerns about the so-called fast-track assessment process under the Immigration Assessment Authority. That process is neither fast nor fair, and this parliament should not endorse any measure which, even implicitly, suggests that the fast-track process is somehow the equivalent of, or even similar to, a normal judicial or tribunal process.
Finally, Labor opposes the amendment to the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 to allow the Federal Court in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction to provide short-form reasons rather than detailed judgements where a decision dismissing an appeal does not raise any questions of general principle. As Labor senators of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee noted in their report, that aspect of the bill has been criticised by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the Josephite Justice Office and the Law Institute of Victoria on the basis that it will disadvantage unrepresented applicants, including those seeking review of refugee decisions. We share those concerns. In the absence of any compelling counterargument from the government, Labor does not support that aspect of the bill.
I should add that the Attorney-General and her office have been engaging constructively and in good faith with the shadow Attorney-General and his office in relation to Labor's concerns. In the interests of getting this bill through the parliament as soon as possible, I understand that the government has indicated that it will agree to some, though not all, of Labor's amendments.
[by video link] I rise to speak on the Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill 2021. Most of this bill is actually very administrative; however, there are three key provisions that we are concerned with. I will deal with them in order.
The first is the proposed amendment of sections 7(2)(c) and 7(3)(b) of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975. The proposed amendment in the bill would remove the role of the Governor-General in the appointment process in both sections 7(2)(c) and 7(3)(b) of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975, or the AAT Act, and replace it with the minister. This would mean that the minister would have exclusive power to appoint someone who is not qualified for the crucial roles of deputy president, senior member and member of the AAT. The AAT is meant to be an independent body that reviews the minister's decisions. It is inappropriate for the minister to have any role in appointing members of the AAT, as this is a clear conflict of interest. The amendment in this bill continues the sad story of the AAT becoming the retirement fund of former government staffers and MPs—surprise, surprise!
This amendment would further expand the minister's powers to appoint to the AAT unqualified or unsuitable people who are unlikely to perform the independent review required of them. We don't think this should be allowed.
I move to the proposed immunity for Immigration Assessment Authority reviewers. This proposed amendment to the AAT Act would grant to members of the Immigration Assessment Authority the same protection and immunity as is afforded to a justice of the High Court of Australia—really? That is so wrong! IAA reviewers are not independent decision-makers; they are public servants. They are responsible for implementing the policies of the executive government. It is incredibly inappropriate to give IAA reviewers the protection afforded to independent judicial officers. Since the inception of the IAA, reviewers have performed their roles as public servants and nothing more. They don't have independence, they are not impartial and they are not transparent. Unlike judges and AAT members, IAA reviewers do not take an oath, are not required to declare conflicts of interests and are not paid independently of the executive government. That means they don't have a fixed term, either. They do not even have to have legal qualifications. As the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre stated in a submission to the inquiry into this bill:
… the IAA provides not only deeply unfair and likely incorrect outcomes, it also fails to meet even the minimal threshold of lawful decision making in almost half of its cases.
The Josephite Justice Office, in their submission into their inquiry into the bill, stated:
In the long term it is apparent to many organisations working with people seeking protection that the IAA needs to be abolished and replaced by a body designed to provide justice, protection and the right for those appealing to have their appeals responsibly and fairly heard.
I move to the third concern the Australian Greens have with this bill, and that is the short-form judgements from the Federal Court. This bill would allow the Federal Court to provide judgements in short form for a decision dismissing an appeal if the court unanimously decided that the appeal does not raise any question of general principle. The Australian Greens are sympathetic to the Federal Court's heavy workload, but providing detailed, reasoned judgements is an inherent aspect of justice, including natural justice, that cannot be interfered with. The amendments in this bill are not how you improve access to justice. To improve access to justice, the government must instead properly resource the courts and the AAT. The provisions in this bill effectively remove the right to a proper court judgement for people appealing migration decisions. Surely we can't allow that.
The Australian Greens look forward to seeing amendments to this bill. However, this shouldn't be the end of the story. I invite my colleagues in the opposition and on the crossbench to get to work with us to improve the system for people seeking refuge and asylum. As a parliament, we should abolish the IAA and establish a fairer process for persons seeking asylum. As a parliament, we should properly resource the AAT and appoint more relevantly qualified and experienced AAT members to address the current backlogs. We must also create an independent body to make the AAT appointments and to strengthen the independence of the AAT, particularly around the appointment process, and to ensure that only relatively experienced and qualified people are appointed. Surely that's what you would agree with, right? We will see. As we have seen recently, this is incredibly needed right now. My heart is with those in Afghanistan seeking the protection of our government and the many Afghan people who are here in this country with broken hearts watching the news. Know that I am with you, the Australian Greens are with you and we commit ourselves to working with everyone here to bring as many people to safety. Thank you.
I rise today to speak on the Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill 2021. This bill does not seek to make any fundamental changes to the operations of the Australian court system, only to make incremental changes that will streamline and clarify existing processes. This is a commonsense bill that seeks to improve the administration processes of the federal courts and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the AAT.
At its core the bill seeks to ensure red tape does not interfere with the smooth handling of matters, especially within the context of remote working whilst the pandemic calls for it. Measures such as allowing for judges to make rulings outside of their jurisdiction due to lockdowns and remote working is one such change which will allow for the smooth running of the courts during this period in time. This is a measure which both the courts and the government believe is necessary for the long-term evolution in the way hearings are conducted that will greatly benefit the courts and tribunals moving forward. By amending the definition of 'open court' these amendments seek to clarify the validity of remote hearings and by extension ensure that the court can continue to hear matters throughout the undefined COVID-19 period and beyond.
These measures are sought by the government to also make merits review through the AAT accessible, fair, just, economical, informal and quick. To this end, this bill will also amend the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act and a range of acts within the families and social services portfolio. These amendments will enable the AAT to standardise alternative dispute resolution processes through most of its divisions and streamline powers to require giving of information or evidence, or production of documents.
This bill addresses harmonisation issues within the Social Services & Child Support Division with the inclusion of new alternative dispute resolution powers consistent with other divisions of the AAT, except for the Migration and Refugee Division. Again, this is to streamline processes to ensure a faster process that is in the benefit of all. Amendments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act will also address minor technical and administrative issues within the existing act. For example, the new subsection 43AA(4) provides the power to correct errors in decisions or statement of reasons. This includes obvious errors in the text of a decision, such as clerical or typographical errors, or inconsistencies between the decision and the statement of reasons. This amendment will ensure that the mistakes made do not get in the way of justice. In particular, the amendment extends the power to correct an error to an authorised member. This amendment will give greater flexibility to the AAT in correcting errors and allow those errors to be corrected more quickly in circumstances where the presiding member is unavailable.
Amendments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act will also require consequential amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Other bills listed for amendment are the Admiralty Act, the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act, the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act, the Family Law Act 1975, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999 and the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976. Also amended as part of this bill is the Foreign Judgements Act 1991, the Foreign States Immunities Act, the International Arbitration Act, the Judiciary Act, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, the Nauru (High Courts Appeals) Act, the Paid Parental Leave Act and the Social Security (Administration) Act. I'll touch on a couple of those in the time I have left.
This bill proposes to make technical amendments to the Judiciary Act 1903 which will reflect modern practices and terminology. It will enhance consistency with the High Court Rules 2004 and clarify the power of the court to prescribe forms other than in the rules of court. The bill further seeks to amend the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 to allow for short-form reasons in the Federal Court's appellate jurisdiction in civil proceedings. This will improve efficiency in the management of appeals in the Federal Court of Australia. The bill also seeks to amend the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976, the Family Law Act 1975, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999 and the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021, as mentioned earlier. That is to clarify that a judge can sit in a location that is not a court room or chambers to conduct a hearing remotely. Surely everyone can see that this is a practical measure that is sorely needed during this time.
The bill further seeks to amend the Judiciary Act 1903 to clarify that the exercise of federal jurisdiction is considered to take place in the state or territory in which a proceeding is commenced or remitted. In its amendments to the Foreign States Immunities Act 1985, the FSI Act, the government seeks to prevent an Australian court from entering a judgement other than an interlocutory or provisional judgement making an order for the registration of a foreign judgement or making an order for the recognition or enforcement of a foreign award against a foreign state in ex parte proceedings. This bill will align the application of the Admiralty Rules 1988 with the rules of the federal courts. This will be achieved by clarifying that the Admiralty Rules are rules of court in applying certain provisions of the Legislation Act 2003, so as to exempt the rules from sunsetting, while requiring that they be registered and published.
Finally, this bill will formally remove Commonwealth legislation that establishes an appeal pathway from the Supreme Court of Nauru to the High Court of Australia. By way of background, the Nauru (High Court Appeals) Act was enacted to give effect to the agreement between the Australian government and the government of the Republic of Nauru for appeals to the High Court of Australia from certain classes of decisions of the Supreme Court of Nauru. This agreement was terminated on 13 March 2018 following the government of Nauru providing formal notification of its intention to withdraw from the agreement on 12 December 2017. The agreement's termination meant that the High Court was no longer able to hear appeals from the Supreme Court of Nauru, except for appeals and applications for leave instituted before the date the agreement was terminated. The High Court has confirmed that all relevant appeals and applications for leave instituted before the agreement's termination have now concluded.
The bill will also make minor and technical amendments to the Judiciary Act. These will amend inconsistencies in terminology between the Judiciary Act and the High Court Rules in prescribed forms by practice direction, rather than retaining them in the High Court Rules. The bill will also amend the Federal Court of Australia Act to produce significant efficiencies in the Federal Court's management of appeals in civil proceedings. Amendments to the Federal Court of Australia Act will allow the Federal Court to give reasons in short form for a decision dismissing an appeal if the court is unanimously of the opinion that the appeal does not raise any question of general principle.
In the same vein, under international law, foreign states are entitled to immunity from jurisdiction of the courts of certain other countries in certain circumstances. This principle is known as foreign state immunity. The purpose of foreign state immunity is to enable states to carry out their public functions effectively and to enable the orderly conduct of international relations. In Australia, this immunity is governed by the FSI Act. These amendments clarify the application of the FSI Act to ex parte proceedings, following the High Court's consideration of the issue in Firebird Global Master Fund II Ltd v Republic of Nauru back in 2015. The bill seeks to clarify and ensure that foreign states are afforded appropriate procedural immunities and reduces the risk that an Australian court could register a foreign judgement against a foreign state in circumstances where Australia is obliged to afford that foreign state immunity under the law.
In conclusion, this is a bill that will ensure that, when a court hearing is conducted remotely, it operates as efficiently as possible—
It is now 1.30 pm. We will proceed to two-minute statements. Senator Van, if you want to continue your remarks—no? You won't be in continuation; that's fine.
I rise to speak on the approaching one-year anniversary of the founding of the International Parliamentary Network for Education. The network was launched last year, in September 2020, under the leadership of two founding co-chairs: Senator Dr Gertrude Musuruve Inimah, of Kenya, and Harriett Baldwin MP, of the United Kingdom. I feel very privileged to be the inaugural Oceania representative on the board, to advocate for commitments for international aid for education, but I also want to acknowledge, on the occasion of this first anniversary, the great work of my international colleagues—the Hon. Professor Julius Ihonvbere, from Nigeria; Mehnaz Akber Aziz, from Pakistan; Ibtissame Azzaoui, from Morocco; Giulio Centemero, from Italy; Blanca Ines Osuna, from Argentina; and Mike Lake, from Canada—who have worked tirelessly with me.
I also want to acknowledge the work of my colleagues here, 28 of whom have signed up, along with other parliamentarians, to be members of the International Parliamentary Network for Education. Our very significant success has been in encouraging Senator Payne, on behalf of the Australian people, to make a great commitment to the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education. I'm very pleased that we've been able to do that work in support of Sustainable Development Goal No. 4, which is to 'ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all'. As I said, it's been a privilege to do that work.
I want to acknowledge also conversations with the Hon. Jenny Salesa, the MP from the New Zealand parliament who was raised in Tonga. I look forward to another year of good work to advance the region and expand the range of parliamentarians involved in the International Parliamentary Network for Education.
I rise today to speak about an issue I've risen to speak on in this place many times in the past—that is, the regulatory burden faced by financial advisers in Australia and the cost burden associated with those regulations. When I've spoken in the past, unfortunately, it has been in a slightly negative frame, but today I am very pleased to say that the government has made a significant announcement to help financial advisers right across Australia.
I pay tribute to Josh Frydenberg, the Treasurer, and Jane Hume, the Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy, for their decision to reduce the ASIC levy to its 2018-19 level, just over a thousand dollars per adviser, and to freeze it for the next two years while the recommendations of the Hayne royal commission continue to be implemented and to add to the red tape burden of advisers. This is a very important step from the Morrison government, in giving the financial advice community some certainty in their cost structures going forward. This is going to be followed up with a review of the ASIC industry funding model to ensure that it remains fit for purpose.
I pay tribute to the organisations that have been pushing for a move such as this. In particular, I wish to pay tribute to the Association of Financial Advisers and members of the general financial advice community, particularly those in Western Australia, who have been in communication with me on this issue over months and years. I will single out one individual: Stephen Knight, the WA director of the Association of Financial Advisers. He has been a source of positive input on these issues for many, many months. I thank you very much, Stephen.
I rise today to commend the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for launching their Vax Facts campaign a few days ago. A campaign like this is sorely needed. Right now, we have low vaccination rates—Australia is way behind—and we have other news outlets, such as Sky News, continuing to make it all that much harder to get those vaccination rates up. Today, as I stand here commending the good work of the ABC, we have members of the parliament introducing anti-vax laws. Mr Craig Kelly has introduced a bill which is dangerous and which will undermine the good work of many of Australia's health professionals and Public Service personnel across the country. That bill was seconded by George Christensen MP, a member of the Prime Minister's own team. So, on one hand, we have the public broadcaster, the ABC, having to spend their own money and resources to run a public education campaign because they are concerned about the health and the wellbeing of the Australian community—the broadcaster is going above and beyond their duty, in the face of members of this government—and, on the other hand, Mr Morrison's own members are doing everything they can to make it harder for vaccination rates to increase and ensure that the Australian people are well educated about the myths and misinformation. Thank goodness we have the ABC to do this work, because we know the Murdoch press, Sky News and Mr Morrison's own team, including Craig Kelly, are doing everything they can— (Time expired)
Today I rise with sadness to talk about the apathetic response that we have seen from the government when it comes to the terrors that were known to come forward in Afghanistan. It was a foreseen event, and the government did not act to process people's visas in a timely way over many years before now, and that has meant that, in the rush to exit Kabul in Afghanistan quickly over the last couple of weeks, we have abandoned too many people, including Australian citizens and their families in Afghanistan. It was a tepid response that was too little too late. I have to say that those opposite bear responsibility for the underfunded and over-run immigration system in Home Affairs, and our embassy in Kabul simply did not have the tools it needed to address applications with the priority they deserved in what should have been foreseen circumstances. Like many other MPs, my office has had calls from fathers and parents begging for help because they don't think their remaining relatives can protect the children of Australian citizens, including young girls, from the Taliban for much longer. They've been waiting for visas for far too long—in many cases, more than six or seven years already. They are terrified and turn to Australia for help in their time of need, and it was far too little too late. (Time expired)
I rise to speak to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their so-called reporting of the temperature change in Australia since 1910, saying that the temperature has risen by 1.44 degrees. When I read that number, I nearly fell off my chair, because in estimates I asked the Bureau of Meteorology whether they report actual observations or their homogenised data. Their homogenised data is based on shoddy mathematical practices that were highlighted in the 2011 independent peer review that was commissioned by the then Gillard government and whose recommendations have been completely ignored.
I will break that detail down further. That 1.44 degree rise was in 2019. In 2020 the temperature had only risen by 1.15 degrees, so the actual temperature in Australia declined by 0.3 degrees. Of course, that decline was conveniently ignored. On top of that, the homogenised data runs at about half a degree hotter than the actual data. If we take the half a degree off the homogenised data, that brings it back to 0.65.
The homogenised data actually ignores changes in equipment. If you look at recommendation C4 of the independent peer review, it says that you cannot rely on reference stations when trying to detect network equipment changes. If we also look at their second recommendation, at the end, on the 10 best sustainable practices in measuring records, they say you should always do a new and old parallel run together. When I asked the bureau whether or not they had actually done parallel runs here in Australia, they had only done parallel runs at four out of 700 stations in Australia. That is not statistically significant. (Time expired)
[by video link] The events in Afghanistan in recent weeks have been tragic, particularly the suicide attacks last week which not only killed dozens and injured hundreds but have also permanently disrupted the evacuation of Australians, those who have supported and assisted us, and the refugees we ought to support. We are witnessing in real time the transformation of a country from one which is beset by many challenges but has been developing to one which is now becoming very much a failed state. It is a mortifying end to the two decades of Australian and allied operations—one that was sadly predictable to anyone who is familiar with Afghanistan's long history of invasion and occupation.
That is why I enthusiastically supported Senator Lambie's motion last week which established an Afghanistan inquiry. But I think we, the Senate, can do much better in the future. I have long argued that any future deployment of Australian forces should have parliamentary approval. I now also believe it should have parliamentary oversight. Whenever Australian forces are committed, the Senate should automatically establish a select committee that continues for as long as our forces are deployed. This Senate select committee should have broad terms of reference to inquire into any relevant matter, and its membership should comprise all parties and all senators. This will provide us with much greater transparency and much greater scrutiny, both of which will lead to better decision-making by government. It is an important, necessary change and one that I intend to pursue throughout the rest of this year.
You'd have to wonder what it is that Prime Minister Scott Morrison hates so much about Western Australians. Is it because we overwhelmingly supported Premier McGowan in the election in March and almost wiped the WA Liberals off the face of the earth? There are two of them left in the lower house in the Western Australian state parliament. Is it because he had to finally back down after he'd supported Clive Palmer's bid to tear our borders down, despite Western Australians overwhelmingly supporting border closures to keep us safe? But gee—he hit the nail on the head last week by calling Western Australians cave dwellers. I tell you what: I would much rather be a cave dweller in Western Australia than be confronting the awful tragedy that's going on in New South Wales right at this moment—although you wouldn't know they had another record number of cases today, because the Premier is just not talking about case numbers anymore.
But I suspect it's the stuff that's been in the West Australian over the last week or so: the 700 messages from a WhatsApp group called The Clan, all Liberals, led by the former Leader of the Government in the Senate, former Senator Cormann. They had been making derogatory remarks about women—for example, calling them sandwich makers—and talking about branch stacking and electing only candidates of their choice. I suspect that's one of the reasons why Mr Morrison is trying to deflect attention away from the WA Liberals.
The second reason will be the appalling report on the WA Liberal Party that was released on the weekend. It makes for shameful reading, and all those from WA on that side should be hanging their heads in shame at the deals, branch stacking and disgraceful behaviour of a tiny group of men led by a former leader in this place.
[by video link] On 25 August, the Australian Registered Cattle Breeders Association, ARCBA, wrote to all parliamentarians to highlight the failure of the Liberal, National and Labor parties in resolving PFAS contamination from defence bases. The ARCBA is the peak body representing most cattle breeders in Australia, and this is a national issue. The European Commission have now set a safe level for PFAS of just 4.6 nanograms per kilogram because they know anything above that causes harm to humans and cattle. Yet cattle in the red zones near defence bases are routinely returning PFAS levels of 400 nanograms and as high as 1,400 nanograms per kilo. A recent Federal Court case awarded compensation to some residents of these red zones, about $115,000 per property, which is a tiny part of what residents have lost. Food Standards Australia New Zealand are conducting a review of PFAS which must implement a safe level to match the European standard. I understand that a major barrier to the signing of free trade agreements with the UK and the EU is food safety concerns, including potential PFAS contamination in our red meat.
Once mandatory standards are introduced, what will become of the red meat industry in these areas? The only fair response is to offer residents compensation and like-for-like relocation to a similar property in a clean area where they can get on with raising healthy cattle to feed Australia and the world. Then the government must invest in remediation facilities to clean the groundwater and prevent the fumes spreading and infecting more residents. Defence is looking after itself, having installed four of these facilities inside defence bases, and yet residents in the red zones are apparently not important to this parliament. (Time expired)
[by video link] I rise to congratulate Andrew Willcox on winning preselection for the federal seat of Dawson. This isn't so much a win for Mr Willcox as it is a win for Mackay, the Whitsundays, Burdekin and Townsville. In Mr Willcox the region will have another strong candidate following the retirement of the current member, George Christensen. They are both large men in stature, matched by the size of their unwavering commitment to North Queensland and, indeed, northern Australia.
Mr Willcox shares the Morrison government's enthusiasm for regional development. He has publicly backed the proposed Urannah dam, west of Mackay, and a coal-fired power station in Collinsville. He also backed the Burdekin dam stage 2 development and the Burdekin-to-Bowen pipeline, which will shore up water security and expand opportunities in agriculture.
Importantly, his lived experience and deep knowledge of a range of issues also make him an excellent advocate for the federal government's northern Australia agenda. Mr Willcox is a tomato farmer by trade and, like the current member, opposes extreme environmental activities that unnecessarily stifle development and prevent people in the region from obtaining reliable, high-paying jobs in the mining and agricultural sectors. He is in his second term as mayor of the Whitsundays region, a truly diverse local government area taking in the picturesque coastal towns of Airlie Beach and Bowen, the cane and cattle hub of Proserpine and also the coalmining town of Collinsville to the west. This is exactly the sort of person we need in our parliament, and I look forward to helping him in the next election campaign. If the people of Dawson want to preserve their lifestyles and livelihoods, if the northern Australian agenda is to thrive and prosper, they have a genuine champion in Andrew Willcox.
Over the weekend there was a rallying of business leaders opposing attempts by this chamber to have disclosed the names of companies with a turnover of $10 million or more and the amounts of Jobkeeper payment they have received. When an employer gets money from a bank, that's their business. When an employer gets money from the public, that's public business. It's no different for grants and it's no different for government contracts. Jobkeeper should be treated the same as all other public money that is spent. Jobkeeper was very necessary. It was there to help struggling businesses through a pandemic. Unfortunately, it was abused by some. It was set up, by regulation, to give free taxpayers' money to businesses, under an honesty system that had no requirement for a company who didn't need the money to pay it back. This was a huge prudential blunder by the Treasurer; one that he is now trying to cover up.
Big business coming out on the weekend could be at the call of Mr Frydenberg, or it could be because big business has recognised that Mr Frydenberg is struggling to protect the interests of his fat-cat corporate constituents. Their coming out tells me that I'm doing something right. I won't be backing down. I'll fight for fairness and I will fight for taxpayers.
Almost 20 years ago, Australia was one of the first countries to join the United States-led intervention in Afghanistan, and our personnel stayed on to support the community's efforts to establish a stable regime and to secure human rights for women and girls and for minority communities. Tragically, these ambitions have not been realised and not all of those who served in Afghanistan returned. I join with other senators in honouring their service. I offer my sympathy to their grieving relatives and to their friends. Many of us have watched the horrible events unfold at the Hamid Karzai International Airport. We saw heartbreaking scenes of a man handing over his baby to US soldiers—themselves subject to unspeakable risks—and I cannot imagine how frightened this family must be, how desperate they are for this baby to grow up safe and free. As parents, that is all we want for our children. The harrowing scenes of Afghans attempting to flee their homeland should serve as a reminder that a humanitarian crisis requires a humane response.
In my home state of New South Wales, a group of Afghan Australian women living in Western Sydney cannot sleep, worrying about their friends and their loved ones, and they say they feel like they're in a time machine—that we have travelled back to 20 years ago and that all the rights and liberties gained for women have been lost. The bitter truth is that, dating back many years, there are thousands of outstanding applications from Australian citizens and permanent residents to bring husbands, wives, partners and children to safety from Afghanistan. I would like the Australian Afghan community to know that we feel your distress and your anguish. We should not walk away from the sacrifices that you and your families have made.
Yet another week has gone by with governments at all levels pretending that people on income support do not exist. Last week, ACOSS found that almost 90 per cent of people on the lowest incomes in lockdown are missing out on disaster payments. It's heartbreaking to think of the hundreds of thousands of people who are locked down with no additional help, treated as though they are invisible.
Last year, people accessing the social safety net were considered worthy of extra support, and, for a brief time, we saw what happens when those people have access to income support that is above the poverty line. This year, people with the least are being abandoned by the Morrison government. It's outrageous that the government thinks it's acceptable for people to survive on $44 a day, especially during a pandemic when job opportunities are severely limited and people need extra to be able to buy the basics. The mental strain that people are going through because of lockdown is significant, and, for those without the means to get by, it is life-threatening.
Through the Jobkeeper program the government has handed over billions to big corporations who don't need it and who have made huge profits. And the government can't even make sure that those on the lowest incomes can survive through what is now months and months of lockdown. I'm so worried about people in lockdown on income support. I'm also furious about it. It is just outrageous that the government doesn't think people on Jobseeker are worthy of additional support.
The government can fix this. They have the means and they can make it happen. They just choose, over and over again, to punish and abandon people living below the poverty line on the Jobseeker payment. These people are living in poverty. They deserve additional support.
We can all agree that the people on the front line of this pandemic have often been small-business people. These people have lost their incomes and their mental health. These are the barbers and the travel agents. They are the people who work in bars and who own cafes. As we track towards 80 per cent double-dose vaccinations, we should be looking to provide more opportunities for these businesses to get back on their feet. We should be looking to other jurisdictions which have already achieved a higher level of vaccination where they have made it possible for people to have a meal or a drink outside, and where there has been a huge push to deregulate and to cut red tape.
I think we should be open-minded about giving people who have had vaccinations more freedoms. We should give them incentives. We need to give incentives to people who have been living through 10 weeks of lockdown in New South Wales, and who are looking down the barrel of another eight or nine weeks of it. We need to provide incentives for people to get vaccinated and we also need to provide incentives for people who are running small businesses to maintain good mental health and to provide a livelihood for their families. I urge councils and the state government in New South Wales to look very closely at what has been done in jurisdictions like New York to incentivise people to have a meal or a drink outside where people are vaccinated. There is no problem with giving people special rights if they have had their vaccinations. We have to be open-minded about that. We have to tell the truth that that is the right thing to do and the only way we can get back to freedom.
Labor has a clear plan for northern Australia. It's very simple: more jobs in more industries. Unlike our political opponents on the left and right, we think that there is room for jobs in traditional industries and newer industries to grow well into the future. On that note, there are exciting things happening in Gladstone in Central Queensland right now, particularly in the field of hydrogen.
There is obviously a lot of interest around the world in the opportunities for hydrogen as a new low-emission fuel. I'm very pleased to say that regional cities like Gladstone and Townsville are leading the way in capturing the job opportunities that lie in wait in this field. Focusing on Gladstone, there have been a couple of really exciting announcements recently. First of all, there was a historic signing of a memorandum of understanding for a Gladstone hydrogen ecosystem. This has had strong support from the Palaszczuk Labor government in Queensland, and it has now attracted a range of partners including Sumitomo Corporation, Gladstone Ports Corporation, Gladstone Regional Council, Australian Gas Infrastructure Group and Central Queensland University, who have all come to the party to try to capture these opportunities and make sure we continue growing jobs in this new industry in Gladstone into the future.
I had the good luck recently to meet with the members of this consortium with Mayor of Gladstone Matt Burnett, who is a real champion for this industry into the future. The end goal of this consortium is the export of hydrogen from Gladstone by 2030, and they're certainly well on the way, especially when you consider that even last week we saw another step in the right direction with Rio Tinto and Sumitomo Corporation announcing a partnership to study the construction of a hydrogen pilot plant at Rio Tinto's Yarwun Alumina Refinery in Gladstone. I visited there recently and learned about the commitment that Rio Tinto has to replacing natural gas with hydrogen in its refining process, and I'm pleased to see more steps along this way in Gladstone pursuing hydrogen.
[by video link] As I raised in the Herald Sun today, public health restrictions which force children to remain separated from their parents must be immediately overturned. This sort of treatment of children in our country is completely untenable. The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities makes it clear that the rights of the child are absolute. In Victoria, a number of children have suffered acute stress and mental health impacts after being denied permits to cross the border and return home to their families. As the Victorian Ombudsman indicated, this may constitute a serious breach of the charter. In Victoria there are no specific permits or exemptions for minors. It took 15-year-old Talia Wale a real battle and three weeks to return to Victoria, and now there are four farming families who are facing a similar situation. On a day when we have learned about another tragic suicide in our community, this is not good enough. We need national standards so that the interests of children are paramount. To Daniel Andrews, I say: enough is enough.
It is my very sad duty to inform the Senate of the death overnight of Senator Alex Gallacher, who served Australia and South Australia with distinction in this place since his election in 2010. A motion of condolence will be moved at a later date, to be determined in consultation with his family and his colleagues. As a mark of respect to the memory of Senator Gallacher, I ask senators to join in a moment of silence.
Honourable senators having stood in their places—
With the agreement of the Senate, the Senate stands adjourned until midday tomorrow.
Senate adjourned at 14:01