2009-11-19 42 1 6 REPS 0 1 2009-11-19 The SPEAKER (Mr Harry Jenkins) took the chair at 9 am and read prayers. 12193 Bills R4240 12193 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon. Bill read a first time. 12193 09:01:00 Roxon, Nicola, MP 83K Gellibrand ALP Minister for Health and Ageing 1 0 Ms ROXON —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill amends the National Health Security Act 2007 to enhance Australia’s capacity to secure certain biological agents that could be used as weapons. Such a biological agent is also known as a security sensitive biological agent, or SSBA, and includes the agents of diseases such as anthrax, smallpox and the plague. The regulatory scheme for SSBAs currently includes stringent requirements relating to the notification of the type and location of SSBAs in Australia, along with standards that must be met by organisations handling SSBAs. These standards relate to matters such as the secure handling, disposal and movement of SSBAs, along with background checking requirements for relevant personnel. The bill I am introducing today enhances the SSBA regulatory scheme by enabling me to determine that background checking of persons who handle or dispose of SSBAs is conducted by the Australian Background Checking Service, otherwise known as AusCheck, of the Attorney-General’s Department. The proposed amendment to the act is consistent with the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs which has recommended that a principal act authorise the establishment of a background checking scheme that can be conducted by AusCheck. Given the importance of background checking to the SSBA regulatory scheme, I have ensured that the proposed change has been subject to extensive consultation with experts. This has included consultation on the need for background checking and that it should be conducted by AusCheck. The Department of Health and Ageing has consulted with agencies responsible for obtaining and assessing information about the risks and threats posed by biological agents (such as ASIO), public health laboratories, state and territory government agencies and other experts in SSBAs. AusCheck will coordinate the background checks that will consist of an assessment of a person’s criminal history and security checks against a set of disqualification criteria. The details of the SSBA background checking scheme will be set out in the SSBA Standards and the AusCheck regulations. Those details will also be subject to further consultation. I am confident that the bill before us appropriately enhances the security of the existing regulatory scheme for SSBAs, ensuring that we continue to deliver on our international commitments and the national imperative to actively improve our capacity to maintain adequate controls on biological agents. This builds on the Rudd government’s continuing commitment to protect all Australians from potential threats. I commend the bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12194 Bills R4245 12194 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon. Bill read a first time. 12194 12194 09:04:00 Roxon, Nicola, MP 83K Gellibrand ALP Minister for Health and Ageing 1 0 Ms ROXON —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009 [No. 2] will amend various acts to give effect to the recent budget measure to introduce three new private health insurance incentives tiers. The new arrangements will commence on the later of 1 July 2010 or the day on which the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Act 2009 receives royal assent or the day on which the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 2009 receives royal assent. However, they will not commence at all unless both the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Act 2009 and the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 2009 also receive royal assent. This bill was previously introduced into the House of Representatives on 27 May 2009 where it was passed on 2 June 2009. This bill was previously introduced into the Senate on 15 June 2009. On 9 September 2009 a motion moved in the Senate that this bill be read a second time was defeated. This bill is being reintroduced into the House of Representatives to make the private health insurance rebate fairer. The government supports a mixed model of balanced private and public health services. The government is also committed to a sustainable private health system, and to ensure it remains sustainable the government will rebalance support for private health insurance to provide a fairer distribution of benefits. The new arrangements will make the private health rebate fairer. Firstly, singles earning $75,000 or less and couples and families earning $150,000 or less will received the same rebate as they currently enjoy and will not be adversely affected. Currently, however, approximately 14 per cent of single taxpayers who have incomes above $75,000 receive about 28 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to singles—or twice their population share. Under the government’s reforms, these singles will receive about 12 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to singles. Similarly, approximately 12 per cent of couple taxpayers who have incomes above $150,000 receive about 21 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to couples—again, almost twice their population share. Under the government’s reforms, these couples will receive about nine per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to couples. These reforms will bring government support for private health insurance in line with the principle underpinning the Australian tax-transfer system—that the largest benefits are provided to those on lower incomes. Spending on the current private health insurance rebate is growing rapidly and is expected to double as a proportion of health expenditure within the next 40 years. Clearly this presents challenges in the current fiscal environment. These reforms will result in a saving to government expenditure of $2 billion over four years, which will help ensure that the government’s support for private health insurance remains fair and sustainable. From 1 July 2010 the government proposes to introduce three new private health insurance incentive tiers. The tiers will mean high-income earners receive lower government payments for private health insurance but will face an increase in costs if they opt out of private health cover. The government’s commitment to retaining the private health insurance rebate remains. Rebates for low- and middle-income earners will be unchanged with the government continuing to pay 30 per cent of the premium cost for a person earning $75,000 or less and couples and families earning $150,000 or less. The existing rebates for older Australians will remain in place for people earning below these thresholds—35 per cent for people aged 65 to 69 years and 40 per cent for people aged 70 years and over. These people will continue to have no surcharge liability if they decide not to take out appropriate private health insurance. The new tiered system will be introduced for higher income earners and will set three different rebate levels and surcharge levels based on income and age. The purpose of this is to reduce the carrot but increase the stick and ensure those who can afford to contribute more for their health insurance do so. The government does not believe it is appropriate for low-income earners to subsidise the private health insurance costs of high-income earners. The first incentive tier will apply to singles with an income of more than $75,000 and couples and families with an income of more than $150,000. For these people the private health insurance rebate will be 20 per cent for those up to 65 years, 25 per cent for those aged 65 to 69, and 30 per cent for those aged 70 and over. The Medicare levy surcharge for people in this tier who do not hold appropriate private health insurance will remain at one per cent. Tier 2 applies to singles earning more than $90,000 a year and couples and families earning more than $180,000. The rebate will be 10 per cent for those up to 65 years, 15 per cent for those aged 65 to 69, and 20 per cent for those aged 70 and over. The surcharge for people in this tier who do not have appropriate private health insurance will be increased to 1.25 per cent of income. Tier 3 affects singles earning more than $120,000 a year and couples and families earning more than $240,000 a year. No private health insurance rebate will be provided for people who fall within the third tier and the surcharge for avoiding private health insurance will be increased to 1.5 per cent of income for these people. Annual indexation to average weekly earnings of the tiers will ensure that these changes remain equitable and can be maintained into the future. The increased surcharge for people on higher incomes will help ensure that about 99.7 per cent of insured people remain in private health insurance. This is because those high-income earners who receive a lower rebate will face a higher tax penalty for avoiding private health insurance. By retaining this system of carrots and sticks the reforms are unlikely to affect private health insurance premiums. It is estimated that approximately 25,000 people may no longer be covered by private health insurance hospital cover and this might result in 8,000 additional public hospital admissions over two years. When considered against the fact that public hospitals have around 4.7 million admissions per year, the impact of this measure will be insignificant. And the measure will be particularly insignificant for public hospitals given the government’s investment under the new $64 billion COAG agreement, where hospitals receive 50 per cent over and above the old Australian healthcare agreements negotiated by the previous government. Further, the historic $872 million investment in preventative health will assist in keeping people out of hospitals in the first place. In summary, this measure will make private health fairer, more balanced and more sustainable in the long term. By maintaining a carefully designed system of carrots and sticks, it will have a negligible effect on both premiums and the public hospital system. At the same time, low- and middle-income earners who chose to have private health insurance will continue to enjoy the benefit of a significant government rebate. I again commend this bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12196 Bills R4246 12196 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon. Bill read a first time. 12196 12196 09:12:00 Roxon, Nicola, MP 83K Gellibrand ALP Minister for Health and Ageing 1 0 Ms ROXON —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 [No. 2] will amend the Medicare Levy Act 1986 to give effect to the budget measure to introduce three new private health insurance incentives tiers. The bill will commence immediately after the commencement of the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Act 2009. This bill was previously introduced into the House of Representatives on 27 May 2009 where it was passed on 2 June 2009. This bill was previously introduced into the Senate on 15 June 2009. On 9 September 2009 a motion moved in the Senate that this bill be read a second time was defeated. This bill is being reintroduced into the House of Representatives to give effect to the budget measure to introduce the private health insurance incentives tiers that will make the private health rebate fairer. The Medicare Levy Act 1986 determines whether an individual is liable to pay the Medicare levy surcharge in respect of their taxable income or that of their spouse. The individual’s income for surcharge purposes determines whether a person must pay the surcharge. If the individual’s income exceeds prescribed income thresholds they will need to pay the appropriate level of surcharge. This bill inserts the new tier system in order to determine which level of surcharge a person must pay where they do not hold appropriate private health insurance. I commend this bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12196 Bills R4244 12196 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon. Bill read a first time. 12196 12196 09:14:00 Roxon, Nicola, MP 83K Gellibrand ALP Minister for Health and Ageing 1 0 Ms ROXON —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009 [No. 2] will amend the A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 1999 to give effect to the recent budget measure to introduce three new private health insurance incentives tiers. The bill will commence immediately after the commencement of the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Act 2009. This bill was previously introduced into the House of Representatives on 27 May 2009 where it was passed on 2 June 2009. This bill was previously introduced into the Senate on 15 June 2009, and on 9 September 2009 a motion moved in the Senate that this bill be read a second time was defeated. This bill is being reintroduced into the House of Representatives to give effect to the budget measure to introduce the private health insurance incentives tiers that will make the private health rebate fairer. The A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 1999 determines whether an individual is liable to pay the Medicare levy surcharge in respect of a reportable fringe benefits total they or their spouse may have. The individual’s income for surcharge purposes determines whether a person must pay the surcharge. If the individual’s income exceeds prescribed income thresholds they will need to pay the appropriate level of surcharge. This bill inserts the new tier system in order to determine which level of surcharge a person must pay where they do not hold appropriate private health insurance. I commend this bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12197 Bills R4241 12197 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McClelland. Bill read a first time. 12197 12197 09:17:00 McClelland, Robert, MP JK6 Barton ALP Attorney-General 1 0 Mr McCLELLAND —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I am pleased to introduce the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Bill 2009. The bill contains two key measures. First, it enacts a specific Commonwealth torture offence in the Commonwealth Criminal Code, to operate concurrently with existing offences in state and territory criminal laws. Second, it amends the Commonwealth Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 to extend the application of the current prohibition on the death penalty to state laws, to ensure the death penalty cannot be introduced anywhere in Australia. The overarching purpose behind these amendments is, in the spirit of engagement with international human rights mechanisms, to ensure that Australia complies fully with its international obligations to combat torture and to demonstrate our commitment to the worldwide movement to abolish capital punishment. Prohibition of torture Since 1989, Australia has been a party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. Among other obligations, the convention requires Australia to ensure that all acts of torture are offences under domestic criminal law. Torture is defined in the convention as any act by which severe pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted upon a person by a public official for certain specified purposes—such as obtaining information or a confession from a person. In previous periodic reports to the UN Committee against Torture, Australia has stated that it meets its obligations under the convention on the basis that acts falling within the convention’s definition of torture are offences under state and territory criminal laws. These acts include, for example, the infliction of bodily harm, murder, manslaughter, assault and other offences against the person. The Crimes (Torture) Act 1988 (Cth) currently criminalises acts of torture committed outside Australia, only when committed by Australian citizens or other persons who are subsequently present in Australia. Also, acts of torture that are committed anywhere in the world during the course of an armed conflict or as a crime against humanity are currently criminalised under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth). In recent years, the UN Committee against Torture has been critical of nations that have not enacted torture as a specific criminal offence, and has called on nations to do so. In its concluding observations on Australia, issued in May 2008, the committee recommended that Australia enact a specific offence of torture at the federal level. Mindful of the committee’s recommendation, and determined to demonstrate the government’s condemnation of torture in all circumstances, the government is enacting a new offence of torture in the Criminal Code, which will criminalise acts of torture committed both within and outside Australia. As the new offence will result in the redundancy of the Crimes (Torture) Act, that act will be repealed. Giving the offence extraterritorial application is intended to reflect a key aim of the convention, which is to end impunity for torture globally. The new offence is intended to fulfil more clearly Australia’s obligations under the convention against torture. The offence is intended to operate concurrently with existing state and territory offences. The bill makes it clear that the enactment of the new offence is not intended to exclude or limit the concurrent operation of any other law of the Commonwealth or any law of a state or territory. Abolition of the Death Penalty Australia has a longstanding policy of opposition to the death penalty. Australia is a party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. The ICCPR only permits the death penalty for the ‘most serious crimes’, but the second optional protocol goes further and requires Australia to take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction and to ensure that no-one within its jurisdiction is subject to the death penalty. The death penalty has been formally abolished in all jurisdictions in Australia. It was first abolished for Commonwealth and territory offences in 1973, by the Commonwealth Death Penalty Abolition Act. Each state has independently and separately abolished the death penalty, and there are no proposals by any state government to reinstate the death penalty. The purpose of the legislation is to extend the application of the current prohibition on the death penalty to state laws. This will ensure that the death penalty cannot be reintroduced anywhere in Australia in the future. The amendments emphasise Australia’s commitment to our obligations under the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and ensure that Australia continues to comply with those obligations. Such a comprehensive rejection of capital punishment will also demonstrate Australia’s commitment to the worldwide abolitionist movement and complement Australia’s international lobbying efforts against the death penalty. In summary and conclusion, this bill contains important measures which again demonstrate this government’s ongoing commitment to better recognise Australia’s international human rights obligations, particularly in these two very important areas. I therefore commend the bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12199 Bills R4238 12199 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Dr Emerson. Bill read a first time. 12199 12199 09:24:00 Emerson, Craig, MP 83V Rankin ALP Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation and Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs 1 0 Dr EMERSON —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Tax Laws Amendment (Confidentiality of Taxpayer Information) Bill 2009 consolidates taxation secrecy and disclosure provisions which are currently scattered across 18 taxation acts into a single framework. Not only are the existing provisions spread across the taxation law but they were also enacted over time in different drafting styles, leading to an inconsistent level of protection for taxpayer information and uncertainty for the Australian Taxation Office, other users of taxpayer information and taxpayers themselves. The inconsistencies and ambiguities associated with the existing law have the potential to undermine its primary purpose, which is to provide clear protection for taxpayer information. The taxation law has long recognised that such protection is fundamental to ensuring that taxpayers maintain their confidence in the operation of the tax system. The new framework draws on principles in the current law. It will continue to prohibit, through criminal offence provisions, the unauthorised disclosure of taxpayer information obtained or generated in the course of administering a taxation law. It will also broadly retain the existing disclosure provisions, which recognise the need for taxation officers to use taxpayer information in the performance of their duties and the legitimate need of other government agencies to access the information to more effectively deliver services or enforce laws. The new framework will also standardise key definitions to overcome existing ambiguities. It will clarify the circumstances in which identifiable taxpayer information may be provided to a minister and to a parliamentary committee. However, taxpayers can be confident that their personal information will remain secure, because it is not the intention of this bill to broaden the circumstances in which information can be disclosed. This bill also introduces clear rules to govern the on-disclosure of information provided to non-taxation officers. Under the existing law and the new framework, taxpayer information can be provided to non-taxation officers for certain limited purposes. The new framework will make it clear that a recipient of taxpayer information is able to use the information only for the purpose for which the information was provided or a related purpose. Such an approach strikes the right balance between the protection of taxpayer privacy and facilitating the work of government. This bill also proposes to introduce a number of new disclosure provisions where the public benefit of disclosure outweighs taxpayer privacy. Of note, this bill will facilitate greater disclosures of taxpayer information to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC, to, amongst other things, enable a greater level of cooperation between ASIC and the Taxation Office in addressing fraudulent phoenix activity. This bill has been developed following thorough public consultation in early 2009. The government would like to thank all those who provided comments on the exposure draft of the bill and the explanatory memorandum. Many of the comments received are reflected in the bill before us today. This bill will enhance taxpayer privacy by providing greater transparency in the circumstances in which taxpayer information can be used. This bill will also reduce the volume of taxation law and is a reflection of the government’s commitment to simplify the operation of the taxation law. Full details of this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12200 Bills R4236 12200 Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Dr Kelly. Bill read a first time. 12200 12200 09:28:00 Kelly, Mike, MP HRI Eden-Monaro ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support and Parliamentary Secretary for Water 1 0 Dr KELLY —I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Australian Capital Territory and Other Legislation Amendment (Water Management) Bill 2009 is another step in the reform of water governance in Australia. Over the last century, as our water resources have been increasingly drawn on, the impacts on the environment and between competing users have intensified. Water resource management has been characterised by tension between governments and the competing interests of water users, which has hindered reform and encouraged self-interested decision making. The overallocation of water resources, the effects of climate change and the reduced inflow of water into river and catchment systems has necessitated a shift towards cooperation and collaboration between governments and users. The 1994 Council of Australian Governments water reform framework and subsequent initiatives recognised that better management of Australia’s water resources required national action. As a result, states and territories have made considerable progress towards more efficient and sustainable water management. The National Water Initiative, the NWI, complemented and realised the benefits intended by the 1994 COAG agreement. The objectives of the NWI are to improve the efficiency of water use and establish clear pathways to return all water sources to environmentally sustainable levels. Full implementation of the NWI will result in a nationally compatible planning system for water resource management. The Water Act 2007 and the Water Amendment Act 2008 built on the objectives of the NWI and introduced a new era of cooperative arrangements for water resource management between the Commonwealth, the states and the ACT. The cooperation of the Commonwealth, the basin states and the ACT in the Murray-Darling Basin will ensure not only that the use of water resources within the basin states and ACT is sustainable but also that the use of water resources that transcend state boundaries is sustainable. Consistent with these arrangements, the Commonwealth and the ACT government are cooperatively implementing the required mechanisms to allow the ACT government to manage water abstraction on national land in the ACT. This is currently a Commonwealth function. The ACT government will now be able to plan and manage all water extraction in the ACT. Currently there is only a small amount of water—well under one gigalitre—taken for consumptive purposes on national land in the ACT. Given the highly interlinked nature of water resources on national land and other ACT water resources, a dual system of regulation does not allow for the consistent and efficient management of water resources within the ACT. The Commonwealth through this bill continues to lead the way in building a national approach of cooperative water resource management. Thus, the primary purpose of the Australian Capital Territory and Other Legislation Amendment (Water Management) Bill 2009 is to amend the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988, which regulates the management of land in the ACT, so the abstraction of water on national land is no longer managed by the Commonwealth government. Into the future, the abstraction of water on national land, as well as the abstraction of water by Commonwealth agencies throughout the ACT, will be managed by the ACT government under their Water Resources Act 2007. This will be achieved by amendments to associated Commonwealth legislative instruments and ACT legislation by the ACT Legislative Assembly. This will ensure that key objectives of the NWI are met and territory and national water resources are managed in a consistent manner. The bill also amends the Canberra Water Supply (Googong Dam) Act 1974 to ensure that the ACT executive has the necessary powers to fully manage the surface waters of the Googong Dam under the ACT Water Resources Act. Again, the aim of this amendment is to ensure that all water resources under ACT control are managed under a consistent framework. This change will not affect any agreements reached by the Commonwealth, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory governments on the supply of water to Queanbeyan. This bill makes minor amendments to the Water Act 2007: Firstly to provide that the water resources of the Googong Dam area are required to be included in a water resource plan area for which the ACT has responsibility to prepare a water resource plan. Secondly to ensure that Commonwealth non-environmental use of water, particularly water used by the Department of Defence at its facilities, is taken account of when the basin plan is being prepared. Thirdly to provide that the basin plan, and water resource plans prepared by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, may make provision for a matter by applying, adopting or incorporating any matter contained in an instrument as in force or existing at a particular time or as in force from time to time. Fourthly the definition of ‘express amendment’ as it applies to the definition of ‘referring state’ is amended to conform with the equivalent definition in the state laws that refer legislative power to the Commonwealth to support the enactment of the referred provisions of the Water Act. These amendments make it clear that where the Water Act uses the term ‘referring state’ this means, as it has always meant, the basin states. The bill also makes minor amendments to the water related provisions of the Trade Practices Act 1974, to clarify the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s power of delegation in respect of its functions under rules made under the Water Act 2007. Finally, the bill makes minor amendments to the Water Amendment Act 2008 to clarify the term of appointment of the current Chief Executive Officer of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. National water reform is an ongoing process. However, small but important steps help maintain the momentum towards improved water management outcomes and ultimately resource sustainability. For example, the operation of efficient water markets is central to achieving the objectives of the NWI. This bill will allow the establishment of compatible institutional and regulatory arrangements that facilitate intrastate and interstate trade and consistent pricing policies for all water extraction in the ACT. More transparent and uniform arrangements will also allow the Botanical Garden to draw water from Lake Burley Griffin. The gardens currently draw water from ACT potable supply, putting significant burden on the ACT to provide processed potable water to the gardens. The gardens do not require expensive processed water when more suitable raw water can be extracted directly from Lake Burley Griffin at a fraction of the cost. The new arrangements will permit the ACT and Commonwealth to share its total cap, allowing the gardens to draw water from Lake Burley Griffin, which is currently under Commonwealth control, without any increase in the overall water use within the catchment. The Commonwealth government has committed to leading the way in water resource management to ensure a healthy balance between the environment and water users that will secure our water resources for future generations of Australians. Cooperative, consistent and efficient management arrangements of water extraction within the ACT will have long-term benefits on the sustainability of water resources within the ACT. The Australian Capital Territory and Other Legislation Amendment (Water Management) Bill 2009 is another small but integral part in the reform of water resource governance arrangements in Australia. I commend the bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned. 12203 Committees 12203 12203 12203 09:36:00 Raguse, Brett, MP HVQ Forde ALP 1 0 Mr RAGUSE —On behalf of the Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests, I present the committee’s report entitled Publication of details of members’ interests on the Australian Parliament House website. Order that the report be made a parliamentary paper. HVQ Raguse, Brett, MP Mr RAGUSE —by leave—The purpose of the report is to outline to members the committee’s views on the desirability of publication of the details of members’ interests on the Parliament House website and to advise members of a specific proposal for implementation. As background, I note that, while the Register of Members’ Interests currently is made public in hard copy, it is not published on the Parliament House website. However, as the result of an approach to the committee early in the 42nd Parliament by an organisation, OpenAustralia, which wished to make the declarations of members’ interests available on its website, the initial declarations of interests by all members of the 42nd Parliament are currently available on the OpenAustralia website. The committee is conscious that there is widespread interest in matters concerning members and that there is a strong expectation of accountability and transparency in relation to members’ entitlements and interests. As a result, the committee agreed to explore the issues and options for possible implementation in the 43rd Parliament of electronic access to the Register of Members’ Interests from the Parliament House website. The committee’s considerations had regard to the existing framework provided in the House’s resolution on members’ interests and it does not propose any change to that framework. The report outlines a proposal from the committee for the publication of the Register of Members’ Interests on the Parliament House website from the commencement of the 43rd Parliament. The committee also is considering a range of security features which will make it more difficult to download the statements, change them, and then present them as original documents. The committee is also considering the issue of the visibility of members’ signatures on the statements. The committee believes that the approach it proposes to the electronic publication of the Register of Members’ Interests will allow implementation in a way which will achieve a reasonable balance between the considerations of the integrity of the data, the ease of access to those using the system and administrative efficiency. The committee would welcome the views of members and other interested people on the proposal, which would be implemented in the 43rd Parliament. 12203 Delegation Reports 12203 12203 09:39:00 Thomson, Kelvin, MP UK6 Wills ALP 1 0 Mr KELVIN THOMSON —I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to Tonga and Vanuatu from 22 July to 1 August 2009. 12204 Bills R4248 Cognate bill: 12204 Bills R4247 12204 Debate resumed from 18 November, on motion by Mr Tanner: That this bill be now read a second time. 12204 09:40:00 Billson, Bruce, MP 1K6 Dunkley LP 0 0 Mr BILLSON —The Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 have been hurriedly rushed into the parliament to take account of the Rudd government’s mismanagement and inability to implement its policy undertakings. These are supply bills for both ordinary annual government services and extraordinary services in relation to water entitlements and home insulation. The coalition will obviously be supporting these bills, following our tradition of not opposing government supply bills. That certainly does not negate the opportunity to highlight why we are here today and to make some, I think, measured, very helpful and informative observations about the way in which these programs have been administered. In relation to the government’s Home Insulation Program, this legislation provides additional funding that reflects the conclusions announced in the government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook report, which basically pointed to the fact that the allocated funding for this financial year will run out before year’s end. The administered funding of $695.8 million is to be brought forward from the next financial year into this one to ensure that people applying for grants under the Home Insulation Program can have those grants processed and payments made. The second bill provides resources for water entitlement acquisition and the acceleration of water buyback activity within the Murray-Darling Basin system. Administered funding of $4.9 million for the Water for the Future, Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin Program is to be brought forward—$4.4 million from 2013-14 and $500,000 from 2014-15—to provide the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts with adequate resourcing to efficiently implement the government’s water purchase program for this financial year. This will also provide funding to accelerate water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system. Administered funding of $650 million for the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program, under the Water for the Future program, will be brought forward from later years. This includes $320 million from 2010-2011 and 2011-12—that is, $220 million and $100 million respectively. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook report in November also identified $330 million to be brought forward from 2010-11, $100 million from 2011-12 and $130 million from 2013-4 to provide for additional water buybacks this financial year. The government’s stated objective is to restore the balance of the Murray-Darling Basin, to purchase water entitlements to restore the environmental health of the basin system and to smooth the transition—we are led to believe—through sustainable diversion limits anticipated in the new basin plan. So you can see some adjustment to water allocations to bring about the change in limits envisaged in the new basin plan. To date the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin Program has secured the purchase of more than 600 gigalitres of water entitlements. For those people who are listening, that is water entitlements, not necessarily water. Water entitlements represent a right to extract and to divert water from that system when it is available. If it is not available, you are simply purchasing an opportunity to make that diversion, to take that extraction, at a time when it does become available. In the current environment and with the current flows and rainfall situation in the Murray-Darling Basin, most of that purchase is for paper, not for water. It is actually buying air in empty storages, air in lower level riparian systems, air that surrounds water that may have been there at some point when the allocation was made but is not there now. Therefore, you are purchasing the paper that gives a right to water if and when it becomes available. The government believes that bringing forward the funding in the bill will enable it to accelerate that purchase program and provide for new purchases and new initiatives this financial year. Additionally the government believes that with the additional appropriation vendors will receive timely settlement of their water trades under the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program. It is important that those water users who are making their entitlement, their right to extract when water is there, available for purchase by the government receive timely payment for it. Essentially, though, these bills tell the story of the Rudd government—that is, a government that is poorly managing its legislative timetable, hence this has been rushed in; poorly managing its program design and implementation, hence you see these enormous overruns; and poorly managing the task of connecting policy action with public policy purpose. Here is an example of where the purchase of air and paper masquerading as water purchases needs to be seen for what it is. The work ahead for the nation, for the agricultural sector and for state and territory jurisdictions on the more sustainable use of water in the Murray-Darling Basin will require more than the purchase of paper and of air. In relation to the insulation program, here we have seen a frenzied marketplace. I do not know how else you could describe it—a frenzied marketplace that has seen people leap at the opportunity to have up to $1,600 paid for insulating their homes and a lesser amount for investment properties or rental properties. I know personally people who have been in other career paths who have seen this as the modern-day equivalent of a gold rush. They have abandoned, let us say, a more modest ambition for income and personal economic security to rush headlong into the insulation business. A friend said, ‘A couple of years working on this and I will be able to pay off my mortgage.’ This is the gold rush but it is pink—pink batts. Much of this product has not been produced in Australia, and much of the work has been overpriced. Quotes for homes in my own electorate that were of $600-$700 prior to the announcement of this program have all of a sudden rocketed up to the maximum amount that can be claimed. There are tragic examples. We see, again, another report in today’s media about the loss of a young life—a life lost way too soon. A young man involved in this program lost his life in a tragic accident in Queensland. There are calls from unions to say this program has been so poorly implemented and administered that the adequate training that installers should have has not been available in all cases to try to guard against tragedies like the one we have seen reported today and earlier events. Much haste, not a lot of thought—many people seeing this as a gold rush of their own that they want a piece of. It is quite an extraordinary program in that I think everyone in this House accepts that home insulation is one of the most cost-effective things you can do to improve the environmental performance of your home—far more cost effective than other more substantial investments with longer payback periods, like the pathway my family has been on, putting in solar hot water and things of that kind. Rather than encourage people to consider the attractiveness of home insulation as a way of reducing energy costs and improving the environmental performance of a home, being one of the—sorry for the economic jargon—lowest of low-hanging fruits in that the gains are very easily within reach and the business case, the payback, is very attractive, the Rudd Labor government does not do the work to say, ‘What is the impediment to taking up this opportunity?’ It does not encourage or provide any incentive for people to consider their own self-interest and to act accordingly by having their homes insulated. It says: ‘Hang the cost. We have got the Commonwealth bankcard free of debt thanks to the Howard years. Rack it up on the bankcard!’ The Rudd government’s extraordinarily lazy, sloppy, careless, headline-hunting strategy of public policies will pay for the lot: ‘We will pay for the lot. We will make $1,600 available even if that is vastly more than what it costs to insulate a home. We will pay for the lot, even though a smaller incentive might bring about the greater public awareness and appetite for home insulation to achieve that goal where private householders will be playing a partnership role with a government incentive. No, no—don’t want to do any of that. Let’s pay for the lot and chuck it on the taxpayer’s visa card because the nation is in a position to do so. Don’t do the thoughtful thing about recognising that home insulation and the payback of your investment in home insulation is one of the smartest things you can do. No, no—don’t let that take its course. Pay for the lot.’ What hope have we got of getting households to do other things that might be slightly less attractive—still attractive but slightly less attractive in payback terms: about their glazing, about appliances and hot water systems, and about heating systems? What hope have we got when on one of the most attractive lowest hanging fruit, most cost-effective things a home owner can do, the taxpayer is paying for the lot? And in some cases they are paying twice the amount or even more that it actually costs to insulate them. What hope have we got encouraging families to think about energy efficiency in their lighting and electrical systems, even the use of natural light—thinking about more efficient refrigeration, the adoption of more efficient hot water appliances and hot water heating systems and solar hot water systems that may involve the private householder making a contribution themselves; the selection of appliances that have a stand-by function so that they are not sucking in more energy than they need when they are not actually being used; or even looking at some of the mechanical systems for heating and cooling in homes? What hope have we got? We have created this mindset in the Australian public, borne out of the most extraordinarily lazy, headline-hunting government we have seen. It is happy to put the whole price of home insulation on the Visa card of the nation. We are seeing now the need to update the funding that is available. We are seeing now the need to reallocate and add to stimulus expenditure. I touched on the fact that the taxpayer is paying way over the odds for work that was attractive in payback terms anyway. As has been acknowledged, even Australia’s biggest manufacturers of insulation batts are having to go offshore to meet up to 30 per cent of their total orders. It is a stimulus of some kind, but it is not a stimulus too close to home. You are seeing millions of dollars being spent on overseas-supplied home insulation batts at a price that is many times the actual cost. Now we are seeing more money being put into that program. The opposition have consistently warned the government about its impact on this sector. We warned it would induce an artificial level of demand—hysteria, a gold rush mentality—in the insulation sector, which the industry would not be able to respond to, and that supply would be far outstripped by demand. In spite of these warnings, the Rudd Labor government raced through its home insulation subsidy for homeowners with minimal industry consultation to address the issue of installation implementation safety. We have seen tragic examples. Again, my thoughts go to the family members of people who lost their lives as a result. It has forced Australian industries to buy more expensive overseas stock than they wanted and put an extraordinary price bubble into the cost of insulation. People in one of the retirement villages in my electorate—where people go peaceably about their retirement years—have been getting a knock on the door from people offering to insulate their houses. These might be five- or six-square—and in some cases smaller—retirement homes. They are being told: ‘It will cost you nothing. Just sign here.’ Sure enough, they are signing an application to the Commonwealth to get $1,600 to insulate their property. Many of them just a few months earlier had been told it might cost $400 to $500. As I mentioned earlier, the displacement effect in the economy has created an enormous turbocharge in the energy efficiency and sustainability area within the building sector. There has been a rush to that area because the taxpayer is footing the bill. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, has acknowledged that $1 billion worth of Australian stimulus money went overseas. That is like a rounding error to this crowd, but a thousand million dollars went overseas to China to buy Chinese pink batts via this insulation program—which we are now putting more money into. When asked about this, Mr Tanner, in his thoughtful response, simply shrugged off the criticism and said, ‘So what?’ There is a big ‘so what’ here. It is about poor government policy program design, poor preparation for the impact of this government intervention, very poor accommodation of industry capacity to support this activity, very poor implementation of the program—including in some cases tragic results—and a very unwelcome and artificial inflation in the cost of a home improvement activity. It has a very attractive payback period anyway because the government is footing the bill. You could call it the ‘so what bill’. ‘So what’ is the attitude of the Rudd Labor government when $1 billion of the stimulus money, designed to add some vitality to the Australian economy, simply goes on Chinese pink batts. The finance minister introduced these bills at the last possible minute. That underlies the legislative program, which is light anyway. The Rudd Labor government treats the parliament with contempt. It does not seek to be held accountable here. These days it uses it as a law-passing institution only. But even that is a challenge. These bills were introduced at the last minute—yesterday—and the government wants them passed today so they can be debated in the Senate next week, because the bills require immediate passage due to insufficient funding. In the lead-up to the MYEFO, the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, it should have let people know some action was required. It said so in that report. Yet here these bills are, having been dropped in the House yesterday. There has been a flurry of activity to try and accommodate the government’s mismanagement of the legislative program so the bills can get over to the Senate next week. Why? The government is running out of money. Funding for this Home Insulation Program is close to being exhausted. The 2009-10 appropriation will run out in late December, and that is why there is a need to provide for this debate in the parliament today. The opposition has been happy to accommodate and to help save the government from itself. Funding for the water buybacks from the Murray-Darling Basin are not sufficient to cover the cost of the trades that the government anticipates will be offered to it under the water purchase program for this financial year. It does not give you a lot of confidence. I can understand why people are anxious about the Rudd Labor government. I can see why they are troubled by the broken promises, the inability to take tough decisions and the fact that there is no clear forward agenda. We get these bitsy bits of government activity and flurries of media releases and the like. Then there is very poor execution of the projects. We see understandable concerns about wasted expenditure. I have pointed to the poor program design that has made what should have been a positive program far more expensive than it needed to be and has created problems of its own. This is in an area where a better-targeted incentive could well have brought about the outcome that people were seeking to achieve. This is a carefree attitude to spending. We have been brought back into this place to try and put more expenditure on the Rudd credit card. To reinforce the point about the very poor program design, when we look at issues around energy efficiency and insulation, what seems to be a very worrying lack of sincere commitment to sustainability and energy efficiency is evidenced by the government’s own behaviour. Look at promises made in the lead-up to the election about this house, the big house, the national Parliament House. Those commitments leading up to the election were very clear: Rudd Labor sought to convince people that it would lead by example and it would do so by powering Parliament House and all MPs’ electorate offices with renewable and clean energy. But Senate questioning has revealed that nothing of the kind has even occurred. The Rudd Labor government has buried its promise of a green powered Parliament House and opted for a 10 per cent green energy electricity contract to avoid significant budget costs, rather than honour its election commitment. How extraordinary. We saw the Prime Minister, the opposition leader as he then was, very pleased with himself going around saying that Rudd Labor would lead by example and making all these promises. Yet what we see is, again, promises that were short-sighted and confused, an inability to secure and implement any meaningful outcome from those headline commitments and another missed opportunity. So the big house, the Parliament House of Australia, supposedly powered by renewable and clean energy, is nothing of the kind. Another broken promise by the Labor government, and the justification for that was one of cost. So here we have the Rudd Labor government making this commitment to the Australian public that the big house, the Parliament House, would be run on renewable and clean energy, and telling the Australian public through its flawed and friendless Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, so-called, that everyone else can accommodate the cost of cleaner energy through its lack of willingness to embrace the opposition’s very important benchmarking measure for the treatment of the energy sector where cleaner energy systems will actually be rewarded with carrots and those that are less clean will be punished. The Labor government is just too full of its own rhetoric to even understand its design punishes every kind of electricity generation. Even those that have modest greenhouse gas emissions will be punished under Labor’s CPRS. Those that are less clean will be punished more, but every energy generator that has any emissions at all will be punished. So if the Rudd Labor government says it will make the parliament of Australia a clean and green energy powered house and then walks away from it because it is too expensive and goes for a proposition that is a poopteenth, a very small percentage, of their undertakings on the basis of cost and then comes in here with a poorly designed emissions trading scheme that will impose incredible cost increases on everyone else’s electricity and says that is okay—there, writ large, is the hypocrisy of this government. It will not walk its own talk. It will not act in the way it is demanding other people act. Yet it goes out there expecting the Australian public to think it is for real on issues to do with sustainability, climate, energy efficiency and a better management of our economy. I think it is writ large that the government is short-sighted and does not believe its own spin now. No-one else believes its spin in the Australian community. Now you are seeing the Rudd Labor government not believing its own spin because it is not even acting on it either. When there is an opportunity to improve the sustainability of the built environment, Australia’s existing building stock is very important. Minister Garrett made what was actually a cover version of an earlier announcement last week in Melbourne at the Energy Efficiency Council where he re-announced something that has been announced and announced, over and over again. He re-announced it again in a set-piece speech about what should be demanded of new commercial buildings, ignoring the fact that, at best, about two per cent of the commercial building stock is turned over each year and 98 per cent is not. So what do you do about the 98 per cent of the commercial building stock and its environmental performance? Under the Rudd Labor government some will get given money, a handout through a program in the Industry portfolio. Nobody knows how you get to succeed in that grant program and how you do not. The very clear fact is that the few projects that will be funded through that Greening Your Building program in the Industry portfolio will be held up as if this is happening right across the commercial building sector, when we know that is not the case. They will have a few totemic cases that they will put into their ads, that they will use in the prefabricated speeches that now masquerade as answers in question time. They will say: ‘Look at this building—it’s doing this. They’ve got tri-gen, they’ve double-glazed it, the lift systems have been changed and they’ve got escalators that turn off when nobody is using it. Isn’t this great!’ as if that is happening everywhere, when it is not. There will be a few spotty examples to be held up as totemic evidence that something is happening. But 98 per cent of the building stock is not changed each year, and the vast majority of commercial building owners and operators will not benefit from the largesse of the government’s grants program. So what are you do? What you do is embrace what the opposition has been arguing for: green depreciation. You accelerate the depreciation, the writing off, of expenditure on investment in new plant and equipment, fixtures and fittings that actually improve the environmental performance of a building. You say to the building industry, ‘Here is encouragement for you to turn your mind to these opportunities, a number of which are quite attractive and have reasonable payback periods anyway, and we will accelerate and enhance that attractiveness so that you act now.’ Then you will get activity right across the sector, not this spotty stuff that you are seeing from the Rudd Labor government. I say ‘spotty’ and I say that it is a government that does not walk the talk because we only need to look at its own activities. We have heard about the Building the Education Revolution. Prime Minister Rudd on 23 June went out to Trinity Christian School in Canberra, a set-piece opportunity where there was all the gee-whizzing that you could possibly have in relation to a project being undertaken under the Building the Education Revolution, so-called, program. But what he revealed in a set-piece speech is just how slack and appalling the Rudd Labor government is on implementing its own talk. Here we have got a bill to supplement the funding for the insulation in homes program that is out of control. It is the gold rush of this century as people flocked to that industry sector knowing that, even if it only costs 300 bucks to insulate a home you can get 1,600 off the Rudd Labor government, such is their ‘Ruddomics’. But then we look at the Building the Education Revolution program and we learn nearly one in 10 of projects approved under the first round of that program do not even have building insulation. Isn’t that extraordinary? These are new buildings, supposedly for the 21st century, and one in 10 do not have insulation. But it gets worse. One in five do not even use energy-efficient lighting, so committed is Rudd Labor to improving the sustainability and environmental performance of the built environment. Less than half have energy-efficient glazing. Less than a quarter have solar panels. A third do not even think about using shading. These are new buildings being funded by the taxpayer that do not even have basic attributes that the building industry says should be a part of every new building and that common sense says if you are going to build something new, build it to contemporary standards. So important is insulation that one in 10 do not even have any insulation! Yet we are here debating a bill that is providing hundreds of millions of dollars so that other people can be putting insulation in their places, and the Rudd Labor government does not even walk its own talk. There is more evidence of it. The Green Loans farce—what a fiasco that is. Just in recent days the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, finally responded to my question on notice. He admitted that of 18 August not one cent had been provided to households to undertake water and energy efficiency improvements in Australian homes, even though they were promised that would be what they would get help with in the lead-up to the last election. Despite reannouncement upon reannouncement and assurances from the Prime Minister as late as June in 2008 that the Green Loans Program would provide relief to Australian families under financial strain from rising energy costs—hello!—nothing has happened. This troubled and confused, unwanted, flawed and friendless program has not even got to first base. By 18 August, not one cent had been provided. Let us look at some of the statements in Labor’s election policy on 30 October 2007. It said Labor’s solar green energy and water renovation plans will: Offer low interest Green Loans of up to $10,000 to make 200,000 existing homes more energy and water efficient, with subsidised environmental audits and free Green Renovations packs. On 13 May 2008 Minister Garrett, in his own press release, said—it sounds similar and I am sorry it is a cover version—that: Up to 200,000 working families will be eligible for Green Loans over five years to improve the energy and water efficiency of their homes, as part of the 2008-09 Budget. We are now talking about the 2009-10 budget. He went on to say on 8 May 2009: Environment Minister Peter Garrett said Australian homeowners will be able to make their homes more energy and water efficient with 1000 home sustainability assessors ready to begin work and credit providers signed up to commence the rollout of Green Loans Program from July 1 That was 1 July. There is still nothing happening. And then you see in a prime ministerial statement on 5 June 2008: Rising energy and petrol prices are already hurting Australian families and Australian businesses. That is why we are: helping Australian families take practical action … The bottom line is that not a dime had been provided by 18 August. This is more evidence that programs that need care and attention, careful consideration of their design and their impact on the economy, on Australians and on the debt position and deficit of this budget do not get the attention they deserve. More effort is put into press releases and headline hunting than development and design. (Time expired) 12211 10:10:00 Bradbury, David, MP HVW Lindsay ALP 1 0 Mr BRADBURY —I rise in support of the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010. I think the contribution from the member for Dunkley in so many ways represents the somewhat ‘schizophrenic’ approach of the opposition when it comes to the stimulus package and in particular the measures we are looking at under this appropriations bill. When it comes to the insulation component of the stimulus measures, we see the member for Dunkley getting hot and getting cold. He supports it but then he does not support it. It is low-hanging fruit but low-hanging fruit that someone else needs to pick. When we look at this program, it is true to suggest that the take-up rate has far exceeded what the government had estimated. But that is not a bad thing; that is a good thing. That is a profoundly good thing. It is a good thing because it means that more and more households across this country are taking up the opportunity that this program presents, and that is an opportunity to ensure that their home is installed with insulation to derive the benefits that come from that in lower cooling and heating costs. It is estimated that by installing insulation in your home you can reduce those heating and cooling costs by 40 per cent. That is a significant cut in energy costs for households. I know that many households in my electorate are taking advantage of this opportunity because they recognise the need for us to be taking action on climate change at the local level—indeed at the household level—but they also recognise the upfront costs of being able to invest in the measures that will reduce their emissions and, indeed, the costs associated with the energy of running their household. I do not see it as being a problem, but there was one aspect of the program that the member for Dunkley failed to address at all and that was the issue of jobs. We heard the Leader of the Opposition say not all that long ago—a lot of water has passed under the bridge in that time—that this was about jobs, jobs, jobs. You do not hear a lot of talk from the opposition about jobs any more. But let us talk about jobs when it comes to this program, the Home Insulation program. When it comes to this program, it is estimated that some 4,000 jobs are going to be created. These are jobs that span across the manufacturing of the batts, the installation of the insulation and, indeed, also all of the associated logistics that are required in order to fund and support this industry. The member for Dunkley spoke about the modern-day gold rush. I think he is getting a little bit carried away. If there is a modern-day gold rush, I would think that description is more appropriately labelled towards the need for labour to be shifting towards the resources sector in this country. We have seen that, and I do not think that in itself is something that we should be critical of, but in suggesting that there is a modern-day gold rush the first point to make is that I would rather be talking about gold rushes than great depressions and that is where we were six months ago, as indeed all countries in the world were. The second point I would make is that right throughout the country, but in particular in my region in Western Sydney, I am seeing many people who were not able to keep on making a decent living in their own trades turn their hand to trying to support this emerging industry, this industry the government has invested in. You see it very often. You just have to drive along the M4 out in Western Sydney or the Great Western Highway, anywhere, and you see ute after ute with pink batts stacked on the back. One of the things that I notice as I drive through my community is that sometimes the ute is one that has just been leased and you can tell that this is someone who has moved into the industry in more recent times. Sometimes you see that the signage on the ute actually reflects that the tradesperson now installing the insulation was previously a tradesperson in some other sector. That is not a bad thing at all. The member for Dunkley suggests that somehow we should be disturbed by this. The disturbing thing from my perspective is this: had the government not acted with programs like the household insulation program then those people driving those utes who were in other trades where they were noticing the effects of the downturn and were struggling to get the business that they needed in order to pay their household expenses and meet the demands of raising families in communities like mine would not have had the financial capacity to continue to support their businesses and their families. This program is delivering that financial support to people such as those that I see driving around in the utes, that support for their jobs that is necessary in order for them to continue to make a decent living. So, far from being disturbed about this like the member for Dunkley, I see it as being a very positive thing. I turn my attention to some of the detail of the bills, but in particular I want to address the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill. This bill provides urgent funding to cover, firstly, the rebate payments made under the government’s successful Home Insulation Program but, secondly, to cover the increased departmental costs associated with the acceleration of the water buyback scheme within the Murray-Darling Basin system. I want to make a few specific points on the Home Insulation Program. The Midyear Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2009-10, MYEFO, included the bringing forward of some $985.8 million to ensure that the very successful Home Insulation Program could continue and would have sufficient funds to continue to keep up with demand. Of that $985.8 million, this bill urgently brings forward $695.8 million. The remaining $290 million will be included in the 2009-10 additional appropriation bill. It is important that these measures pass now, and the member for Dunkley alluded to the urgency of this. And it is important to have a look at the take-up rates and the practical difficulties associated with ensuring that the money is available in a timely fashion. The first point that should be made is that the program has experienced unprecedented demand. In my view, that is unprecedented success. The member for Dunkley’s view is that that is somehow a measure of failure, but in my view this is a measure of success. We have already seen half a million homes insulated under this program, so 500,000 homes insulated in a very short space of time. Think of the energy cost savings for the households that are benefiting from this particular measure. I would make as an aside a point that I think is not often made. I notice in my community that often people who have older houses who do not have the financial capacity to buy into the new housing estates are the ones who benefit most from these proposals. Proposals like this are not necessarily assisting those who have moved into the brand-new home—that already has insulation. They are very much targeted towards people looking to retrofit existing dwellings. I have to say that by and large in my community the benefit of this program has been delivered to those that we would deem to be more in need from a financial perspective. I think that is a point worth making. To return to the take-up rates, the original take-up rate was estimated to be approximately 90,000 households per month. What we have seen since the implementation of this program is that the rate of households under the program has now reached 135,000 houses per month having insulation installed. So from 90,000 up to 135,000 per month—once again, a measure of the success of the program. Based on the current take-up rate, the 2009-10 appropriation will be exhausted by late December. That is why we are debating this bill as a matter of urgency. It is not because of some bungling, as the member for Dunkley would suggest. It is about ensuring that sufficient funds are brought forward, funds that are already budgeted for, to make sure that a very successful government program can continue, to ensure that funds are available to allow that program to continue. Normally additional funding of this type would be dealt with through the additional estimates process, but to do so would not allow those funds to be made available before April next year. So it is imperative that we deal with this as a matter of urgency, and that is why the government has brought this forward in the fashion in which it has been brought forward. I would like to make some more general points in terms of the success of the stimulus measures. Apart from the success in this particular case, the Home Insulation Program, I know that right throughout my community many households and many individuals are telling me that they have personally benefited from the stimulus measures. Many of them are telling me that they would not have been able to sustain the levels of income that they currently have, would not have secured the work orders that they currently have or maintain the client base and they currently have, had it not been for the stimulus measures. Recently, I was very pleased to see some real life examples of this when I visited a local tradesman, Mr David Barry. David runs his own business, DB Carpentry, and is based in Emu Plains in my electorate—currently the business has four carpenters and two apprentices. I visited David Barry with the Parliamentary Secretary for Employment and we had a good chat out on site with Mr Barry, who was a living, breathing, walking, talking advertisement for the stimulus. It started with the cash payments. He recited specific orders that he had taken, at a time when business was starting to slow down quite markedly, and specific examples of individuals and households that had sought his services as a carpenter using the cash payments that had been made available to them. He said that often these were the small jobs, but they were jobs that corresponded with the amount of money that had been made available through the cash payments. He said that at the time he did not make the connection but, now that he has been asked about, it he recalled quite clearly that there was a pickup in a number of those small jobs from households who had received a cash payment under the stimulus measures and were looking for a way in which they could spend that money and support local jobs. That was the first example. Mr Barry also told me about how, as a subcontractor, he was involved in a number of the local community infrastructure programs that were funded by the Commonwealth government to Penrith City Council under the stimulus measures. Indeed, as we had a good chat about his involvement in the community infrastructure program, I became aware that Mr Barry and his business had been involved in undertaking some of the works that led to the improvements at the Penrith Quarterdeck function centre, which is based at the Penrith Swimming Centre. I am very familiar with this project because I was recently at the opening. In my view, this is one the great examples—a localised example but one of the great examples—of what the stimulus has been delivering. If you listen to the opposition, who chose not to vote for the stimulus, the stimulus is something of a two-headed monster. But out there in communities such as mine, far from being a two-headed monster the stimulus is delivering real improvements to local communities and supporting jobs and local economic activity at the same time. Let us have a look at the example of the Quarterdeck function centre. A number of improvements were secured as a result of the $150,000 that was allocated by Penrith City Council—money received from the Commonwealth government. I take the opportunity to acknowledge the Mayor, Councillor Kevin Crameri, who officiated at the opening, and his councillor colleagues. The council showed leadership in spending the funds in this way. The $150,000 was allocated to improvements that included providing disabled access and improving amenities as well as to a general refurbishment and some shade structure provision. The significance of this was not lost on the people who were there at the opening, one of whom was Sherrille Stephens. Sherrille Stephens is a local disability advocate in our community. She is wheelchair bound—she has her own disabilities to deal with—but she is a great advocate for people with disabilities. She is a great Australian in my view. Sherrille Stephens told me the story of how two years earlier she had attended an annual general meeting that was held at the Quarterdeck, the facility that has now been improved and includes disability access as a result of the stimulus. Mrs Stevens told me that two years ago she could not access the venue in her wheelchair. A group of about five people had to lift her up to try to get her to the top of the stairs so that she could get into the venue for this annual general meeting. She raised the issue, as the advocate that she is, with Penrith City Council. They acknowledged it to be an issue but could not fund it out of their existing provisions. They put it on the list of priority works to be undertaken but they could not fund it because they did not have the money. As soon as the stimulus payments came in, in the form of the community infrastructure program, the council, wisely in my view, used those funds to deliver improvements to disability access. And there on the day of the opening was Sherrille Stephens, someone who had virtually been denied access to this facility two years earlier, recognising the work that had been undertaken by so many to deliver improvements in access to this facility. That is what the programs have achieved on a human level and at the community level. I return to Mr Barry who as a carpenter was involved in some of the works. That is but one of the projects under the community infrastructure program that he and his business have benefited from. Other measures that Mr Barry and his business have benefited from include the government’s investment in educational improvements to Nepean Community College—he has undertaken some of the work at that facility. He has also undertaken some work in our local schools as part of the Building the Education Revolution. He told me that he has taken advantage of the small business investment allowance. He bought a new vehicle, some new plant and some equipment because the investment allowance provided him with an opportunity to invest in the future of his business and receive some upfront tax relief in doing so. He also drew to my attention that he is intending to take advantage of the Apprentice Kickstart initiative, which the government has recently announced. Here we see at the micro level, in one business in one community, the impact that the stimulus is having. It is having an impact not just in supporting jobs and cushioning the Australian economy from the impact of the world recession but in delivering community facilities; delivering infrastructure that our country needs today and will continue to need tomorrow. That is why it is so critical that we maintain the measures that have been announced. The measures set out in the other bill which is being debated today, theAppropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010, will enable $650 million for water buybacks to be brought forward from later years under Water for the Future. As with the earlier bill, these measures are urgent because of the time considerations. The minister has brought these matters before the parliament in a very timely fashion, given when MYEFO was announced. These measures are now before the House. Hopefully, if I am interpreting the member for Dunkley’s comments correctly, this will receive the support of the opposition and make passage through this House and the Senate in a timely fashion to deliver the funds needed to continue these programs. I support the bills. 12215 10:30:00 Briggs, Jamie, MP IYU Mayo LP 0 0 Mr BRIGGS —It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 and follow the member for Lindsay, who I do acknowledge is one of the more thoughtful members on the other side. It is pleasing to see the member for Lindsay speaking from some notes but without a written speech, which is an unusual event for those on the other side, and I congratulate him for doing so. He did a reasonable job in defending what is very difficult legislation to defend. The member for Lindsay is right: the opposition will support these bills, as has been the history in this place of supporting appropriation bills, except for some time ago when a famous one was not supported. I thought the speech of the shadow minister, the member for Dunkley, was a cracker in the sense that it very much highlighted the problem with this government that it does not think through the consequences of its policies; it does not think through the policies it is implementing. We have seen this across a wide variety of issues, such as the home insulation of pink batts from China policy; the water policy, which is particularly pertinent to my electorate and is a very important issue in my part of the world; and the disaster which is the Julia Gillard memorial halls project, the $17 billion that has been thrown out of the window at a rate of knots. We saw another good example last week on the front page of the— HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr Perrett —How are those school openings going, Jamie? IYU Briggs, Jamie, MP Mr BRIGGS —It is interesting you mention school openings. I will briefly touch on that. At the Meadows Primary School, for instance, the school is now having to knock down a building, move another and close down a playground because the government will not build on the land next door. The state governments in South Australia and also Queensland, the state of the member for Moreton, are simply incompetent. We are seeing policies which are not well thought through and we are having to clean up the mess, like we are today, by rushing through appropriation bills. This is an unusual event, as is the tradition in this place, but we will support the bill so that the programs are funded. I will touch briefly on the Home Insulation Program, the pink batts program, which is the first part of the bill. There are two aspects to this. There is the macro policy level, which we have seen the member for Lindsay defend on the basis that it has created thousands of jobs—I think that was the suggestion— 1K6 Billson, Bruce, MP Mr Billson —There are more utes! IYU Briggs, Jamie, MP Mr BRIGGS —That is right. It has created a lot more utes, but we will not get into utes again in this place. 8T4 Ferguson, Laurie, MP Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting— IYU Briggs, Jamie, MP Mr BRIGGS —I will take the opportunity to also congratulate the minister at the table, the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services. I was on your side. You heard during question time that I was making my support known for you very clear, Minister. I congratulate you and I am very pleased to see you will be here for some time yet. The member for Lindsay was talking about the pink batts policy— HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr Perrett interjecting— IYU Briggs, Jamie, MP Mr BRIGGS —That is right, it is probably good to read your speech. The pink batts policy was about jobs and about getting insulation into Australian homes. We know this program was suggested to the previous governments as part of the wish list in the ERC process. The former Treasurer was never particularly keen on it, for very good reasons, because it does create a false market in a sense. It has bumped up the price. We have seen example after example. The most famous, of course, is in the electorate of Griffith, which is the Prime Minister’s electorate. It has bumped up the price significantly and therefore the money is not effectively or well spent. Thus, we are seeing again not well thought through policies which are impacting enormously on today’s economy. They will also impact on the economy and budget situation in the future, with a massive debt that our children and future generations will have to pick up, because of these badly thought through decisions. So this is not working at the macro level, but it is also not working at the micro level. I have a great example in my electorate of that. I wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. He is not responsible for climate change, which we should make very clear in this place. Don Purvis lives at Woodside Lodge in a beautiful part of my electorate. He lives in a retirement village type situation and the whole village applied for the rebate for solar panels. He signed in the wrong spot. He signed in the installer’s section rather than the recipient’s section. The rest of them signed in the right spot. He has been denied the funding. So I have written to the minister. Presumably, the minister will overrule that decision, because it does highlight the bureaucratic nature of this. They are not thinking through the policy implications of their decision. I think it is an example, which is very similar to this case, of where the policy was rushed out the door, not well thought through. We are seeing the results by having to debate these bills today. I thought the shadow minister addressed the pink batts policy quite well. He made some comments about water. It is the biggest issue in my electorate. It is the biggest issue in South Australia and I think it will be a major election issue come March next year and, potentially, an election loser for the Rann government. People will send them a message about how they have handled this issue over the last eight years. In South Australia today we still have a real and genuine problem with water security because the government has not invested in it over a long period of time. In relation to the Murray-Darling Basin, we have seen just a complete hotchpotch of an approach from the Rann government and we are seeing, unfortunately, from the Rudd government a similar policy approach. Members would remember that on Australia Day in 2007 the then Prime Minister and the then minister for the environment made a historic announcement about a $10 billion water plan to address the problems which face the Murray-Darling Basin. It was a visionary plan and it was the right plan. It focused on two very particular policy initiatives. The first one was the buyback of over allocated water licences throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly those in eastern states. Importantly—and I emphasise this point—it focused on getting water back into the system through the smart use of infrastructure investments in the Murray-Darling Basin. South Australia in the early 1990s went through a lot of this process, particularly in the Riverland, by investing in pipes, getting rid of open channels and lining dams et cetera. These actions save real and genuine water which can be used for environmental flows and by irrigators. Unfortunately, other states have not invested. So in January 2007the Howard government, as part of the Water for the Future plan, as part of the Howard-Turnbull plan, allocated large amounts of money to address water infrastructure issues. Unfortunately when the Rudd government came in in 2007 they were ably assisted by the Bracks-Brumby government in stopping a national system from being formed. That was a major part of it and an absolute goal that needed to be fixed. I am very pleased that my leader, the Leader of the Opposition, when elected as Prime Minister is committed to finishing the job he started in January 2007 so that we have a truly national system, not the half-baked solution we have today. Importantly, what we really need is the upping of the ante on investment in the infrastructure. Minister Wong is not really focused on water; she is focused on the ETS issues. Given the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin to South Australia and to my electorate, I think it is a disgrace that the minister has let water go by the wayside. The member for Moreton, being from Queensland, probably does not realise that I have half the Lower Lakes in my electorate. Patrick Secker, the member for Barker, has the other major part—Lake Albert and the Coorong. Those lakes are in dire need of a drink. Unless we take immediate action to address the Lower Lakes, we will lose that environmentally historic site to action which I do not support—flooding them with saltwater. One of the things that can be done is genuine and fast spending on infrastructure to prevent loss of water through open channels and to deepen the Menindee Lakes. I understand that the engineering work that has been done will save approximately 200 gigalitres of water a year. It would be just fantastic to get that water back through the system to help irrigators in the Riverland and the southern half of the basin and also to get some environmental flows into the Lower Lakes through the Gawler channel and down the Coorong to really give that system a boost and save it from the terminal decline that it is in at the moment. We have seen from this minister an approach of just buybacks. She is purely focused on buybacks and, again, this is what this bill addresses today—bringing forward some of the allocated money from the original Turnbull plan for the buybacks. Buybacks are part of the answer—buybacks with regional plans to help those workers in the affected towns to manage the changes. Labor is simply forgetting workers in those towns. When they buy back the water they are not assisting these people find new industries and adjust to the situation. It is okay for manufacturing businesses in large cities. They get assistance packages and dedicated government resources, but if it happens in rural communities in New South Wales, there is nothing. They just come in, buy the water and walk away. Of course there need to be buybacks. I support the buyback program. Some on this side of the House are not as supportive about it, and I understand their reasons for that. I do support the buyback program, but with focused support. More important is investment in the infrastructure which can save real water today without destroying jobs. It can mean that we can continue to grow our own food in this country, which of course is the major issue that we face. I am thankful for the work Senator Heffernan has done which focused on the food security issue in particular and raising Australians’ awareness of the challenges facing Australia and the world in growing enough food to sustain our way of life. We need to do more on infrastructure investment. I plead with this government to focus on investing in this infrastructure and spending some dedicated money—and not just on another study. I understand that the Menindee Lakes project up to about its third study. It is quite insane. They should be getting on with this today. We get a bill rushed through to do the easy bit. The buyback is simply the easy bit. It is buying back licences. Much of the water is not being returned to the river system right now because it is not there. But there is the water there for the infrastructure investment. There would be savings with the infrastructure investment, but it takes a bit more dedication and a bit more work. I suspect it is an ideologically different approach from what this minister wants to do. I do not think that she has a lot of respect for the rural communities and what they deliver for our country. In that respect she is focused on the buyback. She thinks it is the easy answer—that is her approach on this issue. We see that through this bill. It is not well thought through. Again, it is a consistent problem with this government. They are not thinking things through before they implement their policy. They do not see the consequences of their policy. We on this side of the House stand up for regional communities. We stand up for the communities that need their water and their local jobs and we see the effects of the water crisis day after day. We want to see some real action on this issue—not just rhetoric, not just a focus on the water buybacks, which we have seen. In the first two years of this government we have seen that buybacks buy a lot of air and not much real water, because the water is not in the system. The water is there with infrastructure investments. So rather than debating today another $650 million for the buybacks, which are of course part of the answer, we should be debating how the infrastructure can assist to get real water back into the system. 1K6 Billson, Bruce, MP Mr Billson —Instead of using taxpayers’ money in private roofs! IYU Briggs, Jamie, MP Mr BRIGGS —That is right; it is not well thought through. I will make some comments in respect of the other issue troubling South Australia, that being water security. This government has spent so much money over its first two years. It borrowed money to hand out $900 cheques. We saw last week that even its advertising about the borrowed money for the handouts misinformed people as well, so that is another issue about the approach of this government. It borrowed $23 billion to hand out. Imagine what we could have done for the water security challenges this country has by investing that money, rather than just handing it out to the punters. We could have seen a real investment in water security, as we have done in Adelaide, in South Australia, throughout regional New South Wales and Victoria and so forth. Instead we have seen that money disposed of up a wall, so to speak! Again, it is a badly thought through decision that will be costly for us in the future. It will cost Australian taxpayers when we start paying higher taxes; we are seeing interest rate increases already. It was a such a missed opportunity. It is such a pity that we are now lumbered with this huge debt with nothing to really show for it. In conclusion, and as I said at the start, we support the passage of these appropriation bills. We are disappointed that the government have to rush through bills. They are not thinking through these policies, they are not thinking through the consequences, and it is high time they started to do so. 12219 10:46:00 Perrett, Graham, MP HVP Moreton ALP 1 0 Mr PERRETT —I am pleased to speak in support of the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. Before I go to the heart of the legislation before the House, I want to address some of the remarks made by the member for Dunkley and the member for Mayo in their contributions. It is good to see that they are supportive of this legislation and that they are not revisiting past opposition performances like those from the mid-seventies! I am comforted by that. However, I did want to address the member for Dunkley’s comments. He seemed to focus on Parliament House like a bogong moth, on some of the things that were not happening in Parliament House. I have only been here two years, so I do not have the knowledge of the place that he does, but I thought that Parliament House was run by the parliament. So it is actually run by the member for Dunkley, not by the Rudd government—unless you are looking at changing those things! This building celebrated its 20th birthday last year. It was designed in the seventies and built in the eighties, and, as seventies buildings go, it is actually an incredibly energy efficient building. It helps when you put a building inside a hill; it makes for a lot of energy efficiencies. Obviously, some of the technology from the seventies and eighties has changed, and a lot has been done over the years. After the member for Dunkley made his comments, I had a look at the Department of Parliamentary Services’ energy and greenhouse gas emissions webpage, which is publicly available. It shows that, despite having more sitting hours this year, greenhouse gas emissions have actually gone down. 1K6 Billson, Bruce, MP Mr Billson —It’s not bad for a— HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr PERRETT —It is not bad. They have purchased 25 per cent green electricity. So there are a few things that can be done. I just wanted to make sure the member for Dunkley was aware of that before he starts purchasing pink batts to put on the lawn to protect the building. It might spoil the aesthetics of it a little bit! The member for Mayo also made some interesting comments about insulation. He seemed surprised that we had rushed out this insulation program and seemed to forget something called the global financial crisis—that little thing that those opposite tend to forget about, that little dip in the world’s GDP growth that occurred, the most significant economic downturn in the last 75 years. That is why we have these programs. That is why we were able to combine looking after jobs with looking after the long-term future of the planet by bringing insulation into our homes—bringing it together. The member for Mayo did not want to talk about insulation; he was happy to talk about water. There is such irony in someone talking about insulation briefly and then going on to talk about water and glossing over the fact that John Howard, the former Prime Minister, rushed in this $10 billion water plan that he had not even taken the time to take to Treasury for them to consider. The member for Mayo said, ‘No, that was okay,’ for the $10 billion but something done during a global financial crisis is ‘rushed’. Of course it was rushed. It had to be rushed because we wanted to protect jobs. Also, as a member for South Australia he did not see that connection between water and climate change. He just totally ignored that. He went on and on about Minister Wong’s focus on climate change—and a little thing called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that we are trying to get through the Senate!—as if it was a bad thing and we should be focusing on water. He did not get the fundamental science right. I think the member for Mayo is an intelligent guy. He is well read. He has got a vision for the future. I would hope that he is not one of the coalition gang of 10 that do not believe in climate change. But obviously water and climate change are interconnected. The Goyder line in South Australia is heading south, and we need to do whatever we can to ensure that we prepare farmers, communities and Australia for climate change. The bills before the House direct urgent funds to meet the demand for two of the Rudd government’s very timely and very popular stimulus measures. It is interesting that, when you have a program that involves ordinary Australian households in a practical response to climate change, they put their hands up in record numbers. Hundreds of thousands of them put their hands up to be a part of it. The industry is cooking, with more than 135,000 homes insulated every month—far exceeding expectations. The initial forecast was for up to 90,000 homes to be insulated per month, but we have gone far beyond that. In my electorate of Moreton we had already received more than 3,000 home insulation applications as at September. That is 3,000 homes. If you have, say, at least three people per house, that is 10,000 people who are more comfortable in summer and 10,000 people who will be less cold in winter. We actually do have winters in Queensland! There will be fewer kilowatt hours of electricity, which obviously contributes to dangerous climate change, and savings of up to 40 per cent for households that have insulation put in. The constituents continue to contact me to let me know just how much they appreciate this funding. In fact, in Brisbane a few years ago we had a real problem with water supply. Dams were down to nearly 16 per cent, so a lot of people who wanted to maintain their gardens went about installing rainwater tanks that had drifted out of favour in the seventies due to a council bylaw. A lot of people now, if they have gardens, often have a sign out the front saying ‘rainwater tank in use’ or ‘rainwater in use’. I have got one out the front of my place. Maybe it would be appropriate for us to fund a similar sign for people who have batts in their house, such as ‘I am not a sceptic’ or ‘No dinosaurs live here’ or something like that. We should perhaps fund some of those alternative signs to show that people are forward thinking. The insulation factories in Brisbane are running 24/7 because installing insulation has been so popular. However, obviously there are employers and employees who have been supported by this program—and we heard from the member for Lindsay who talked about the utes and trucks that he sees everywhere. I see a similar thing when I go for a walk every morning in Salisbury and Moorooka; I see trucks going from the couple of factories near there loaded up with batts as well, off to do good work and save the planet. It is also interesting that when you provide funding to help restore one of the nation’s great waterways the nation’s farmers are also happy to get on board. In fact, the program has already secured more than 600 gigalitres of water entitlements. That is 600,000 million litres, or about 1.6 million swimming pools. So, sensible Australian households want to be part of the national solution to climate change. Sensible Australian farmers want to be part of the national solution to climate change. But—and it is a big but—the opposition do not want to be part of the solution. Unfortunately they—or some of them; not all of them—are not particularly sensible. The home insulation program is helping to keep thousands of Australians employed. It is also helping thousands of Australian households to play a part in our collective efforts to combat dangerous climate change. The opposition are opposed to these schemes. They vote against them in the parliament and they continue to voice their opposition, leaving them at odds with most Australians. It is strange to see that disconnection between people like the National Party and the farmers whom they normally represent. These bills will bring forward an additional $700 million for the household insulation program and an additional $330 million for the Water for the Future: Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program. These additional funds will help meet demand up until the end of April next year, when further funding will be available through estimates appropriations bills. Tenders for water entitlement purchases are proposed in the lower connected Murray system and in the lower Condamine and Balonne region in Queensland. I know this section of our waterways very well. I grew up in St George, so I spent my childhood swimming in the Balonne River, where most people went to cool down in summer. It was a very important part of the town for providing irrigation for the cotton farms and now for rockmelons and table grapes and a few things like that. In fact—and I am sure the parliamentary secretary will be happy to hear this—in my novel, The Twelfth Fish, the river is actually called the Jude River, but it is really— 1K6 Billson, Bruce, MP Mr Billson —Where can you get it from? HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr PERRETT —Not many places! It is still on sale at the parliamentary bookstore, member for Dunkley. I am happy to sign a copy for you. In my fictional book I call the river the Jude River. As all good Catholics would know, St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. However, when it comes to looking after the Murray-Darling system, the Rudd government does not see this as a lost cause. We actually have faith in the fact that we can restore flows to the Murray, that we can restore as much water as possible so that hopefully the member for Mayo will see water flowing back down into South Australia. These bills will ensure that the government can continue to accelerate environmental water purchasing. As we reflect on the success of these two schemes—both important planks of the Rudd government’s stimulus package and response to dangerous climate change—it is important for the parliament to recognise just how important our response to the global financial crisis is. The unemployment rate has crept up to just 5.8 per cent, nowhere near what was initially forecast and lower than in every other major advanced economy. Unemployment is 10.2 per cent in the United States of America, 8.6 per cent in Canada and 7.8 per cent in the United Kingdom. They are easy figures to roll off the tongue but we well know the misery that comes with those sorts of figures—the misery and heartache and life-changing circumstances that come with unemployment. The Australian economy is now expected to grow by 1½ per cent in 2009-10 and 2¾ per cent in 2010-11. Not only that, but a recent IMF report showed that Australia’s debt and deficit are among the lowest in the world. This is not a fact touched on by those opposite in their fear and smear campaign. Without the Rudd government’s decisive response to the global financial crisis—injecting fiscal stimulus—combined with the Reserve Bank’s monetary stimulus, we would not be in a position to quote such encouraging figures today. Surely the dole-queue schadenfreude of those opposite would dry up if we were approaching unemployment levels of 10.2 per cent like the United States. As I have said previously, caring is doing. If you do not do, then you do not care. Those opposite seem to have an absence of caring. I turn again to water. I note that the member opposite responsible for negotiating on behalf of the coalition is the member for Groom, Mr Macfarlane, who lives on the edge of the Great Dividing Range in Toowoomba—I think his home is right on the edge of the Great Dividing Range. That is where the Murray-Darling system basically starts. Water just to the east of Toowoomba flows down into Brisbane, and water to the west flows all the way down to South Australia. If you go further along that river you get to the Balonne and Condamine rivers and we find Senator Joyce, whose office is right on the banks of the Balonne River in St George—one of the few National Party senators who actually has an office in the country. I think he might be the only one who has an office in the country. Every other National Party senator seems to be glued to the city. Senator Joyce—I will give him his due—has his office on the banks of the Balonne River. However, he has a slightly different approach to climate change from the member for Groom, Mr Macfarlane. Senator Joyce’s approach to climate change has all the science of alchemy, or phrenology or something like that. He can throw lots of figures around but they do not actually have any scientific basis. We go further and further down the river, away from Senator Joyce’s destructive populism towards one of the senators for South Australia, Senator Minchin. The water flow takes a long journey through the waterholes, dams, weirs, irrigation pipes et cetera all the way down to South Australia. By the time it gets there, it has all but dried up. This is where the Murray River is not even able to make its way out to the sea—and this is were we find people like Senator Minchin, whose belief in science and climate change has dried up as well. This is a dangerous situation. 12222 11:00:00 Coulton, Mark, MP HWN Parkes NATS 0 0 Mr COULTON —I acknowledge the contribution made by the member for Moreton to this debate. I find it somewhat incredible that, with schemes that are supposedly as popular as these are, and with the need for extra appropriations, the government has only two speakers on this legislation. I suppose it is because of the member for Moreton’s good country upbringing in St George that he has a sense of duty to defend the indefensible. But if he turns around to find out who his support troops are, he will find that he is it. The member for Bradbury has shown equal courage in debating something that is very hard to sell to the community. However, I sometimes wonder whether we live in the same country. The member for Moreton spoke about how popular the pink batt program is. He obviously has not been speaking to the people in my electorate. I will touch on that in a little while. We are here to discuss the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. The fact that the coalition will not be opposing this legislation follows a long-held convention and does not mean that we offer support for the situation that the government have found themselves in through their mismanagement. I will start with water. The government has brought forward $650 million from future budgets to fund the water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin. This has to be one of the most ill-conceived and sinister schemes ever administered by this government. The previous government allocated $10 billion to the Murray-Darling water plan, and $5.8 billion of it—nearly $6 billion—was for replumbing and a smaller amount was for water buybacks. In the last two years, this government has focused purely on the buybacks. There are, of course, plenty of willing sellers. Rural Australia is in a very tight position at the moment. Cash-strapped farmers are selling their water entitlements to make ends meet. It is certainly not something of their choosing and it is certainly not something that they would do with a long-term view; rather, it is something which they have had no choice in. The interesting part about the water buybacks policy is that there is no water to buy. The government has been spending billions of dollars on buying air and making no difference. The full implications of this policy will not come through now because there is no water in the river; it will not be until the season turns, when the dams fill up and the rivers flow, that we will find that we have lost the ability to feed ourselves. We will be sitting on the riverbanks, with fertile farming land all around us, watching the water flow out to sea, and we will have no ability to use it. With Australia’s population possibly to reach 35 million by the year 2050, I think it incredible that food security—not only securing the nation’s ability to feed its population but also growing its ability to feed the world’s population in the years to come—has been very much put in jeopardy. While there is this lazy approach to water management of buying out water licences that contain no water, this government is ignoring the possibilities of saving billions of litres of water through infrastructure. On the very day this extra $650 million is being brought forward the Lachlan River in western New South Wales has ceased to flow. If you live downstream from Condobolin, you will find that there is no water in the Lachlan River. The communities that live along that river, the individual property owners on that river—many hundreds of people—are now struggling to find alternative sources of water. Can any of the members who sit in this place imagine what it would be like to live in a community that has no water? Apart from the air we breathe, water is the second most important substance we need for human survival. Something that we have taken for granted for years and years has been taken away from those people. But is there government assistance to help them sink bores or run pipelines to find alternative sources? Not a cracker! I was out in the lower Lachlan area two weeks ago and I saw a great amount of sadness, unrest and fear among that community about their future. That might not seem like much to us as we work in these wonderful conditions, but I have to tell members that, as we speak, the people of western New South Wales who are living in the lower Lachlan River area are hurting greatly. The water buybacks are having a devastating effect on communities right across the Murray-Darling Basin. There are two very well known cases. One is the purchase of Toorale Station near Bourke in western New South Wales. That took 100 jobs out of that community, and the amount of water that was returned to the river was minimal at best. So now there is a large property of over 100,000 acres that will be turned into a national park. This property produced fibre and food and fed thousands of people, not only in this country but around the world, but now it will lie idle. When Toorale was purchased I made an offer to my colleagues opposite to buy them a camera. I asked for the first member who could take a photo of the water purchased from Toorale station making its way into the Murray River to give me evidence of that. I said that I would eat my words if I was wrong, that I would apologise for saying something that was not correct. But I know that is not going to happen. There has been a devastating effect on a community and we have reduced our country’s ability to feed itself. Food security is not just for the 21 million people we have in Australia at the moment; Australian farmers feed 70 million people around the world. So the first people who will go hungry because of the policies of this government will not be Australians; it will be the people in other countries that rely on our grain, our beef and our mutton for their staple diet. They will be the first to suffer. Not far east of Toorale Station at Bourke is Collymongle Station, in my electorate, a property owned by the Twynam Pastoral Company. The government has purchased the water entitlements from the Twynam Pastoral Company, so the town of Collarenebri pretty well ceases to have a reason to exist. I am not much of a one for conspiracy theories but things are starting to add up. The government does not appear to have the funds to put into infrastructure to pipe water to the lower Lachlan, but it has been splashing billions of dollars around on Building the Education Revolution and the so-called ‘Julia Gillard memorial hall projects’. But with the $1.7 billion overspend, guess which projects were cut back? In my electorate, 18 central schools. Guess which was the first one? Collarenebri central school, where 85 per cent of the students are Indigenous. And one of the major employers in the area is now closed down because of government buybacks. Collarenebri central school has a science lab in a demountable—a very shabby, ancient, leaking demountable. The cruel irony is that they had pegs driven into the ground for a promised new science lab. With a $1.7 billion overspend on BER, I guess the government figured Collarenebri had no future. They are just a bunch of Indigenous kids and a few farmers’ kids; they won’t miss not having a science lab; they don’t need the same standard of education as everywhere else—and the government pulled the funding. There are schools in the leafy suburbs of our capital cities which are having multimillion dollar stadiums and the like built, but Collarenebri not only now has no water to sustain students’ parents in employment but the school has less of a facility to empower students. Education is the one thing that will improve their standard of living, and maybe their community and their education has been disadvantaged at the expense of others. This is the mismanagement of this government and it is the scandal of our time. I have just about had enough of watching speakers in this place stand up and say that black is not white—and say it with a straight face and a clear conscience. I do not know how they do that. Rural Australia is hurting because of the policies of this government. We had a plan for water security that included $6 billion for water infrastructure. Part of that money was announced a few years ago—$300 million for on-farm irrigation efficiency programs with a time frame of six weeks from announcement to application. I was in Griffith about a month ago speaking with the Young Irrigators Forum. They are very keen. Young irrigators in the Murray-Murrumbidgee system are a very switched on, productive group of individuals. I have seen some of the work they have been doing to improve the efficiency of their farms. They were very keen to take part in the $300 million program, but there is no way they could prepare a proposal which would do justice to meeting the criteria in six weeks. There is a great belief that this time frame was set up so that there would not be a complete uptake, so that the government could then say, ‘There cannot be that much need for on-farm efficiency; we can wind that program back.’ The truth is that there is a great need for on-farm efficiency, but we need to be realistic about its implementation. The minister in charge of this is Senator Wong. Perhaps it is useful to understand the mindset of this minister—a minister who seems to be using climate change as an excuse to decimate regional Australia. Long before climate change was the buzz that it is today, in a previous life Minister Wong was a staff member for the environment minister in New South Wales, one Kimberley Yeadon. In that capacity, she took part in what was known as the south Brigalow bioregion, where the New South Wales government locked up a productive, vibrant living forest which was nurturing many communities and turned it into an environmental wasteland in the pursuit of Greens preferences. Two years after 350,000 hectares were locked up and the foresters were removed, 50,000 hectares of it burnt to the ground—koalas, kangaroos, all the natural fauna and flora decimated. That was for Greens preferences. I find the politics of this astounding—the dishonesty that is coming into the debate here and the speeches at the doors. We have heard some bizarre comments. The member for Corangamite was this morning talking about the Great Ocean Road in his electorate going under water as a result of climate change. We have heard the member for Makin saying that we need to pass the CPRS legislation because of the heatwave in South Australia. We have not had an explanation of how their policies are going to reduce the temperature of the globe. Indeed, if you accept the full premise of global warming, we are talking about half a degree over 50 years. That is not a heatwave. That is long term and we need to look at productive ways of dealing with that. Rural Australia does offer a lot of the answers but is not being given the ability or the financial incentive to do that. Another part of this bill is the almost $1 billion being brought forward for pink batts—the Home Insulation Program. I found it amazing that the member for Moreton should say how popular it is. In the last couple of weeks in my electorate I have been overrun by people complaining about this program. In Dubbo, I believe many people—quite often elderly people—have been conned by this program. But, more sinister than that, the Australian taxpayers have been conned by this program. People are selling insulation door to door, signing people up and saying, ‘Your house is bigger than average.’ Having seen some of these houses, I find that hard to believe. Salesmen are saying, ‘You just pay another $200 or $300 more and we will do your whole home with the $1,600 rebate from the government.’ At one home—a timber cottage occupied by a young married couple with a baby battling to get ahead—from what I could see, the installer stood in the manhole with some sort of a hose and fired what appeared to me to be chewed-up newspaper around the hole, over the exhaust fan and over the downlights but possibly at best covering 20 per cent of the ceiling area. Many other people in the street signed contracts with the same mob. Through public pressure, the management of that company did come good, but I think there are many people who will be disgusted when they get into their roofs and find that many of the batts have been thrown and laid about in a haphazard manner. Anyone who knows anything about insulation knows that, unless the complete cavity is covered and all the gaps are closed, it is worthless. In regional Australia, if people had a choice about where the money was to go, I do not think home insulation would be a big one. Yesterday we had the Deputy Prime Minister in here saying that the government did not have the funds to properly fund the education of country kids at universities. This $985 million that has been reallocated to the pink batts program would educate a lot of country kids at university. As the 17-year-olds across my electorate are just finishing up the HSC and contemplating their very uncertain future next year, they are wondering whether the world has gone mad when we are allocating funds in the billions for people to put insulation in their roofs when we do not have enough money to fund their education. Reluctantly, I will not be opposing this legislation, but it saddens me that, from a few years ago when we were a country that had cash reserves, we are now borrowing money to put into a very poorly managed program such as the Home Insulation Program and the buyback program, which is the easy way of managing water in the Murray-Darling, while we are ignoring the plight of rural communities. There have been no social studies and no economic study done of the effects on this community. Hopefully, this government will soon wake up and realise what it is doing to the people of this country. 12226 11:20:00 Tuckey, Wilson, MP SJ4 O’Connor LP 0 0 Mr TUCKEY —Whilst there is a practice in this place not to oppose appropriation bills, these bills—the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010—probably represent an example of where that tradition, that convention, should be broken. It should be broken in the public interest and, more particularly, in the environmental interest, and I want to address those aspects during the 20 minutes that are available to me. It is worth putting on the record in the first instance that the spin doctors on the frontbench of this government have yet been unable to meet their projected budgeted targets for any significant program they have put to this House. Let me start with the election promise of a computer for every secondary school kid. That has run $1 billion over. But that was only the first billion. There is $2 billion or $3 billion that was suddenly discovered as an impost on the Australian taxpayer relevant to the funds that state governments must find to service and install and provide software updates for the management of those computers once they got them into their schools. To the best of my knowledge, the New South Wales government said, ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ and that situation is unchanged. So not only is the cost blowing out but half the kids are not going to get one. I have been told that in many schools the computers supplied have not been taken out of the boxes. They are still sitting in cardboard boxes. So that was a great help! That was the economic outcome. Then all of a sudden we were going to have the Building the Education Revolution. They are very strong on names but very poor on arithmetic. The reality of that program is that they had hardly erected a building before the costs had blown out from $14-odd billion, with the need for another $1.7 billion. As I said, our environment and the challenges of climate change are so often spruiked in this place without any reference to a worthwhile response. Then it gets even worse: $1.7 billion. There were no environmental measures in that. I picked up the West Australian newspaper the other day, and there was a volunteer group of parents running before- and after-school care and managing a facility—a 100-year-old hall—on the school premises. It was apparently treated with great kindness and was quite weatherproofed. It was run by a volunteer group. If you had to leave home at eight o’clock to get to work, as a working mother—which may be of some interest to the minister at the table, the Minister for Housing and Minister for the Status of Women—you could leave your kids there. There were volunteers there to look after them until school started. If you did not leave work until half past four or five o’clock you could go back to that facility and there were the kids, safe and sound. They have been evicted. Why? The reason is that, under BER, they are going to pull down that hall so they can build another one. There is nothing wrong with the existing building. That volunteer group will disband. For the minister’s information, those parents will have to go to some costly alternative—if it is available. That is a measure of the success of the scheme. It is stupid. It is another $1.7 billion blow-out in a $14 billion program. We are now being asked to approve another $695.8 million of expenditure—previously budgeted for some time in the future. That gap will have to be filled at that time from revenues from somewhere. What are we approving it for? It is for a dodgy scheme to put insulation in houses. It has been so hurried that it is a clear scandal. We have now had two fatalities, the second being a 16-year-old boy, because the industry was totally incapable—as the opposition warned at the time—of meeting the deadlines proposed. Everybody overnight has become a pink batt installer. They have been scratching around in the roofs, stepping on live wires, putting down insulation with an aluminium base upside down. That is typically used—and I am a frustrated builder—above the rafters. When you are constructing a new house, you put that up there and put the cladding or whatever it might be on top of it. That has been rolled out. Why? For want of something, we have had to import huge quantities of this stuff. The minister just shrugged off the effects of the manufacture of fibreglass or rock-wool. The member for Parkes told us, and it has been reported, that one bloke got up in his ceiling to find his entire space was full of plastic bags full of newspapers. Just imagine the fire hazard and the potential to cook an entire family. Remember that, because of the lack of law and order in Australia today, people have to lock themselves in their houses and frequently cannot even escape before they are consumed by smoke and other things. There are no regulations. There is no nothing and nobody knows. In an anecdote told to me a fellow was the owner of two houses. The ceiling of one had been partially insulated on a previous occasion. The contractor came in, wandered around, had a quick look and said, ‘Yeah, $1,600 each.’ The fellow said, ‘But the second house is half done.’ The bloke asked: ‘What are you worried about? It’s the government paying the money.’ That is what he said. And we are supposed to approve $690 million to extend that dodgy process. This is not very environmentally successful and certainly will not have a long-term effect. The reality is that, by the rules applicable, it is going into older-style houses. What is happening all around Australia to older-style houses? They typically sit on the traditional quarter-acre block, which by modern planning rules can accommodate certainly two and up to three residences. What is happening throughout Australia? The members present would all know, when they go into the old suburbs in their own districts, that those older houses—many of them public housing—are being purchased. The blocks are being aggregated and smaller, modern buildings—frequently two storey—are being put on blocks of an area as small as 350 square metres. There has been a case of one subsidy being paid in exactly those circumstances: the house was insulated in the ceiling and knocked down within a couple of weeks. We know how often that has happened in some of the other government programs. Schools have been given grants when their state owners want to close them. Why would you do that? What is more, why would you ignore the fact that a lot of those old houses were very well designed to manage climate change throughout the year when they were constructed because air conditioning, certainly for many at that level, was not even invented? So what did they have? They had verandahs and things that shaded the walls of the house and reducing the climatic effect, because those were the only options they had. By the way, for 1,600 bucks you can buy an evaporative air conditioner which would be a lot more effective and efficient for most of those houses than a few ceiling batts ever would be. But how many of those houses will be in existence in 10 years time as a result of the massive re-organisation under the infill argument that is so often promoted by Labor state governments? For how long will those houses be there—so where is the long-term benefit of this initiative? The member for Parkes mentioned buying water entitlements when there is no water there, as compared with maximising the return on the water that is available, and if I have time I will come back to that. But let us first take this $695 million. As I said in the beginning, this is a bad investment in environmental benefit in the reduction of carbon emissions. For a start-off, there is a huge emission factor in making fibreglass and in making rock-wool, the two most effective insulations. It is not called rock-wool for nothing: you create it by melting rock. And do you do that with a magnifying glass getting a little bit of heat on a rock? No, you burn hydrocarbons in huge quantities to do so. And what is fibreglass? It is fibres of glass. And how do you make glass? You melt sand. How much energy does that consume? And, of course, the established local industries would have been very comfortable with a slower program, where they could have manufactured the product in Australia, but, no, it all has to be done in a couple of years and so there are imports from China and other countries. Who knows what the efficiency is of those plants? Who knows how many scrubbers they have on their chimneys for particulates, for sulphur and for all those other things associated with the melting of rock? Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not the Australian bureaucracy or this government: ‘Spend the money.’ And suddenly they have not got enough, so it is: ‘Ask the parliament to give us another $690 million.’ Let me come back to that $1.7 billion overrun in BER. It is a very interesting fact that in the state of Western Australia, as an example for all Australia, we are pumping a lot of gas from the North West Shelf to the industrial and residential areas of the south-west of Western Australia. Everybody says, ‘Isn’t it lovely, we’re generating low-emission electricity from that gas.’ But, in fact, there are 700,000 tonnes of emissions per annum being generated by the gas pipeline in the pumping process, and that is not added in. Furthermore, there is no need for it. By the simple act of commencing to generate the gas fired electricity in the Pilbara, where the gas comes ashore, and transmitting it into the network—which commences in the mid-west of Western Australia at the town of Geraldton, presently in my electorate—by high-voltage DC transmission, only about five to six per cent of the electricity generated would be lost in the journey. The Chinese are building a 2,000 kilometre 6.2 gigawatt HVDC line to bring their renewables out of the west into the east where they manufacture and employ people. But the Europeans at the highest practical level—not the scientific level but the highest business level—have done a study on producing solar energy in the North African desert, which is the best place to make solar energy because you maximise the radiation effects of the sun, and then having to shift it 3,000 kilometres. They did three tests. They looked at making hydrogen on site and worked out that in the process of transport they would lose 75 per cent of the energy. Then they looked at what runs all around this city and interconnects our country towns—AC transmission, the standard for Australia, with just a couple of exceptions—and found they would lose 45 per cent of the electricity. Then they looked at high-voltage DC—which just happens to interconnect Victoria with Tasmania to good effect—and found they would lose 10 per cent over that 3,000 kilometres. For $1.1 billion that power that could be generated in the Pilbara could be interconnected to the south-west network. For $1.7 billion you could interconnect the eastern states network with the growing energy demand of the west. And of course if you extended those two wires up north of Broome to where the Browse gas comes ashore you could be bringing down Browse-gas electricity and the product of tidal power in that region sufficient to replace all of Australia’s energy consumption, with a highly predictable resource and technology that, in France, is 40 years old. That is what you could do with the money that is being chucked up in the ceilings of old houses that within 10 years, in many cases, will not exist. HVDC is an underground system and it can be an undersea system. In fact, when you look at Browse, nobody is yet talking about the potential of actually generating the gas at sea and transmitting it by these wires—which the Europeans are going to put under the Mediterranean Sea in their project. But you could be shipping electricity from that gas resource into northern regions—into Malaysia, into the growing Asian regions—and selling them something. That is in comparison with us going to them, as proposed by this government, to buy certificates to continue to pollute—which is the only product the government emissions trading scheme will deliver. What is the fight about? What are the opposition doing lobbying and being lobbied for more free certificates to pollute under the ETS? What a great idea that is if you have a genuine interest in the environment and in the climate. Why are we allocating this sort of money to a dodgy scheme that is being abused and exploited throughout the nation, as typically occurs when you rush into things of this nature, when that same money could have delivered massive reductions in energy losses in transmission and interconnected the growth state with these states? Just think of it, one of the reasons these batts have gone up is to reduce the amount of air-conditioning used in houses. The houses defined for the work typically will not have an air-conditioner. Air-conditioning is now a very significant drain on the electrical system, and it is not base load. It is peak load. Western Australia, I think for the last time, has decided by referendum that daylight saving does not suit the state of Western Australia and there is good reason for that. We have a three-hour time difference between when it gets hot in Melbourne and when it gets hot in Perth. So why are we not installing, for $1.7 billion, an HVDC interconnection between the Western Australian system and the South Australian system, which is interconnected by HVDC with the rest of the eastern states network? Why are we not interconnecting them and keeping the highly efficient generating system in the Latrobe Valley on full load for another three hours, saving the building of a 200 or 300 megawatt coal fired power station in Western Australia? Why are we not doing that? Any form of machinery always has an optimum level of performance. When you have got to start running your coal fired power stations below that level, your emissions ratio to energy produced is not good. These are the issues. That is where this money should be being spent, but of course it is just going to go up in the roof. Let us hope there is not another fatality but the score is now two, and all because of a government that could not run guts for a slow butcher. These are the sorts of problems we have. They have not achieved budget estimate on any major project they have so far implemented. If you read today’s paper, you see what the AAPT fellow says about the national broadband network. As he says, it is just a process to try and renationalise Telstra. You can see why there is plenty of money around. (Time expired) 12230 11:40:00 Stone, Dr Sharman, MP EM6 Murray LP 0 0 Dr STONE —I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. Both are government supply bills. The coalition will not oppose 2009-10 appropriation bills, in keeping with the convention of passing government supply. However, I have great concern about the purposes for which these appropriations are sought. They are, I think, a real indictment on this government in terms of its mismanaging the nation’s finances and failing to understand the impacts of bureaucratic mismanagement and a failure to take good advice about the consequences of what they do. There are two purposes of the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010: firstly, to provide additional funding to cover rebate payments made under the government’s Home Insulation program. Administered funding of $695.8 million is to be brought forward from the 2010-11 financial year. This was announced as part of the government’s 2009-10 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, MYEFO. The second purpose of the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 is to provide additional departmental costs to the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts associated with the acceleration of the water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system. Departmental funds of $4.9 million are to be brought forward—$4.4 million from 2013-14 and $0.5 million from 2014-15, from the Water for the Future: Restoring the Balance of the Murray-Darling Basin program—to provide the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts with adequate resourcing to efficiently manage, they say, the government’s water purchase program in 2009-10. The Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 will provide funding for the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to accelerate water buybacks. We in my part of the world are extraordinarily concerned about the whole business of water buybacks. To date the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program has purchased more than 600 gigalitres of water entitlements from what is now struggling to be the food bowl of Australia. The government believes that bringing forward the funding in this bill will enable a further acceleration of environmental purchases and provide for new water purchase initiatives in 2009-10. We who live and produce food and fibre in the basin, who raise our families and support our communities and who are looking to a future in what was the most fertile and best watered crescent in Australia, are in despair about the consequences of a further acceleration of this failed policy. I will return to this point. The government also believes that, with the additional appropriation, vendors will receive timely settlement of their water trades under the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program. I am pleased to see that at least this government acknowledges the fact that the water buyback scheme has been grossly mismanaged and bungled from day one. People’s lives have been destroyed by broken promises about the timing of offers made, the timing of funds delivered into their bank accounts and the withdrawal and mismanagement of what they believed was, in writing, a contract of sale with the government. A lot of this bungling is a consequence of very poor coordination and cooperation with state governments, the Victorian state government in particular. I would like to read, for example, a letter from one of my constituents which points out just the sort of problem people are facing. It says: Dear Sharman I would like to bring to your attention the most recent problem we have encountered with water trading. We have sold 300 megalitres of water to the government, held up firstly by the 10 per cent cap. Now that this cap has been removed we received notice that the sale was rejected because of an unpaid Goulburn-Murray Water invoice. With the importance of this sale to us, I was not going to leave it at that; it turns out that there were many sales rejected for this reason. The reason for the non-payment? The invoices had not been sent to the customers. That is by Goulburn-Murray Water, a Victorian state-owned water authority. We hope that our sale is now back on track but, as you can see, trading water is a moving minefield. I urge you to support uniform water trading rules across the Murray-Darling Basin. Of course that is what is needed, but that is not what is being addressed by this government in its mad panic to appease so-called green elements in their mythical buyback water solution. This is a case where people did sell their water to the government and were rejected on the basis that a state authority had not been paid. In fact, the bill had not been sent. How can that be fair and decent? And what are the consequences for a drought stressed family totally dependent on that income? These bills reveal the true story of the Rudd government’s poor policy and mismanagement of the legislative timetable, mismanagement of government funding and destruction of irrigated agriculture’s future in the Murray-Darling Basin. Let me tell you that the Murray-Darling Basin has long been understood to be in urgent need of better governance arrangements. It certainly represents some 40 per cent of farmers across Australia who produce 30 per cent of Australia’s food supply and much of its fibre. When we were in government, the Liberal and National Party coalition under John Howard took a historic step with the $10 billion 10-point plan, the Australian national water plan. We understood that since Federation the six constituencies covering the basin had failed to cooperate and there was no universal water law. We also knew in particular that New South Wales had overallocated diversion licences in streams, that this had been going on for generations and that that overallocation needed to be addressed. We therefore put the $10 billion on the table. Some of it was for on-farm water use efficiency measures. We knew that there was no point in requiring a reduction in water use if farmers could not afford to put more work in place, for example subsurface irrigation or converting to drip and trickle processes in horticulture. So that on-farm water use efficiency funding was essential. Unfortunately the Labor government has ignored that dimension until very recently when a very piecemeal offer was made far too late, when most farmers have already gone to the wall. We also understood the importance of buyback from the overallocated streams and therefore that particular buyback element of the package was targeted. It was not the piecemeal, ad hoc so-called buying from willing sellers approach taken by the minister, Senator Penny Wong. What happens when you go into a drought stressed environment, and in this case the Murray-Darling Basin has been in drought for more than a decade; when you have farmers who are also receiving below the cost of production prices for their products, for example dairying, and you say to them and their lenders also say to them, ‘You have in your possession a water entitlement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars: what are you going to do? If you do not sell and there is an offer on the table from the government, we will require you to shut up business, your intergenerational farm or your farm enterprise that you have purchased with great risk having perhaps invested an earlier lifetime in developing up your career.’ So this government is buying water off farmers who are drought stressed and wish to continue very often in agribusiness but who are forced to sell their water entitlement as a means of just surviving another year. I have another letter from a constituent. In this case this particular water user points out: We have taken steps to protect ourselves by selling 20 megalitres of water to the government buyback, which paid our debts for the fodder from last year. That is how desperate many of our farmers are. If this particular dairy farmer had not sold 20 megalitres to the government they could not pay for the fodder which kept their dairy cows alive in the year before. They go on to say: We have just received a letter from Murray Goulburn Water to say the further 25 megalitres which we were selling to help our cash flow will have to wait until the four per cent cap is lifted. She ends up saying: Does the government know how desperate people are? Is there any hope of help? This is the situation being acted out over and over again across irrigated agriculture in the basin, where desperate farmers are being forced to sell their means of production in order to survive another year of drought. I have to say that any government that has the cynicism to talk about those people as willing sellers really has to re-examine its moral compass. I have to say that this business of buyback of water is so serious because environment cannot be seen to be positively impacted at all. When you are buying back an overallocated entitlement, say in one of the New South Wales streams, you are not actually buying high security H2O which can be applied to the wetlands or the river stream itself. You are simply assisting with an administrative problem created by previous New South Wales state governments. What should have taken place was a combination with on-farm water use efficiency support. There should have been more efforts to bring into line something like the state-owned water authorities in Victoria, in particular Goulburn-Murray Water, which has been inefficient and not attending to best practice for decades. The pricing structure of Goulburn-Murray Water, for example, depends on so-called water sales, which is the additional water that is available when the dams are full. They are sales above your 100 per cent water entitlement allocation. If you do not understand the water industry, as the Labor Party does not, I can understand your being mystified by such language. But everyone in the irrigation industry in Victoria understands this terminology and the fact that Goulburn-Murray Water, a state owned authority, is in deep financial strife because of the drought. How is it overcoming that strife? It is ‘reconfiguring’ the irrigation system itself. It is shutting down hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of earthen channels which have served the irrigation industry for the last 120 years. Only what Goulburn-Murray Water is calling the main parts of the system—the trunks of the irrigation channel system—are supposed to be survivors in the future. It is plastic-lining a lot of those channels now in order to stop seepage and leaking. It is plastic lining all of the system as far as it can go, even though there was evidence around to show which sections leaked and which did not. Modernisation of the irrigation system is long overdue, but not in the way it is being progressed. It is supposedly being paid for by northern Victorian irrigators giving up over 75 gigalitres of water a year to Melbourne via a pipeline which will go out of the Eildon Dam across the Great Dividing Range, with huge energy inputs to push and pump the water across that range. The water will then be delivered to Melbourne and Geelong. In those two cities, of course, there are alternatives to reduce water consumption: recycling, storm water harvesting, desalinisation plants, different pricing structures and better conservation measures. But, no, the state government has said that, because it is investing in contracting the irrigation system to some half of its previous area and the people it can serve, irrigators must part with their very water security. The Goulburn River—which is tapped or, if you like, has its catchment dammed by Eildon Dam—is designated the most stressed in the Murray-Darling Basin. This is a CSIRO annual assessment of its condition. The murray cod has recently been assessed as one of the most endangered and vulnerable fish species in Australia. The murray cod’s habitat is the Goulburn River. Despite that, we have this federal government ignoring an EPBC controlled action over the north-south pipeline. The pipeline itself is virtually completed and we are told triumphantly by Mr Brumby, the Premier of Victoria, that he will stand beside this pipeline for the first gushing delivery of water by the end of this year. We believe it cannot quite happen, but he will certainly be doing it long before the Victorian state election is held later next year. We have the EPBC controlled action with its first annual report on what was adhered to or was taken into account in terms of the conditions for the building of that pipeline. We find that there have been a number of breaches of the conditions described as necessary by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett. What has happened about those controlled action conditions being ignored? Absolutely nothing. Nothing has occurred in terms of a ‘Please explain’ to the Victorian government, which is responsible for building this pipeline through its agency Melbourne Water. At the same time the so-called food bowl modernisation project—plastic-lining so many of the channels, which means less groundwater accessions and less groundwater to wetlands—must now be subjected to an EPBC controlled action consideration. The point about that is that the food bowl modernisation project stage 1 is already virtually completed. Another farce. What does this government really know about environmental protection and sustainability? You would have to believe very little when you see that all it can do is bring forward through a supply bill further expenditure on water buyback and make a further effort to try and get their administration right in speeding up this water buyback process. The whole thing is obscene. The problem is that it will cause great environmental damage to the Australian continent as well. Australian farmers produce environmental services in the form of protecting biodiversity, water quality protection, soil fertility protection, and feral animal and weed control. All those environmental services are delivered by farmers as a by-product of their food and fibre production. I said before that the Murray-Darling Basin contains some 40 per cent of Australia’s farmers, who produce over 30 per cent of Australia’s food and fibre supply. Those farmers do an extraordinary job in guaranteeing, preserving or producing environmental services for the rest of Australian society. When they are beggared by poor policy—something like this water buyback policy which exploits their current vulnerability arising from drought stress and poverty—those farmers cannot continue to supply the environmental services that I mentioned a minute ago. I was pleased, I have to say, when Sydneysiders and people in Canberra actually had a taste of a dust storm the other day, because what rural communities fear most is that dust storms will become a common occurrence as the top soil of Australia, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, literally blows away due to the ongoing drought and farmers having to sell their water. Previously the vegetation growth held down the soil. We have a serious environmental degradation issue in Australia, particularly across the basin, which is being exacerbated and stimulated by Australian federal Labor government mismanagement and misunderstanding. A lot of my constituents say it is deliberate and that they ‘just hate farmers’. I do not know if they do hate farmers. I think it is ignorance. I think it is cynicism. I think it is pandering to the so-called green vote without an understanding that the real environmentalists of Australia are your food and fibre producers. Every farmer knows that if you do not protect the environmental values of your property you degrade your own productivity and the chance for your children and grandchildren to continue in that line of work. So it is a nonsense to suggest that farmers are not the guardians of the environmental resources of this nation. This bill is an acknowledgement of the failures of this government to fully understand. In terms of the home insulation program, that farce is well known. It is an echo of the water entitlement melt-down. Here we have $1 billion spent in a few months at the beginning of the program. 12234 12:00:00 Marino, Nola, MP HWP Forrest LP 0 0 Ms MARINO —I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 as well. These are government supply bills for both ordinary and non-ordinary annual services in relation to water entitlements and home insulation. There are two purposes of the appropriations. The first is to provide additional funding to cover the rebate payments made under the government’s home installation program; and the second is to provide additional departmental costs to the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts and the Department of Climate Change and Water, associated with the acceleration of the water buybacks within the Murray-Darling system that are addressed in the water entitlements bill. These bills are typical of the Labor government’s mismanagement not only of the legislative time frame but of the government funding process itself. The 2009-10 funding allocation for the installation program will be exhausted by late December 2009. The Labor government has spent billions of dollars. A lot of this stimulus money has gone overseas with the Chinese pink batts and I would question how this protects or addresses the interests of Australian workers or business in relation to any impacts of the global recession. I read an article in the Farm Weekly, which quoted the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as saying that the Labor government’s economic stimulus package boosted pork sales in the lead-up to Christmas. However, Mr Burke’s theory was dismissed by Australian Pork Limited, who stated in the same article that market data concluded there was only a minor rise in sales compared to the previous years. The Labor government’s reckless spending has resulted in a massive underlying cash deficit of $57.7 billion for 2009-10, and the government’s home insulation program typifies this carefree attitude to spending. We hear, day after day, of the waste and mismanagement. We look at the $1.7 billion blow-out in the BER program, with over $7 million wasted on signs and plaques whilst, at the same time, we are seeing the slashing of the cataract rebate. This is really an incredible comparison. The home insulation program has been riddled with waste and mismanagement, as we hear, and also with issues of safety. Quotes and invoices are being fudged and it is very interesting that the quotes happen to match a number of the government rebates. My office recently contacted six registered insulation installers in my electorate, to ask for their opinion on the program. They had very similar issues. The waiting time for payment is usually two weeks but for jobs at houses that have an address not registered with Australia Post—usually a rural address—the installer cannot process this online, and must fax all the details to the department, which can take from four weeks, at least, for them to get the payment. This is an issue of cash flow for small businesses, particularly at this time. Secondly, all of them have difficulty in getting the insulation itself. Some are being told to wait for several months. They have also said that big businesses have had the buying power and independent small businesses have been unable to match this—they were unable to match the demand and had lost customers in the process. They also informed me that the price for bats had increased between eight to 27 per cent and, in one instance, from $54 to $69 per bag. Mr Garrett has opposed our calls for a full Auditor-General’s inquiry into the program, but this billion dollar blow-out demonstrates why the investigation is certainly warranted. I also note that some of the issues in relation to insulation providers in respect of training have affected long-term businesses within my electorate—people who are very seriously trained. They also expressed concern in relation to ongoing business once the program has ceased and the bulk of the work has been done. Exposure to major building companies is also a concern. Mr Garrett has been opposing our calls for a full Auditor-General’s inquiry. The appropriation and water entitlement bill will provide funding for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to accelerate water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system, as I said earlier. We know that the Labor government received $10 billion from the coalition under the National Plan for Water Security, which included nearly $6 billion for water infrastructure. That included, as we heard previously from the member for Murray, on-farm water use efficiency measure. There is no doubt that we need a re-plumbing and we need to be working with farmers on water use efficiencies, and I am sure the member for Calare would agree with this. On-farm efficiencies are a critical part of what should be happening in relation to irrigation and water use. The Productivity Commission is currently reviewing the water buybacks, but the government is bringing forward funding. Would the member for Calare say that is a contradictory circumstance? HWN Coulton, Mark, MP Mr John Cobb interjecting— 10000 Adams, Dick (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. DGH Adams)—Order! The member for Forrest will make her speech. HWP Marino, Nola, MP Ms MARINO —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. To date, the Labor government has spent millions of dollars buying a range of things, from paper to dust, and not necessarily water that will actually reach the Murray itself. Real water purchases have not been bought in strategic areas and little attention has been paid to buying water in the area where the water is actually needed for the environment. DEWHA has unfortunately not treated growers well. Growers who are distressed, growers who are in extreme financial difficulty and growers who have offered their water for sale have often been treated very badly by DEWHA. They have waited months for contracts and often have not been treated with common courtesy. Farmers will sell to third parties because of the attitudes and delays they have faced when dealing with Commonwealth officials. No-one has costed the impacts on the Australian economy or those regional economies. Where are the regional cost-benefit analyses? We should be seeing those and having access to those. What are the broader regional cost-benefit implications? What are the costs for these communities and the areas? What will it do to Australian food and fibre production and what will the multiplier effects be, even of the purchase price of water, and how will those losses be carried forward? Will they continue for decades? The government has unfortunately not focused, as we have heard frequently, on infrastructure upgrades and retooling of irrigation schemes. Applications are due by 27 November—next week. The parliament should be aware of those time lines for the approval of this important scheme given the chronic delays in the buyback program administered by the same officials. The combination of on-farm water use efficiencies and water buybacks is a critical part of what is needed in this system. A flow-on issue from this legislation is the issue of food security—and it ties in with the regional cost-benefit analyses—ensuring, through the farmers and growers of this region, that people in cities and regional centres actually have access to food that is grown by Australians. As I said, the issue of food security is one that unfortunately does not receive the attention that it should. It is about self-sustainability and food security. It is a very serious issue and it is something that certainly does not receive the attention that it should, as you can see through this process. On Monday the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts released the tender for the Carbon Register. Applicants have only six weeks to respond and must have an international carbon register partner. This will severely limit responses to the tender because of the unrealistic time frame and the international partner provision. Why is the time frame so constricted? There has to be an implication in that one. Is it accurate that to fund an increase in the buyback from $1.5 billion to $3 billion there will be a corresponding decrease of $1.5 billion directed to on-farm efficiencies? By default, will farmers therefore be actually paying for their own water buybacks? Which agency analysed the social impacts of water buybacks on regional communities? That is what we have not seen. There has been no regional cost-benefit analyses, no multiplying of the effect that this is going to have. Which agency analysed the social impacts of these water buybacks on the regional communities prior to the actual water purchases and what were the projected impacts that were identified in that process? I would really like to know. The Labor government should not repeat the devolution experience of the Owens Valley in the Californian irrigation area. As we all know, the Owens River was the source of rich farming in the valley with experimental irrigation, orchards, fruit and grain. The US Reclamation Service proposed careful studies preparatory to some dams and a control system to ensure irrigation and water security to the whole district. People enthusiastically welcomed the idea and actually gave up some of their rights to advance the study, only to find new interest altered the future of their lands and water. This saw water from the first 375-kilometre gravity-fed aqueduct, believed to be for irrigated agriculture, acquired by the government and directed to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power owned 90 per cent of the water property rights in the Owens Valley and agriculture in the valley was effectively dead, ending the development of the Owens Valley as a farming community. Farms went dry, farmers had no choice but to leave, and Los Angeles County bought up the property. A second 220-kilometre aqueduct in 1970 diverted more surface water, as well as groundwater, which affected groundwater to such an extent that natural vegetation died as well. Groundwater pumping continued at a higher rate than the aquifer could recharge, with the long-term trend of desertification of the Owens Valley and falling water tables. Owens Valley, which was once a thriving agriculture and food producing area, became desolate with empty farmhouses, dusty fields and a succession of ‘ghost towns’. I have really serious concerns that some of our communities will be similarly affected. We all know—and we have heard about this from the member for Murray—about the enormous benefit of what a number of farmers are doing for biodiversity management, environmental management and food security. They manage the soil. They are some of the most progressive farmers with some of the most sustainable practices in the world. They do produce excellent food and fibre, the quality of which is almost incomparable. They are extremely sound environmental managers and they provide that continuous environmental management. I note that one of the major problems in the Owens Valley was the monopoly position of the single buyer and the fact that farmers were forced out directly or by default. This brings into question the weak bargaining position that farmers find themselves in, which we have heard about here in this chamber today in relation to our farmers in the Murray-Darling area. We also have not heard about the efficiencies that are possible through town water schemes. We do not hear about that through this process. We only hear about water buybacks from farmers. We really need effective stimulus spending and we do need both on- and off-farm developments to address Australia’s water security issues. This parliament should have had access to the regional cost-benefit analyses of the effects of water buybacks on regional communities and centres. As we all know, or should know, food security is a critical issue for Australians. Thank you. 12237 12:15:00 Cobb, John, MP 00AN1 Calare NATS 0 0 Mr JOHN COBB —I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. They are government supply bills for the ordinary, and not ordinary, annual services of the government in relation to water entitlements and home insulation. I am going to let others speak on the home insulation aspect. My main concerns—in which I guess I am on the record as having a very real portfolio interest as well as a personal interest, for me and particularly for my electorate—are to do with the nation’s water, in particular the Murray-Darling Basin, which is where I reside and which the whole of my current and proposed electorate is pretty much in. I have always had grave concerns about the government’s approach to water reforms and, once again, I have to put on the record my disgust at the callous disregard that this government has for regional Australia when it comes to the use of water and, more than anything, the potential use of water. To look upon human beings and rural communities as ants that can be disposed of at will is not something I accept, having grown up in this country. The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, has time and again shown that she has absolutely no regard for the people who live in the basin—except for the people at the bottom of the basin, who are mostly not in it at all. The second purpose of the main bill, which is the area I am mostly speaking about and concerned about in the first place, is to fund departmental costs—that is, costs of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts—associated with the acceleration of the water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system that are addressed in the water entitlements bill. That includes $4.9 billion brought forward from 2013-14 and 2014-15 under the so-called Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program, part of the Water for the Future plan, to provide the department with adequate resourcing to efficiently implement this government’s water purchase program. And therein lies the problem. It is not about water efficiencies, which the member for Forrest just spoke about. This government has very much shown that it is not about the better use of water; it is about the nonuse of it. I will never forget what the minister, Senator Wong, said when she was asked whether she was aware that, in the purchase of Toorale station below Bourke, the water entitlements and everything it did there, she was purchasing 10 per cent of the business turnover of the Bourke Shire; and that she was purchasing four per cent of the water entitlements, which obviously in future would not be paid by national parks at the base rate for the Bourke Shire; and that that was the end of up to 100 part-time jobs in the Bourke Shire. Her reply, ‘What’s your point?’ is a rather chilling reminder that not everybody sees the Murray-Darling Basin in terms of the needs of the people who live in it. The fact is that there are two million people who live and make their living producing for Australia in the Murray-Darling Basin, and that is not counting the one million or so people in Adelaide who are actually not in the basin, who do not live in it. Nobody, whether they are in or out of the basin, would ever deny Adelaide or anywhere else the domestic water that is necessary. But that has never really been seriously in dispute and no-one has ever denied that. And, given that Adelaide can actually store used water in the hills anyway and does not really call upon that much water out of the Murray River itself, I have never seen that as the issue for Adelaide or any other town along the river. I will come back to that, because there are some towns that are very much at serious risk of not having water—and not in the very near future; I am talking about now. The Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 will provide funding to the department to accelerate water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system. Administered funding of $650 million will be brought forward from later years of the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program, comprising $320 million brought forward from 2010-11 and 2011-12, and $330 million brought forward from 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2013-14, to provide for additional water buybacks in the current financial year. That has been decided since the announcement of the 2009-10 MYEFO on 2 November 2009. I am very concerned about not just the future of the river but particularly the future of the community within the Murray-Darling Basin. One of the reasons that those two million people live in that community is to grow, process or be part of the production capacity of that basin, and, when I say that, I am talking about the rivers and the irrigation that they provide. This bill is a further nail in the coffin of regional communities and will entrench what can only be described as a Rudd-made drought in basin communities once the climatic cycle returns to normal. You are not a climate change sceptic if you simply talk about drought instead of climate change, and undoubtedly we are in a drought. Climate change may exacerbate a drought, but it has not caused it. We have had droughts as bad as this before, and I just hope I am not around when the next one comes. We are still in a drought—very much so, particularly in my part of the world. On the basis of the current drought, Senator Wong has simply gone out and bought all the water that she can, and it is very plain that she does not plan to return any of it to productive usage—in other words, it is only for the environment. It is all very well to talk about the Lower Lakes. I accept the problems that some of our colleagues have down there with water. I myself have been there various times and I am in extreme sympathy with those people, whether it is in the Riverland or the Lower Lakes, and I am also in extreme sympathy with everybody from St George through the north-west of New South Wales, the central west, the Riverina, the Murray and the Goulburn—nobody is exempt from this. I think most of the productive capacity is in the high reaches of the Murray-Darling Basin. I am a bit overwhelmed, and I suppose disgusted, that this government can find another $650 million to bring forward to spend on water buybacks in the next couple of years but is not interested in helping the people below Condobolin who are now facing the unprecedented reality of having their water flows cut off. I am not blaming people because the river or the dam is now at around six per cent or less—and at this time of year that is not a lot of water. Without doubt the New South Wales water authorities have some concerns about how much of that six per cent they can extract. Certainly things have to be done about that. But consider the figures. You would imagine that the largest purchase of water Senator Wong would have made would have been from the biggest river, the Murray, or maybe the Murrumbidgee, the second-biggest river. But, no, it is the Lachlan, which flows into the Murray-Darling Basin only once every 50 years at the height of a flood, at which time the last thing you are going to need is more water. In other words, the Lachlan is not really part of the system, except once in a lifetime. Yet Senator Wong has bought almost twice as much water from the Lachlan as she has from any other river system—75,000 megalitres or 75 gigalitres. The next highest is 47,000 megalitres, or 47 gigalitres, from the Macquarie river, which strangely enough, while it does flow more regularly into the system than the Lachlan—more than every 50 years—does not flow continuously into the system. That is the second biggest purchase. It is equivalent to what has been bought out of the second-biggest river, the Murrumbidgee, and slightly more than that which has been bought out of the Murray. I find this figure incredible. Why would you pick on the livelihoods of people near rivers to that extent when the rivers are not actually part of your system? The Lachlan is the river that is in the most trouble now. Certainly the people below Condobolin are in trouble. If Senator Wong wants to get serious about helping people, why does she not say to the state government, ‘If you have got to shut the river off, I am doing my level best to make sure they do not have a future after the drought by buying an enormous amount of the water’? Why is she buying it there? Because she can get high figures because it is the cheapest water—not because it is going to help the Murray-Darling Basin but because that is where she can buy 75,000 gigs at about $600 a megalitre. She certainly cannot buy it for that sort of money out of the Murrumbidgee or the Murray. The second cheapest is the Macquarie, and that is why she is buying it there, not because she is going to help the Murray-Darling Basin system. I challenge this government to do the right thing by the people of the Lachlan, particularly below Condobolin, and say to the state government, ‘If you have got to shut it off then you have got to shut it off, but here is $50 million to help people along that way put in bores and put in pipelines so that they can still do their stock and domestic.’ The state government is imposing fines of up to $250,000 on anyone who contravenes and pumps water on open channels and suchlike. I guess you have got to do something, but I would say to the state government: do not overreact as people do still have to water their stock and they do still have to have domestic water at their homesteads. That is what is going to happen and is happening below Condobolin on the Lachlan River. I think that if Senator Wong really is the Minister for Climate Change and Water then she should do the right thing by people in the Murray-Darling Basin area—she is claiming that the Lachlan is part of the system because she is buying all their water—and help them through this crisis, because crisis it is. My big worry is what she has done to the Macquarie and the Lachlan—the two smallest rivers, in a sense, in the whole system. That is where she has bought most of the water—because it is cheap, not because it is effective—and she has condemned them to a permanent productive drought. Not one cent has been spent by the Rudd government to help landowners and struggling communities. The minister is yet to spend any money on water efficiencies on farms. She talks about it when she cannot avoid it but will not do it. There is the $100 million designated to help pipe water for the people on the Lower Lakes, in South Australia. I do not have a problem with that because they need help down there, but so do the people on the Lachlan, particularly those below Condobolin. It would be nice to see the department recognise that instead of ticking little boxes: ‘We’ve got another meg out of them. We’ve got another gigalitre out the Lachlan. We’re proud of that. We’re not worried about their future but we’ll get their water.’ They have faced years of drought. I am not talking just about irrigation—far from it. I am talking about day-to-day livelihood, both stock and domestic. The water has never been shut off before. It has dried up before but, because it has been flowing out of the dam at Wyangala, it has tended to move through the sand. Even the last time that it actually ran dry, which I think was in the early 1960s, it was still moving through the sand. The waterholes from which people pumped for each individual station—and they were all on there in those days—were still able to be used to get water. But that will not happen this time. As I said, I am absolutely disgusted that the two smallest rivers in the whole system, one that does not flow into the Murray system and one that does so periodically, are the biggest sufferers of the prime ministerial and ministerial effort to cut back future activity for the two million people who live in the basin. As I said, I have every sympathy for the people at the bottom of the system, in the Lower Lakes, and I do not deny them one iota of the $100 million to be spent there. But I want to know why the people on the Lachlan are not just as important. I want to know why the people at St George are not as important. I want to know why the people on the Macquarie, the Lachlan, the Gwydir and the Namoi are not as important. It is not just about the senator’s own state. It is not just about her own lakes. The New South Wales Irrigators Council put it pretty well in a media statement: … Minister Penny Wong’s announcement today of the opening of applications for on-farm irrigation efficiency projects in the Southern Murray-Darling Basin. … Chief Executive Officer Andrew Gregson says that the program design is so flawed as to be effectively useless. “The Commonwealth provided no advance notice to irrigators as to when application guidelines would be available —and have today announced that applications will close in just six weeks.” “That’s … ludicrous —and makes us wonder if the program is, in fact, deliberately designed to fail. “The Commonwealth did not consult with us in designing this program —and appear to have come up with an involved and technical process that is highly unlikely to be given justice within 6 weeks. The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, has made only a handful of visits to a few basin communities, and they have been shrouded in more secrecy than a prime ministerial visit to Afghanistan. The Land newspaper’s report on Minister Wong’s latest mission behind enemy lines sums up the extreme contempt the Rudd government holds for our food producers. It says: Meanwhile, back in the federal sphere, Water and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s mania for media control may not stand out much in Canberra, the home of spin, but it was glaringly obvious during her trip to the western Riverina this week. After copping flak from farmers for keeping a low profile in the water drained region, she went on-farm (no media allowed) with a few selected primary producers, mostly gathered from local shire councils. But Wongster went one further than the usual political tricks for avoiding or ignoring unpleasant questions - she specified that all queries be supplied ahead of time for vetting, before deigning to offer scripted answers for those regarded as acceptable. Welcome to open and accountable democracy, folks. It was pretty much what happened when the Rudd cabinet came to Bathurst. You had to apply to go, and not too many were allowed in. If the Rudd government continues to buy the lifeblood of regional communities without increasing the productive capacity, without investing in the system, be it the transfer system or the on-farm system, there will not be two million people left in the Murray-Darling Basin. 12241 12:34:00 Windsor, Antony, MP 009LP New England IND 0 0 Mr WINDSOR —I rise to support the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and related bill here today. As most others seem to have done, I will mention a number of points that I believe are significant in the overall water debate, not just in relation to the buyback issue. I was pleased to hear the member for Calare announce that he has some concerns for the Namoi system. I do share some of his concerns and will relate those concerns, which he may well be interested in, in terms of policy in the future, because I think some work needs to be done, particularly in the Senate, to tidy up some issues that directly impact on the Namoi system. I recently attended a carbon farming conference in Orange, and I think you may well have been interested in some of the issues there yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker Saffin, given some of the meetings that we have attended. A whole range of issues were debated at that conference, but probably the most striking and common thread in the deliberations that took place was in relation to our landscape management and how we are going to repair some of the damage that has been done in the past. Also discussed was how we are going to wrestle with potentially less rainfall in some areas and more intense rainfall in others, general landscape management and some of the positives that are out there at the moment. I found it an invaluable conference to attend. One of the things that I was particularly very impressed with was the role that the former Governor-General Michael Jeffrey is taking in relation to redressing some of the landscape issues. He happened to be the guest speaker at the evening function. The former Governor-General is now heading up a task force for what is being referred to as Australia’s water emergency. I probably would not go so far as to call it an absolute emergency. There is an emergency in some areas, which the member for Calare pointed out—in the Lachlan, for instance—but I think the former Governor-General is looking at ways in which we can adopt some of the technologies that are out there now so that in the future we have a better landscape that is more able to handle some of the adverse impacts that it has been wrestling with in recent years. One of the issues that came up at the conference was how, with the legislation before the House, the newly formed Murray-Darling Basin Authority will have to come to grips with, essentially, a water audit, a water budget and the end of alley caps in extraction and come up with a system that it believes will work long term. One of the terms in the legislation that crops up from time to time, which I do not believe has been defined adequately yet, is ‘interception’—or ‘diversion’. In its simplest form, we would imagine that means that if someone is extracting water from a system outside the legislation it would be deemed to be an interception of water that would in fact have gone to someone else had it not been intercepted. We have the simplistic view that some of that water will eventually flow out of the Murray mouth and cure the long-term ills of the Murray-Darling system. One of the questions that was raised on a number of occasions is: what if interception or diversion impedes some of the newer technologies which actually slow down water flows and put water into the soil? There are various no-till technologies, for instance, and many grazing technologies for greater grass cover et cetera. Part of the secret in the accumulation of humus and organic matter in the soil is that it allows more moisture in and embraces a better soil-water-carbon relationship, in a sense. Some of the landscape techniques are showing astonishing results. There is one that I intend to visit in the near future, Mulloon Creek, which is under the guidance of a person who many people would know of: Peter Andrews. Are some of the techniques which are being tried to restore the hydrology of particular landscapes going to be considered interceptions in the way in which the Murray-Darling Basin Authority deals with them? I do not know the answer to that. But, in the simplistic way in which the debate has gone, at the end of each valley we are going to have a number, and there will be arrangements within those valleys to account for the amount of water so that, theoretically at least, there will be some water at the end of the system. The buyback arrangements that we are voting the appropriation of today are part of that process. We are buying back water because the government believes that there was too much allocated and that the system is stressed. What system is stressed? That is the question. Is the system that we determined back in the mid-nineties as being the line in the sand in terms of the overallocation issues et cetera the system that is stressed? Or is the system that was there 100 years ago the system that is stressed? Or, if we return some of those landscapes essentially to where they were, and the hydrology and other things are better managed, will that system actually stress the accounting system that we are going to put in place through the Murray-Darling Basin Authority? Again, I do not know the answers to those questions, but I think we need to at least have the debate because some  farming systems have enormous capacity to slow down volumes of water. We seem to think of interception as building another dam. There are many things that the farm sector—and I am a farmer myself—can do to slow down water. In the carbon debate, the food debate, the soil erosion debate, the salinity debate and the whole range of other environmental debates, they are good things to try in order to slow down the pace of water, reduce soil loss, and other things. So again there is a collision course between a fairly simplistic policy, some sort of water accounting process and a landscape management process, and we really have not decided which way we are going to go on that. I congratulate those who organised the conference in Orange recently, particularly the former Governor-General and others for displaying leadership in this debate, and I urge all members of parliament and the bureaucracy to look at some of the things that these people are saying. Whether it be in the carbon debate or in the water debate, there is a degree of guilt being expressed by the bureaucracy for their lack of work in the last two or three decades. It was just assumed that soil and water are there, you grow things occasionally, people eat them, there is not much point in getting too excited about it and we will put our research dollars into a whole range of other things—and we have neglected the basics of life. If one positive has come out of the debate on emissions trading and climate change, in terms of those who want to eat, breathe and drink, it is that the basics of life are fairly significant. I think that not only the scientific community, in particular, but also the political community in terms of their potential to address many of the issues out there have very much ignored the non-city areas. Some of the policies that have come through in the last decade have been fairly simplistic in nature. Another issue that I want to raise is in relation to the Namoi Valley, and the member for Calare mentioned his concerns about the Namoi Valley. As you would be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker Saffin, the broader Namoi Valley, particularly the Liverpool Plains portion of it, has one of the greatest groundwater systems in Australia. It is part of the Murray-Darling system. We believe, but we do not have the scientific evidence in place, that the groundwater systems actually do relate to the surface water flows within the Namoi system, which eventually flow into the Darling system and part of the Murray system. We do not as yet really understand the science of that water. There was a very good program on Four Corners a few months back that looked at the issue of mining on these alluvial flood plains that are underpinned by these groundwater systems and at the lack of scientific knowledge of the way in which the planning process, which is a state based planning process, actually addresses that issue. There are two applications for mines on the Liverpool Plains, and they will be the first in those sorts of systems in the Murray-Darling system. In particular, I implore the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and others, particularly the political dimension that is interested in this issue, to have a look at what is going on here. Essentially, we have a state based planning process, which normally oversees the approval of mining plans. A difference has occurred in the last 12 months, and it concerns the Murray-Darling legislation that we passed—the 2008 or the 2007 Water Act that came through here—which gives the Commonwealth a much greater role in the determination of an activity such as mining in an area where it could have an adverse impact either environmentally or in other ways downstream. I would ask the parliament to note very carefully what is happening on that issue. If we leave that matter solely to a state based planning process under part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, then that particular planning instrument, in this case, will only look at the localised impacts of the mine. Just picture it for a moment: the top of the Murray-Darling system is the so-called Liverpool Range. About 120 kilometres of catchment along that range funnels to a point in a triangle, some 80 to 100 kilometres away, where it all has to go past all the surface water—and we believe that is mirrored by the groundwater—past a neck about six kilometres wide. Then it spreads out again across these vast flood plains for another 70 or 80 kilometres until it gets to Gunnedah, through to Boggabri, Narrabri, Walgett and eventually into the greater system. We have absolutely no idea what a longwall mine site will do to the hydrology of that system. We have no real understanding of the connectivity between those groundwater systems and the surface water. And here we are in this place making decisions about the end of valley caps that will accrue to these various valleys when we do not understand the science of what is going on underneath them. On top of that, we have a state based mining minister in New South Wales, who has recently been sacked—and for Premier Rees to have done that, I think, is a positive—who had carriage of agriculture and mining which, to start with, is a bit of a conflict, with income coming from exploration licences from mining. These licences on the Liverpool Plains should never have been granted without the full knowledge of what is going on with those groundwater systems. In the parliament earlier this year I moved an amendment to the Commonwealth Water Act which provided that, before exploration licences are granted, an independent scientific study is done to find out what is happening with the water and how it relates to the flood plain within the overall ambit of the act. It relates to what the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Senator Wong and others are attempting to do. That legislation was passed by the coalition and the National Party in this chamber. It went to the Senate, and an amendment was moved by Senator Bob Brown which was supported by the National Party and the Liberal Party. That gave them the numbers in the Senate for that amendment to come back to this place. The very next morning, after the Minerals Council of Australia got to the National Party senators, in particular, they changed their mind, reworked the wording so it duplicated the state based planning process and it has achieved absolutely nothing. So maybe Senator Brown and others could revisit that amendment again because there is now quite a degree of evidence showing that mining companies consider it an absolute joke. I would just like to spend a little bit of time on that. The then NSW mining minister, Ian Macdonald, who has just been sacked, only a few weeks ago refused to put money into an independent scientific study—which will go ahead, I am certain of that, irrespective of his money. Senator Wong, to her credit, was one of the first at the table in relation to putting money into this study, to actually study the science—$1½ million is on the table. The New South Wales government has said, ‘We’re not interested. We’re not putting any money in there.’ I would suggest that maybe Nathan Rees should have a good look at this matter again because the state does need to be part of this. If we really care about our water assistance, we have to find out what is happening in these various relationships within those systems. On top of that, I happened to attend one of the Senate committees that met in Gunnedah. The New South Wales Minerals Council’s Director of Environment and Community, Rachelle McDonald, answered a question from Senator Williams when he asked the Minerals Council delegate: You are familiar that the federal parliament has passed a regulation that before mining can be carried out in that country— —referring to Liverpool Plains— a fully independent water test must be carried out on those underground aquifers? On behalf of the Minerals Council—and I think this is the appropriate part because Senator Williams was trying to play himself up as having been part of some amendment in the Senate that actually meant something—Ms Macdonald said: I do believe that the majority of the NSW regulations actually meet the requirements of what was requested. She actually stated to a Senate inquiry that the very amendment that the Senate had put in place was just a joke; it had restated part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, which is a NSW act, and it is a tragedy that that has occurred. In terms of the third piece of proof that alludes to how weak that particular amendment has now become—and anybody who has taken the time to get legal opinion on it would know anyway—the Chinese company Shenhua, which has been granted one of these licenses on the Liverpool Plains—the other one being BHP—have said, in answer to questioning, that they will not comply with the federal legislation anyway; it means nothing to them and they are just going to proceed with part 3A of the state act. So we have an absurd situation developing where the New South Wales act used to be in place, but now we have the Murray-Darling Basin Act, and the two are not talking to each other. There needs to be an accounting process that takes into account the lack of science before we allow activities to occur in some of these very sensitive areas, otherwise the damage we do is done to not only the piece of land that they are talking about. I am not against coal mining; I live 800 metres from a coal mine. I am not opposed to coal mines, but I am opposed to potential damage being done before we understand the science of the water within this very delicate system. I think that is further complicated by the potential of climate change to impact on the inflows into that system. (Time expired) 12245 12:55:00 Ramsey, Rowan, MP HWS Grey LP 0 0 Mr RAMSEY —I rise to speak today on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 with special reference to both the pink batts program and the water issues. The insulation program—the pink batts program—has been a shemozzle since day one. HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr Perrett —Very popular. HWS Ramsey, Rowan, MP Mr RAMSEY —Very popular indeed with many of the shonks that are out there practising in this industry at the moment. It comes down to a situation where we have the good guys and the bad guys in the insulation industry, and I would like to take my hat off to those good guys who have been around for some time, providing good service to people in their communities. But the unprecedented rush has unfortunately led to some bad guys coming into the industry, people with no qualifications or prior experience. We have seen a flood of imported products into Australia, and Australian producers have had no hope of keeping up with the demand for insulation products, so we have seen much of this stimulus package go directly out the door, to South-East Asia. We have seen an influx of unqualified workmen. I have heard of people having as little as one hour of training, backpackers being sent into people’s ceilings. We have had house fires. Installers have covered up down lights without shielding them, leading to house fires. So really it has been a program out of control. A number of constituents have contacted me with serious issues regarding the quoting arrangements. One person showed me a quote for the removal of the old insulation, which is clearly contrary to the guidelines of the package—in fact, when they asked for the quote back, it had been altered, removing the line stipulating the old insulation be removed. That was the quote sent to the department. This is not an isolated case at all. One the other side, I spoke about the good guys—the fellows with the white hats—who have been providing service for years and who have entered into this scheme in good faith. Now, because of mismanagement, we are making another precipitous change to the legislation: $400 has been lopped off the top. This has left suppliers with unfulfillable contracts. Because of the shortage of supplies, they have not been able to complete the contracts before the cut-off date. I have in front of me a letter from one of my contractors, who states he has 140 accepted quotes and outstanding installations booked on the basis of the $1,600 rebate. It is not possible to facilitate all of these by 16 November 2009. Material supply has been problematic and scarce, particularly in the remote locations of Eyre Peninsula. Combined with the current extreme hot weather conditions, the 16 November 2009 cut-off is not practical. This particular company has spent more than $20,000 in printed literature, website content, vehicle signage, TV commercials and partnerships with third parties that made representations for the $1,600 rebate in accordance with the government eligibility criteria. In the letter he says: We have promoted our home insulation services in the $1,600 rebate to a significant number of customers in the belief that, should they meet the government’s eligibility criteria, they will then be entitled to a rebate of up to $1,600 as per the energy efficient homes program. The Trade Practices Act requires these traders to ensure that reasonable quantities of goods are available for a reasonable period of time and price, if the goods are advertised on sale. It makes no difference whether the business had intended to mislead or deceive the consumer; it is how the conduct of the business affected the consumer—their thoughts and beliefs—that matters. This is not the only contact I have. Another company that has over 200 outstanding contracts are wondering what their legal position is. Are they going to wear losses? Are they going to be compelled to complete these contracts? It is just a sign of the absolute mismanagement of the contract from day one forward. I turn my attention to the issues of water and the failures of water policy throughout Australia by this government. My electorate does not border the Murray, even though it goes very close, but it is largely supplied by Murray water. Murray water feeds the cities of Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla and certainly most of my electorate to the east of Spencer Gulf, so we have a great interest in the way the Murray is managed. It is with some bemusement that we remember how the premiers and the Prime Minister gathered to make the grand announcement about national control of the Murray. It reminded me a little of Chamberlain’s presentation after he went to prewar Germany and pronounced, ‘Peace in our time.’ It was a great breakthrough, this national management of the Murray! Why then, if it is such a wonderful arrangement that is working so well, is the South Australian government taking the Victorian government to court over the matter of water trading? It would appear that this wonderful national management is in fact highly deficient. We have national management on the never-never. That brings me to specific issues. In particular, if we are looking at water policy, the city of Port Pirie had proposed—along with the operators of the lead smelter in Port Pirie, Nyrstar—a water-recycling project which would have made an extra 1.3 gigalitres of water available and almost removed Nyrstar, as a major drawer on the Murray, as a consumer. In the lead-up to the last election, the coalition made a commitment to put $5 million into the project. Of course, it became an electoral issue in my electorate. In the period leading up to the election, the now Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Minister Albanese, actually made a commitment on local radio that, if elected, he would give the government’s most urgent attention to the water-recycling program in Port Pirie. He was recently on local radio again, and I rang up and asked the question: when were we expecting this urgent attention? To my great surprise, he chose to evade the question altogether and not give an answer. You would not want to be on the slow list if that is the urgent list. Two years on, it still has not received any attention at all. Just to give you a little background, I refer to a speech I gave earlier on this issue. Port Pirie has a long history in the lead- and zinc-smelting industry and has had a historical problem with blood lead levels in children. As I said: The current operator of the Port Pirie smelter, Nyrstar, is fully committed to its ten by 10 clean-up program, which aims to have the blood lead levels of 95 per cent of the children under five in Port Pirie below 10 milligrams per decilitre by 2010. Nyrstar’s commitment to this goal has seen the company invest $56 million towards the project, some $12 million in the local community. However, the company has made it clear that it must have the tools to do the job. The overriding issue to achieve this aim is the availability of an adequate water supply. Lead is transferred in the environment as dust, and the most important element in any dust abatement scheme is water. The greening of Port Pirie cannot continue without adequate supplies of water. At the moment one would have to assume that without significant action the city is more likely to face tightening water restrictions, not an increased supply. Port Pirie is currently 100 per cent reliant on the River Murray. The Port Pirie Regional Council and the Southern Flinders Ranges Regional Development Board, in conjunction with Nyrstar, have proposed a water-recycling project aimed at capturing the city’s two effluent streams, industrial and household, and returning 70 per cent of this water for reuse. This will produce 1,349 megalitres per annum. I once again ask Minister Albanese to come back to the commitment that he made in November 2007 and have an urgent look at this project. Another issue that I would like to bring up in conjunction with government water policy is the highly successful Community Water Grants program run under the previous government, which supported small communities in their efforts to capture and save water. This program was an enormous success. Just off the top of my head, I can name a couple of projects. At Arno Bay, in my electorate, where they have captured all the water off the local silos, they have lined dams with covers on them and now water all the playing surfaces in the town—the bowling green and the football oval—with that water. There is a similar situation in Kadina, where, on a council sponsored scheme, they have lined dams with covers. We have seen bowling clubs replace their turf surfaces with synthetics which leads to great savings in water. We now have the government’s program. Basically, if you do not have $4 million, do not apply. I cannot really believe the government intended to do this—to knock off a scheme that elicits so much community support, where people are prepared to produce so much more for the money because they will give in-kind support to their communities and their local clubs and where, for $50,000, you may well get a $200,000 project in the community. I ask the water minister to go back and have another look at that program and see if they can design something similar to support these small communities again, because, in the end, if they are drawing water off the Murray, it does not matter where you save the water; it will have the same effect. It will leave more water in the Murray. This is an appropriations bill, and many of those programs that I have talked about—in particular, the insulation program—lead you to wonder whether the government have the ability to manage the programs that they are currently implementing. I believe we have gone past $100 billion worth of net borrowing. On latest estimates, we are heading for $170 billion of net borrowing, and at this stage we still do not even have the $43 billion committed to the National Broadband Network factored into that, so there is a quite high possibility of passing $200 billion of debt. That brings me to some of the programs which are falling off the rails in a bad way. There is the Building the Education Revolution funding, which no doubt schools have been welcoming. Who wouldn’t welcome money being thrown in their direction? We have seen an inflation factor of 30 to 50 per cent in the building of those facilities. We have 30 per cent loading for upcountry installation in my electorate. We have local communities accepting buildings that they do not really want and tearing down buildings they did not want to tear down just to make sure they fall in line with the government’s commitment and get the money, which in the end they will have to pay back because they are taxpayers like the rest of us and they will be responsible for the debt. They are accepting these projects with a gun at their head. HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr Perrett —You didn’t have to apply. HWS Ramsey, Rowan, MP Mr RAMSEY —Of course, they did not have to apply. Looking gift-horses in the mouth, though, is not something any of us can afford to do. I explained to the school communities that they should try to get their share because they will certainly get their share of the debt and it is unlikely that any amount of money will be coming to schools again in the near future because we will be so far in debt for so long a while paying off this round. It comes back to the question: are we getting value for money? When we have seen the blow-out in the BER, the $900 cheques and the pink batts program—and I can do sums on the back of an envelope that will show you that the National Broadband Network will not stack up—are we getting value for money? The government has signalled it is going to put $43 billion into this. I pointed out to the House in a speech that in Finland, where 40 per cent of houses have 100 megabytes per second available, the take-up rate is 1.5 per cent and in Singapore, where 100 megabytes is available to 100 per cent of households, the take-up rate is one per cent. People are not prepared to pay 2½ or 3½ times the price of a monthly service so they can have 100 megabytes. They would prefer to have 10 megabytes for a cheaper rate. What is the government’s answer to this? The answer is the compulsory takeover of Telstra. There is no other way of reading the act—it is the compulsory takeover of Telstra. 10000 Saffin, Janelle (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms JA Saffin)—The honourable member for Grey might like to return to home insulation. HWS Ramsey, Rowan, MP Mr RAMSEY —I can return to home insulation, but these are appropriations bills. I think even you, Madam Deputy Speaker, would rule it fair that mismanagement of government programs in other areas actually limits their ability to present on water and insulation programs. In effect, the mismanagement is impacting on those schemes that I started on. But I can wind up my speech on this matter and return to insulation. We do have a shemozzle on our hands, as I said at the outset. It would appear that the minister has not paid enough attention to the design of the program and now is having to make changes, and those changes will severely disadvantage the good installers, who were there all along, and place them in a position where they may be liable to complete jobs that they will lose money on. That is a great concern to me and a great concern to them, and I bring their concerns to this chamber. 12249 13:10:00 Ley, Sussan, MP 00AMN Farrer LP 0 0 Ms LEY —I am pleased to make some comments on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. These programs have both been mismanaged by the government. I would like to address my remarks to the detail of that mismanagement and how it has played out in my electorate of Farrer. First, I will deal with the home insulation assistance package. I would like to quote a letter from John Simpson from Broken Hill. He is a registered installer under this program. He has become enormously frustrated by the changes that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has made that are unwarranted and particularly bad for rural constituents. Mr Simpson wrote to me that he has had the communication that has changed the rules of how the home insulation package will work. Following that, he spent a whole night folding and addressing envelopes to 350 people on his quotation register. He mailed them out the next day to alert them to the changes. He said: On 1/11/09 Mr. Garrett has changed the rules regarding these home insulation rebates. Where a consumer was once eligible for assistance up to $1,600.00 that assistance has now suddenly been reduced to $1,200.00. According to my latest email from Dept Env. the transitional arrangements for our consumers/customers who have accepted their quote prior to Nov 2/2009 will have until 16/11/09 to have their insulation installed or forfeit $400.00 of their rebate. I have approximately 300 people who have loyally stood by me as their reputable installer, and believed/trusted me when I have told them to the best of my knowledge that the status quo will remain and as long as they are registered by me supplying them with a quote and them accepting that quote their home will be insulated according to what has been quoted. My source for these comments is the Department for The Environment installers and consumers hot lines. In October we received two deliveries of insulation product which enabled us to install to eight properties. The people that were lucky enough to have the installation completed were the next chronologically in our quotation book who would accept the drastically increased cost of the insulation. We have been given two weeks to stand by our Governments promises for the installation of insulation for the customers that believed they were getting a $1,600.00 rebate. An example of how this creates a major imbalance for us as installers is during the first week of July I inspected and quoted approximately 50 new insulation jobs that were accepted. That situation continued for about 3 more weeks then began to slow down a bit. Based on the price I was quoting at then about 95% of these properties were under the $1,600.00 rebate so word travelled like fire as it does in a regional community, and I had to hire someone to help me keep up with the demand to get our inspections and quotes done to satisfy consumer demand. You would think that the rebate is working the way it is supposed to: people are getting their homes insulated and local businesses are getting a stimulus. My constituent said: This means for the month of July & August I submitted and had accepted approximately 250 quotes. All of these people believed me, and so subsequently their Government, that they would be getting as assistance only enough money to have their home insulated. Today they have to accept whether they like it or not that they now have to have their quotes not worth the paper they are written on, and that they will lose 25% of their rebate simply because they live in a regional area and cannot be supplied materials let alone at a reasonable rate. The government authors of the program do not understand that you cannot provide materials in a town like Broken Hill at the same price as you can on the eastern seaboard. The letter continues: What should have happened is that the coastal city people should have had their rebates reduced to $900.00 and regional Australians get a special exemption to apply for additional assistance to an amount of say $2,000.00 subject to their remoteness. This would have put the money where most of the increases have occurred and keep our precious tax money working to the maximum benefit of the majority of the population. What is really annoying me— says Mr Simpson— is that to stimulate the Australian economy my east coast contemporaries are buying CHINESE product by the millions of dollars worth, and our Australian manufacturers are languishing behind because understandably they couldn’t put their expansion process in place in time, and if they had the money [it] would have been lost because the Government have and are causing a massive slow down and lack of confidence. … how can I explain to the 300 people that have trusted me and their Government that they will lose 25% of their rebate, and have to find an additional 36% above their quoted price because the rules have changed and I can’t get stock at a reasonable price. I could not have put it better myself, which is why I have included Mr Simpson’s comments in my remarks today. And there is another aspect to this: if you run a small business in a small town, you take very seriously the trust and the faith placed in you by the people who you meet down the street, who you play sport with and whose children your children go to school with. That trust and faith underpin your business. To have to turn around and say, ‘I’m sorry the rules have changed; I can’t do anything about it; like it or lump it,’ is a double whammy for somebody who takes their customers seriously and works very hard on their behalf. The second part of this appropriation bill deals with water. I was in Hay on the weekend celebrating with that town their 150th anniversary, and it was a fantastic event. I think the events are going over three weeks. I watched the parade come past in what was probably 42 degree heat. It was certainly very warm for those involved. But every single float put in maximum effort, and it was fabulous. But Hay has been badly hurt by this government’s water buyback. The opposition leader came down to Berrigan, a town not very far from Hay, a few days ago and talked to farmers, irrigators and rural community members about their experiences of this current buyback. The consistent message that we received was that, because the Minister for Climate Change and Water has approached this in a haphazard and ad hoc way, there is no planning relating to the buyback. So what farmers say to me is, ‘If the government had said, “We would like to acquire X gigalitres of water, because that is our policy and we believe we have important wetlands to water, but we will come to you as communities and ask you for a plan of how we might best recover that water,” then that would have been the way to go about it.’ Instead, what this government has done is ignore the structures that have been set in place to manage irrigation processes, the irrigation companies and small trusts—some are looking after only a handful of small irrigators—and ignore the architecture and the structure of water delivery and has gone straight to the farmers via an offer which essentially says: ‘We, the Australian government, would like to buy your water, and you may put in a tender price and we might buy your water.’ I will leave aside the extraordinary difficulties of the way that that tender process worked, which involved farmers having to second-guess where the government was coming from and being told, ‘The price that you have suggested is too high; if you go a bit lower we might take it,’ though that in itself was disastrous. Leaving the process aside, the effect is as follows. Take an irrigation system or a company. Some of the farmers that are scattered throughout the channel delivery systems of such a corporation might, for example, want to sell their water, and others might not. The government, in purchasing that water, has no idea of the location, the delivery, the cost and the mechanism of transmission or the overall effect on the community. So we have what is commonly called the Swiss-cheese effect: some channels have sold their water; some channels have not; some people are left stranded at the ends of channels, and expensive water-delivery mechanisms have to be continued in order to get a small amount of water to travel a large distance to look after their interests. If only the government had started from the premise of: ‘Let’s plan this. Let’s work out how we can cut off certain areas, or encourage people in a district to move out of irrigated agriculture’—and these would be the more marginal and difficult areas—‘then, if we take that approach, we can buy the same amount of water, own the same amount of water, under our current policy, but do it in a way that ensures the survival and the sustainability of rural communities and farmers and, of course, food production’—which is, as we know, the very basis of all of this; it is about producing food. So that was the message that we received and that I continue to receive as a local member for irrigated agriculture districts: that it is most unfortunate that the government has gone about its water buyback without a plan. Not far from Hay is the Lachlan River. I have spoken in the House before about a decision, which was probably inevitable, to cut off the lower Lachlan at Condobolin, given the drastically low levels of water in Wyangala Dam, and my colleague the member for Parkes spoke very well about this earlier today. We are now finding some assistance being provided to the town of Booligal, which is good, and some bores being put in for the small communities along the lower Lachlan. But there is nothing for farmers who may have relied on that water for stock and domestic purposes. I would ask the government and the minister for agriculture to seriously consider introducing an emergency stock and domestic water grant for those who are completely stranded at the moment. We recognise that the lower section of the river has to lose out to save the water that would essentially be lost in being transmitted that great distance anyway. They have accepted that and recognise their role in that, but what they need is an emergency stock and domestic water grant that would enable them to have some government funding to, say, put in a bore for stock and domestic purposes. Otherwise, they do not know how they are going to get through the next few months. I am in communication with the minister for agriculture’s office, and such a grant is what I am very hopeful that he and his department will seriously consider. It is similar to the irrigation grant that the previous government had, but in this case it is not aimed necessarily at irrigators but at people who rely on the channel and the river for their stock and domestic water. If you visit those areas you will see how people have had to lose their gardens, they have lost their access to watering points for their stock—and that often means they have to move their stock away—and they are facing three or four months of the sort of heat that we are experiencing out there today. I do not think it is too much for government to step forward with a very modest water grant, which would probably have to be matched by the farmer. It would work well to alleviate this great stress. Irrigators are asking the New South Wales government for help with fair fixed charges. They are making the point that, in the Lachlan, the New South Wales government has waived fixed water charges. We thank them for that, but there are irrigators all over the state who are paying for fixed water charges when they are not actually receiving any water. As one farmer said, ‘Well, the government wouldn’t expect people in the cities to pay their water bill and only get some or none of what they paid for.’ The Murray Valley currently has an allocation of 10 per cent after being on zero allocations for several years. But during all of those years farmers were required to pay for the fixed cost of maintaining infrastructure. It comes back to my point: if the government water buyback was done according to a plan, we could probably downsize that irrigation infrastructure, but we cannot. Facing farmers in the Murray Valley is the Basin Plan, which the minister talks about continually. We are quite anxious about what this plan, which is being developed in consultation with the CSIRO, will mean for local farmers because it will set limits. I make the point that, while we as a previous government initiated this planning process, I believe that we would have taken the contributions made by the CSIRO as advice and an input into government policy. I am certainly quite fearful that the present government will take that advice as gospel and it will involve a sudden and dramatic limiting of water allocations for farmers—again, with no planning process in place. It is coming up again in, I think, 2013. There are mega-millions of dollars that have been allocated to this process, so one would hope that it is thorough. But at no stage have I been assured that the perspective of food production, farmers, rural communities and sustainable rural communities will have any input into that plan or will be considered. It is purely about determining a limit on extractions from the southern Murray-Darling Basin. While we appreciate the need for those environmental planning processes to go ahead, it is very important that it is done in conjunction with input from the rural communities. What we constantly see from Canberra and the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts is a very poor level of understanding about how water policy affects local people. I think one of the problems—maybe it is the budget—is that it prevents those who manage this environmental water from actually travelling to regions and seeing for themselves. You do not even have to actually talk to a single farmer if you do not want to, but you do have to take an engineer with you or somebody who can explain to you—and a very good map—how these river systems work. If that had happened, for example, with the water buyback purchase in the Lachlan, we would not have seen $500,000 being spent on water to return to the Murray when we know that the Lachlan almost never reaches the Murrumbidgee and, as a consequence, reaches the Murray. So while members of the government were trumpeting this as a great result for the Lower Lakes and a great result for South Australia, it was actually technically infeasible. I would therefore encourage those who have responsibility for water in the government to send out people from Canberra to make it their business to understand how the rivers run in western New South Wales. It is not the tradition of the opposition to block bills that deal with supply. So, in spite of having very serious reservations about the purpose of these appropriations, we of course in the opposition make our remarks and will not block the bill. I thank the House. 12253 13:26:00 Hull, Kay, MP 83O Riverina NATS 0 0 Mrs HULL —I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010. I want to focus on the issue of water as I come from the Riverina, which is a highly irrigated area and a highly successful area. I want to commence my contribution today by reading from the Coleambally Observer dated Wednesday, 25 February 2009—an article which commences: The Federal Government’s $2 billion water buyback scheme is a taxpayer-funded “tsunami” that threatens to wash away jobs and clause in the terrible damage to local farming communities, according to the Riverina and Murray Regional Organisation of Councils (RAMROC). RAMROC have pretty much got it right. I have the letter that RAMROC sent to the Prime Minister of this country, dated 1 July 2008, in which they succinctly put the problem. I am going to quote from this letter to the Prime Minister from the chair of RAMROC because something has got to twig the conscience of the government on this issue. Rather than me constantly standing in the House and appealing for common sense for the electorate I represent—and other electorates, of course—I will talk to this letter. I am going to quote from this letter substantially. The letter is, as I said, dated 1 July 2008 to the Prime Minister: Dear Prime Minister, Murray Darling Basin —Water for the Future Program and Acquisition of Irrigation Water Entitlements - COAG Meeting Thursday 31rd July 2008 It was a major concern at that time. The reason I raise this is that nothing has changed. The concerns that were outlined in this correspondence were: The buyback program currently is not substantiated by any detailed business planning, milestones, benchmarks or performance measures; There has been virtually nil consultation with irrigators, councils and affected communities; There seems to be no scientific justification of how much water actually needs to be acquired for environmental purposes. That is still a fact. The letter continues: The Living Murray programs initially targeted 500 GL as being sufficient to meet environmental demands, but these have now advanced to an estimated 1500GL, with recent indications from environmental groups suggesting that up to 3,000 GL may be required; Furthermore, Government officers can give no indication of how much water needs to be acquired from the various irrigation areas throughout the MDB system. Surely these are the basic and fundamental starting points to be determined before any further acquisitions are to take place; In perspective terms, 3,000 GL is equivalent to the whole of the normal annual diversions in the Murrumbidgee and the NSW side of the Murray; If used for rice production, 3,000 GL is equivalent to feeding 53 million people one full rice meal per day each year—a significant impact against the backdrop of world wide food shortages and spiralling food prices To transfer 3,000 GL from agricultural production to the environment is estimated to remove $28 billion annually (2.9%) of Australia’s GDP. It could very well decimate irrigated agricultural production in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys, with consequent repercussions of business downturn, reduction in employment, stranded assets, loss of critical community services and inevitable population decline; The letter goes on to say: Huge advances have already been made in irrigation efficiency over recent years. Therefore, opportunities for achieving additional water savings for the environment from irrigation infrastructure and operational practices are declining. Unfortunately this has resulted in a stronger focus towards water entitlement acquisitions, but with scant regard for the other non-environmental consequences; Further, the letter says: There simply has to be an opportunity provided for honest and transparent scientific debate and comprehensive community consultation and input. Certainly healthy river environments are important, but equally important are the long term sustainability of the nation’s agricultural production, regional development and the future wellbeing of our rural communities. There needs to be full and detailed studies carried out on the socio economic impacts on communities, including such issues as investment confidence, business sustainability, regional development, loss of employment, stranded irrigation assets, reductions in government and private facilities and services, effects on Australia’s food production capacity vis-a-vis worldwide food shortages and other third party flow on effects. The letter then says that there needs to be ‘an acceptable balance between the environment, water related agricultural development, regional economies and sustainable prosperous rural communities’ and that we should be looking at ‘alternative options’. As I said, this letter is dated 1 July 2008 and nothing has changed—except another year of pain, heartache and uncertainty for the irrigation entitlement holders in the electorate of Riverina. I bring to the attention of the House that not one of these irrigators has done anything wrong. John Oxley, when he made his first expedition into the Riverina, said: ‘This is a wild and dusty area. Nothing could be developed here. Nothing could grow here. It is just a wilderness. It is a dry and dusty bowl.’ That was his first impression of the area. He could not wait to get out of there. And then, with the advent of the Snowy hydro scheme, past governments had a vision for this area. The scheme had two purposes: to generate electricity and to ensure agricultural production through the provision of downstream irrigation from the Murrumbidgee River. That ‘dry and dusty bowl’ was converted into one of the greatest areas of food production in Australia and became one of the greatest contributors to Australia’s GDP. It is undoubtedly the food bowl of the nation—but it has been struggling, and it is painful to watch that struggle year after year. We heard today of the possibility of growers and government both contributing to projects. The idea is that the government would give some money and the growers and the entitlement holders would put in place certain measures. Might I say that the efficiencies gained in the Riverina over the past 12 years have been significant and it is now virtually impossible to get further efficiencies from on-farm use. The Riverina has had the worst 10 years since the forties. The people who remain there are the best of the best in the world. They have created the on-farm irrigation efficiencies and they have received absolutely no credit for it. They have spent billions of dollars, as have the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments, on efficiency programs. There is an investment in regional Australia worth billions and billions of dollars. Growers and producers who have been in drought year after year have eaten so far into their equity that they will not have enough money to match any federal funding. Federal funding must not be tied to matching funds. If federal funding is on a dollar-for-dollar basis, if there has to be matching funding from growers, restructure and modernisation simply cannot happen. The pain that these growers have endured must be recognised. Growers need to give themselves a future, and that future is to produce food that will feed a starving world. Hundreds and thousands of orange trees and fruit frees have been pulled out of the ground in my electorate. I have vineyards whose water has been cut off. We have planted rice this year—for the first year in four or five years—and maybe we will get 174,000 tonnes. Rice is a sensational crop. It uses water only when water is available, but from the Riverina alone it feeds over 40 million people a day. Rice is a crop which has been badly maligned; instead, it should be recognised for the contribution it makes. I support what the chair of RAMROC said. They have implemented a water for food program, a sensational program. They have got off their collective behinds and are doing something constructive to try to convince the government that the production of food is very important. I turn now to ‘Secure Future for Food’, a presentation made by Professor Bill Bellotti, the Vincent Fairfax Chair in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development at the University of Western Sydney. In that presentation, Professor Bellottie said rural communities are at breaking point, irrigation communities are without water and there is an issue with food security. He talked about the estimated population shifts in rural and urban regions—the massive growth in urban population and the decline in rural population. He talked about how greater urbanisation will increase global trade in basic food commodities. He also talked about future food production imperatives—as outlined in a CSIRO report in 2009. Some weeks ago, I attended a dinner in the Speaker’s Office with the head of CSIRO, who said the challenge to produce enough food will be greater over the next 50 years than in all human history. The fact is that that is the case, but what are we doing about securing food for the future? Professor Bellotti talked about Australia’s role in global food security. Australian farmers feed 60 million people. We export up to 80 per cent of what we produce. We also export agricultural technology and know-how—farming in variable climates, in fragile and infertile soils, and science and practice partnerships. Professor Bellotti said food security was about the ability of individuals, households and communities to acquire appropriate and nutritious food on a regular and reliable basis using socially acceptable means. Food security is determined by the food supply in a community and whether people have adequate resources and skills to acquire and access that food. Professor Bellotti talked about the breakdown of people who are without food. He said the average Australian daily energy intake is 3,150 calories per capita per day and the main sources—wheat, sugar, milk and meat—make up to 50 per cent of the total. He said the proportion of our food energy which is produced in the Sydney basin is only 3.5 per cent of our average good energy consumption. Basically we have an urban/rural divide. The city depends on rural communities for its very survival. There is no city without the country—and that is the appeal. It is the truth of the matter. Leadership is not being shown. There is no socioeconomic review done on the effects on communities. School teachers are now leaving all of my communities. The number of students entering our rural and regional schools is dropping massively simply because we are now the most marginalised people. I cannot just sit in this House and watch as more and more of our lifestyle and more and more of the nation’s opportunity to produce food, not only for this nation but for our Asia-Pacific nations and for the world in general, is eroded away by buybacks which simply have no basis to them. I cannot just sit here without answers to the questions posed by the Chair of RAMROC in his correspondence to the Prime Minister wherein he asked specific questions and leading questions—the most obvious and reasonable questions. I simply cannot support this appropriation legislation and abide by the determinations being made by the Minister for Climate Change and Water at this point. I urge her to reconsider and to understand the issues of rural communities and the world’s need for food. 12256 13:44:00 Kelly, Mike, MP HRI Eden-Monaro ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support and Parliamentary Secretary for Water 1 0 Dr KELLY —I thank all members of the House for their contribution to the debate on this legislation. The Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 is required to provide urgent funding to continue rebate payments made through the home insulation program. This bill is in response to the current uptake rate for the home insulation program and confirms the success of one of the government’s stimulus package measures in supporting jobs in the manufacturing industry, in installer job creation and in associated logistics. More than 500,000 Australian households have already installed ceiling insulation, putting them on a path to reductions of up to 40 per cent in their heating and cooling costs. This bill also provides funding associated with the acceleration of the water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system that are addressed in the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. 12256 Dr KELLY (Eden-Monaro —Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support and Parliamentary Secretary for Water) 13:45:00 —by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 12256 Bills R4247 12256 Debate resumed from 18 November, on motion by Mr Tanner: That this bill be now read a second time. 12256 13:46:00 Kelly, Mike, MP HRI Eden-Monaro ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support and Parliamentary Secretary for Water 1 0 Dr KELLY —I thank honourable members for their contribution to the debate on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010. I acknowledge the comments from my good friend the member for Riverina but note that in this my own portfolio I have seen the effect of the water savings in relation to the impact on environmental aspects to do with our river and wetlands issues in the Murray-Darling Basin. I just recently visited the Hata lakes with the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, and saw the recovery of that area and the great benefits obtained from that for the environment and tourism. There is a balance to be achieved here and we are working towards that. We have the four aspects of policy that we are pursuing: tackling the issue of climate change primarily, working towards securing our water future, using water wisely and restoring health to our rivers. These measures are directed at achieving that. Certainly, in my own electorate of Eden Monaro, with the Snowy River being such a critical issue, we are directing great resources to achieving the health of that river for the benefit of our community and our economy. It is about achieving that balance and this legislation will assist us to accelerate that effort. The Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 is required to provide urgent funding for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to accelerate water buybacks within the Murray-Darling Basin system. The objective of the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program is to purchase water entitlements to restore the environmental health of the Murray-Darling Basin system and to smooth the transition to the lowest sustainable diversion limits anticipated in the new basin plan. To date, the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program has secured the purchase of more than 600 gigalitres of water entitlements. The funding being brought forward in this bill will enable a further acceleration of environmental water purchasing and provide for new water purchase initiatives in 2009 and 2010. We are purchasing from willing sellers and we are, at the same time, pursuing efficiencies and productivity measures in on-farm and off-farm irrigation infrastructure investment. Getting the balance right is what this government is all about. This bill will help to achieve that objective. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. 12257 Dr KELLY (Eden-Monaro —Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support and Parliamentary Secretary for Water) 13:48:00 —by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 12257 Bills R4206 12257 Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented. Ordered that this bill be considered immediately. Bill agreed to. 12257 Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga —Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) 13:49:00 —by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 12257 Bills R4228 12257 Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented. Ordered that this bill be considered immediately. Bill agreed to. 12258 Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga —Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) 13:50:00 —by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 12258 Bills R4202 12258 Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented. Ordered that this bill be considered immediately. Bill agreed to. 12258 Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga —Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) 13:51:00 —by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 12258 Bills R4194 12258 Debate resumed from 9 September, on motion by Mr Marles: That this bill be now read a second time. 12258 13:52:00 Sullivan, Jon, MP HVS Longman ALP 1 0 Mr SULLIVAN —I will not spend a great deal of time continuing on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Tertiary Admission Centres) Bill 2009, given the proximity to question time. I had wanted to discuss today matters of education in my electorate, but in deference to the member for Corangamite, who has not yet had an opportunity to speak on this bill, I will confine myself to one last thought. Before the interruption I was speaking about the fact that I wanted Queensland and all other states to move to becoming reform states in the area of VET. I wanted to make one point about my electorate of Longman. The electorate of Longman ranks 137 out of 150 electorates in Australia in the number of people aged over 15 who have a post-secondary qualification. We are very short on post-secondary qualifications in Longman, and I believe that in becoming a reform state—if we can encourage Queensland to do that—we will be able to make a much bigger hole in that shortage, particularly in a world where we know we need skills training to proceed into the future. Those who wanted to hear a great speech from me on education in the electorate of Longman will have to wait for another occasion. 12258 13:53:00 Cheeseman, Darren, MP HW7 Corangamite ALP 1 0 Mr CHEESEMAN —I want to rise to my feet on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Tertiary Admission Centres) Bill 2009 to briefly put on record my appreciation of the absolutely outstanding contribution the Minister for Education, the Hon. Julia Gillard, has made to the education debate over the last few years. We were left by the previous government with an absolute train wreck in education policy. We know academics were bullied and gagged, institutions were bullied and gagged, student debt soared and student services were decimated by the previous government. Student course mobility and profitability suffered, and overall student funding to institutions was slashed. In that small contribution, I would like to commend the minister for her reforming zeal. 12258 13:54:00 Marles, Richard, MP HWQ Corio ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry 1 0 Mr MARLES —in reply—The Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Tertiary Admission Centres) Bill 2009 amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003, as part of the Australian government’s extension of the VET FEE-HELP assistance scheme to provide more students with assistance from 1 July 2009. This scheme provides financial assistance to students to ensure those wanting to study diploma and above qualifications in the vocational education and training sector are able to make real choices about their training without the burden of paying upfront fees. The scheme assists these students by giving them access to a loan for all or part of their tuition costs. In the context of the government’s commitment to increasing Australia’s skill levels and COAG’s target to double the number of diploma and advanced diploma completions by 2020, the government has extended VET FEE-HELP to provide more students with access to financial assistance. As part of that extension, eligible state government subsidised students will have a reduced VET FEE-HELP debt. This bill implements these changes for all eligible students from 1 July 2009, ensuring no eligible students are disadvantaged. In addition, the bill includes technical amendments to ensure that tertiary admissions centres are able to perform certain functions in relation to personal information on behalf of both higher education and VET providers. This will ensure that all student information shared between the department, universities, VET providers and tertiary admission centres is protected by the appropriate privacy safeguards. These measures are part of the government’s commitment to ensuring that higher education and VET providers continue to play a leading role in equipping Australians with the knowledge and skills to make Australia a more productive and prosperous nation. I commend this bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. 12259 Mr MARLES (Corio —Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry) 13:57:00 —by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 12259 Bills R4226 12259 Debate resumed from 22 October, on motion by Mr Brendan O’Connor: That this bill be now read a second time. 12259 13:58:00 Ley, Sussan, MP 00AMN Farrer LP 0 0 Ms LEY —The coalition supports the Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2009, which is to amend the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to incorporate alterations that have been considered in customs tariff proposals tabled in the House of Representatives during 2009. There are three customs tariff proposals, and they are these. Customs tariff proposal No. 1 is to create a new concessional item 41H in schedule 4 to the Customs Tariff Act. Customs tariff proposal No. 2 is to amend rates of customs duty for certain alcohol and tobacco products in schedule 7 of the customs tariff, Chilean originating goods. Customs tariff proposal No. 4 is to amend rates of customs duty for certain beer and grape wine products. Schedule 1 of the bill creates a new concessional item, 41H, in schedule 4 to the Customs Tariff Act. Item 41H provides duty free entry to Australia for goods for use in the testing, quality control, manufacturing, evaluation or engineering development of motor vehicles designed or engineered in Australia but not necessarily manufactured in Australia. The new item will encourage automotive manufacturers to undertake design and engineering work for the international automotive market, as well as reduce administrative costs in importing such equipment. Schedule 2 of the bill amends rates of duty for certain alcohol and tobacco products that are imported under the Australia-Chile free trade agreement. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed. 12260 Ministerial Arrangements 12260 14:00:00 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 0 Mr RUDD —I inform the House that today the Minister for Home Affairs will be absent from question time as he is attending the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management in Perth. The Attorney-General will answer questions on his behalf. 12260 14:00:00 Questions Without Notice 12260 14:00:00 12260 Turnbull, Malcolm, MP 885 Wentworth LP Leader of the Opposition 0 Mr TURNBULL —My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his persistent denial of a special deal to entice the 78 asylum seekers from the Oceanic Viking. If the arrangements were standard, as he claims, why was the deal considered and approved by the border protection subcommittee of cabinet before the offer was put to the asylum seekers? 12260 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 Mr RUDD —The border protection committee of the cabinet considers the operational application of standard policy of the government on border protection. Our approach is very clear when it comes to dealing with people smugglers. It is a hardline approach, and that is one which has already seen the incarceration of people smugglers, it has seen the prosecution of people smugglers, it has seen also those which are currently before the courts, and we have had a large number of those indeed. Also, our approach is consistent in terms of being responsible in dealing with genuine asylum seekers, as is our policy in sending back home those who do not qualify as genuine refugees. That is our approach, and that is the policy which has been applied by the border protection committee in its dealings with this matter. 9V5 Pyne, Chris, MP Mr Pyne —Mr Speaker, on a point of order on relevance: as the Prime Minister has so obviously been caught red-handed, it might be better for him just to sit down. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The member for Sturt is warned! Opposition members interjecting— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —It is very early, but he actually understands the ramifications of it. The Prime Minister has the call and the Prime Minister is responding to the question. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, because the question directly went to the operations of the border protection committee of the cabinet and its implementation of government policy and the application of that policy to individual circumstances. What I sought to explain to the Leader of the Opposition and to the Manager of Opposition Business, had he been interested in the substance of it and not in the politics of it, was precisely how that policy of the government applied to people smugglers, how it applied to genuine refugees, how it applied to those who had not obtained refugee status and were sent back home. That is our approach. That is our policy. What we have said from day one is that the Australian government would not succumb to any demands that these individuals on this vessel be processed in Australia, despite the recommendations of a number of those on the Liberal side of politics. Instead, what we did from day one was to say that these individuals on this vessel would be processed in Indonesia. That is precisely what has occurred, and that is the application and implementation of the government’s policy as it relates to this individual vessel. That is our approach. That is our policy. What are the alternatives? The alternatives are: firstly, political opportunism; secondly, a policy-free zone; and, thirdly, a fear campaign. Also, a policy record which saw nearly 250 boats arrive in this country carrying nearly 15,000 people, 90 per cent of those issued with temporary protection visas by the previous government having ended up in Australia, 60 per cent of those who were sent on the ‘Pacific solutions’ having come to Australia also as permanent residents and, on top of that, the sorry record of children behind razor wire. Our approach is clear. We have implemented our policy. Those opposite do not have a policy. They simply are engaging in the politics of fear for the reasons they know too well. 12261 12261 14:04:00 Cheeseman, Darren, MP HW7 Corangamite ALP 1 Mr CHEESEMAN —My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the impact of climate change on the frequency of extreme weather events and Australia’s domestic response to climate change through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme? 12261 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 Mr RUDD —I thank the honourable member for his question. It is interesting that he raises a question on climate change because, in the midst of the debate on climate change in the parliament, I am advised it is some 30 days since we have had any questions in this parliament from those opposite on climate change. I am told it is considerably longer since we have had a question on the economy. And I am told it is in fact many, many days indeed since we have had a question on education and whole other areas of concern to working families everywhere. The question goes to the current weather circumstances in Australia. I would say to those opposite, particularly the climate change deniers and sceptics opposite, that, as one of the hottest and driest inhabited continents on earth, Australia’s environment and economy will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we do not act now, act globally and act nationally. At its very core, climate change is about rising global temperatures. DYN Jensen, Dennis, MP Dr Jensen —Zero! 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —Fact 1: globally, 13 of the 14 warmest years on record occurred between 1995 and 2008. DYN Jensen, Dennis, MP Dr Jensen —Since 2001: down! 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —I assume from the interjecting member from Western Australia that it is simply a coincidence that 13 of the 14 warmest years on record occurred between 1995 and 2008. Fact No. 2 is that Australia has experienced warmer than average annual temperatures for 17 of the last 19 years. Again, that would just be an unhappy coincidence on the part of those who interject from opposition benches. Third, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, for the first two weeks of November much of south-east Australia has experienced daytime temperatures more than six degrees centigrade above average, with temperatures peaking in the range 39 to 45 degrees across most inland areas. I draw the House’s attention also, importantly, to what the Bureau of Meteorology is saying about the week right now. The Bureau of Meteorology weather forecast indicates for the week 16 to 20 November we are likely to see these conditions continue with temperatures in the range of 40 to 45 degrees becoming widespread. DYN Jensen, Dennis, MP Dr Jensen —Not in Perth. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —He intervenes, ‘Not in Perth,’ as if an extreme weather event in Victoria is irrelevant or an extreme weather event in South Australia is irrelevant. I would remind the member from Western Australia, whatever his electorate might be, that this is the national parliament. We have national obligations. He might not think we have a responsibility to nationally act on climate change, but he exists on a different planet with a shade cloth happily extended above it. This is what the data says. Furthermore, can I draw the House’s attention to this: Melbourne, last night, recorded its highest temperature for a November night since records ever began, and that outstripped the previous record set in 1901 by almost two degrees. It is 43 degrees in Adelaide today and, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, Adelaide has experienced the first spring heatwave ever since its records began in 1887. I presume that the interjecting members over there, the climate change sceptics up the back and the absolute deniers in the centre over there, would say all of these are merely unhappy coincidences. There is a string of unhappy coincidences in the data and you can either choose to embrace what the science says or simply deny what it says and therefore take no action. The Bureau of Meteorology said last night ‘the fire danger levels were into the severe range for a number of hours’. That was Mr Philip King of the Bureau of Meteorology. In these conditions I would encourage all Australians to listen carefully to what the fire authorities have to say. Let us go also to what the science has said through documents, including by the CSIRO, in the period when the Leader of the Opposition was the minister responsible for the environment. The CSIRO Climate change in Australia: technical report 2007—not ancient history, not even mediaeval history but quite modern history; in fact, only a couple of years ago when he opposite was in fact the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources—says: Projections for Australia include increases in the frequency of heatwaves; increases in the frequency and length of drought conditions … and a substantial increase in fire-weather risk in south-eastern Australia. DYN Jensen, Dennis, MP Dr Jensen interjecting— 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —I am constantly stunned. It is as if we are back into the trial of Galileo or something and they are simply arguing somehow that the science is fiction and that they alone, in their own prejudiced universe, occupy fact. We are back almost in a mediaeval court when it comes to the mediaeval approaches adopted by those opposite. No wonder the Leader of the Opposition has such a hard time. If you have got to put up with that, mate, I have sympathy for you, I really do. Opposition members interjecting— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! SJ4 Tuckey, Wilson, MP Mr Tuckey interjecting— 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —Malcolm, if I had to put up with that, frankly, there would be real challenges. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The Prime Minister will get back to the question. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —This is from the CSIRO when you were the environment minister: Projections for Australia include increases in the frequency of heatwaves … the frequency and length of drought conditions … And further it says: … and a substantial increase in the fire-weather risk in south-eastern Australia. The CSIRO also forecasts that over the next 20 years there will be up to 20 per cent more drought months over most of Australia and, by 2070, up to 40 per cent more drought months are projected in eastern Australia and up to 80 per cent more in south-western Australia. That is what the CSIRO said in 2007, the CSIRO reporting when the Leader of the Opposition was in fact the environment minister. Those opposite I would strongly challenge to actually embrace what the science says and the responsibility— 885 Turnbull, Malcolm, MPMr Turnbull—Mr Speaker, a point of order: on the question of the Prime Minister’s gestures, offensive gestures are not allowed. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. 885 Turnbull, Malcolm, MP Mr Turnbull —He has a number of gestures. There is the dead spider; we know about that. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Honourable members interjecting— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! Those on my left will settle down. The Leader of the Opposition is testing the chair’s patience. I simply say to the Leader of the Opposition: if he is being distracted by this he might like to go and watch it outside. To the whole chamber: there is one law of physics—for every action there is a reaction. We may be seeing that today. The Prime Minister will resume his response to the question and start on the concluding aspects of his response. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —Of course we are deeply concerned about the sensitivities of those opposite on climate change. But there is hope: our good friend and colleague the member for Groom, representing the constructive end of the Liberal Party argument on this—and we appreciate his efforts in negotiating this with us. But we have had comments both from the member for Groom today and from the other end of the spectrum, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, representing the destructive end of the debate. But both their comments are interesting. The member for Groom had this to say on ABC this morning: I accept that he— referring to the Prime Minister— has got a mandate to introduce the scheme. There are plenty who do not, but I do. I thank the member for Groom for recognising that fact. Furthermore: … by the time the Senate rises by the end of next week he will have what he is demanding … He goes on to say: … but it will be on our terms. That is fine; that is his political overlay. I do welcome what the member for Groom has said. I welcome his statement that, by the end of next week, we will have a successful vote on the CPRS—in the next five sitting days. That is a good outcome. A vote one way or the other is an appropriate reflection of a good faith negotiation with the government. The second comment is interesting as well. It is from Senator Minchin and it is directly relevant to this debate. On the question of the upcoming vote he says: Our party room, our joint coalition party room, will make a decision on how we will treat this bill next during the course of next week after Mr Macfarlane reports to us on his negotiations with the government. We then as a party room will decide which option we will elect to take. He goes on: But we will have a clear position at some stage during the course of next week as to what our view on this bill will be. What we have therefore is clarity from both ends of the debate, the climate change sceptic end of the debate and those within the coalition who actually want to bring about an outcome. So we have now the optimists in the spectrum, led by the member for Groom, backing a vote, and we have the pessimists, led by Senator Minchin, backing a vote. The only person silent so far on whether we should have a vote by the end of next week is the Leader of the Opposition. Can I just say to the Leader of the Opposition that if these are good-faith negotiations and it is the attitude that we bring to bear, stand up today and confirm that there will be a vote on climate change, on the CPRS, by the time the Senate rises next Thursday. We have it from the member for Groom, we have it from Senator Minchin, and we are all ears in terms of what the Leader of the Opposition will say. Five sitting days left until a vote: are we going to have a vote in the national interest or in some internal party interest? Five days in which to vote on the science, or five days in which to ignore the science and pursue prejudice. Five days left for action, or five days for inaction. Five sitting days left to vote for the future instead of simply lying in the path. We are engaged in good-faith negotiations with those opposite. I invite the opposition in question time today to confirm to the Australian people that there will be a vote on the CPRS legislation by the time the parliament rises at the end of next week. The nation and our global interests demand it. 12264 12264 14:16:00 Stone, Dr Sharman, MP EM6 Murray LP 0 Dr STONE —My question is directed to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his persistent denial of a special deal to entice the 78 asylum seekers from the Oceanic Viking. Is the Prime Minister aware of the following answer from his immigration minister when he was asked today on radio if the terms of the resolution are unique. He said: Well, they are unique in the sense that there is an agreement between the Indonesian government and Australia to resolve a particular unusual circumstance. Does the Prime Minister continue to deny there was a special deal to provide fast-track access to settlement in Australia? 12264 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 Mr RUDD —Once again I welcome all questions from the member for Murray, particularly given her confused position yesterday on whether the Liberal Party supports the boat having gone to Australia or to Indonesia. Our approach was that it should be processed in Indonesia. Her reading yesterday of her quotation was that her preference on balance was that it should be processed— 9V5 Pyne, Chris, MP Mr Pyne —Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. How could it be relevant under the standing orders for the Prime Minister to be answering a question he was asked yesterday, and he has admitted he was answering a question he was asked yesterday. He should answer the question he has been asked today. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —There is no point of order. The Prime Minister is responding to the question. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —I again thank the honourable member for Murray for her question and I was simply drawing the House’s attention to the fact that yesterday a reasonable interpretation of her remarks was that the position of the Liberal Party was that this vessel should have been processed in Australia rather than Indonesia. That is the reverse position of the government. The agreement we have reached with the Indonesian government, given the circumstances where this boat was identified, in the Indonesian search and rescue area, and it having been permitted to then land at an Indonesian port, was that it should therefore be processed in Indonesia. That is our approach, in contrast to yours—absolutely clear. As for the immigration minister’s statements today, I have not seen them. I fully support the public and private comments of the immigration minister, including his remarks today on how this matter has been handled. 12265 12265 14:19:00 Turnour, Jim, MP HVV Leichhardt ALP 1 Mr TURNOUR —My question is to— Opposition members interjecting— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! I am pleased that the member for Leichhardt has developed a fan club in a very short term, but I think he should be heard in silence. And I would indicate to the member for Dunkley that, even though it is 20 minutes into question time, I am ready to rumble. HVV Turnour, Jim, MP Mr TURNOUR —My question is to the Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change. Will the minister outline the potential impacts of climate change on the Australian community and why it is important that we take united action against climate change? 12265 Combet, Greg, MP YW6 Charlton ALP Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change 1 Mr COMBET —I thank the member for Leichhardt, who is a very close colleague and a very popular member in Leichhardt too. Australia has already experienced warming, with an increase recorded in the number of days which have been hotter than 40 degrees Celsius. November this year has seen a long and intense heatwave across much of southern and eastern Australia. New daily maximum temperature records for November have already been set at Wilcannia, at 45.2 degrees, and Broken Hill, at 43.4 degrees, on 16 November. Last night in Melbourne the temperature was 28.1 degrees Celsius, which was a new record highest temperature for a November night. Today temperatures in much of south-eastern Australia will be very hot, predicted around 45 degrees, with strong winds in some areas. This has resulted, as the Prime Minister has pointed to earlier, in the highest fire danger alerts being issued in some areas of the country. Whilst of course we are cautious about interpreting specific daily weather events like these, the trend is absolutely clear: our climate is warming. But of course there is continued disunity among the coalition—there are two camps, as I have adverted to on a number of occasions. It should be recognised that a number of Liberal senators, now that the debate on the CPRS has commenced in the Senate, were yesterday supporting the position of the Leader of the Opposition in the good faith negotiations with the government. One of those senators, Senator Boyce, supports an amended CPRS ahead of Copenhagen and said: I would like to see the package of bills passed and there is no reason why we cannot pass them ahead of … Copenhagen… A sound observation from Senator Boyce. But of course the rival Liberal camp of sceptics has been well and truly unleashed in the Senate. Senator Minchin, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, only today said: The Senate overwhelmingly rejected the abomination in August; it should do so again. This is the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Liberal Party, in the Senate, saying the CPRS is an abomination and it should be voted down again. We understand that there were no fewer than 17 senators sitting in close proximity to Senator Minchin giving him plenty of verbal support. We have their names and I am happy to provide them. Opposition members interjecting— HWT Robert, Stuart, MP Mr Robert —Send the boys around! 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The House will come to order YW6 Combet, Greg, MP Mr COMBET —No, we are very gentle in dealing with these issues in the union movement! 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —When the House comes to order we will continue. YW6 Combet, Greg, MP Mr COMBET —I have seen the member for Groom walking around the floor with the black book he mentioned on Four Corners. I am very happy to provide the names of the senators. One thing I can say is that amongst them was Senator Bernardi, known now as Senator Minchin’s foot soldier, who continued his rant against the science saying: One could describe it as the Sara lee cheesecake effect: layer upon layer upon layer of alarmism and deceit giving rise to the new religion of climate change. So we have communist conspiracies, we have neo-Nazi science and we have religions of climate change based on deceit—quite bizarre and absurd commentary continues to come. Senator Abetz is still maintaining that weeds—lantana, paterson’s curse, you roll it up—are a greater problem than climate change. That is Senator Abetz. Senator Cash reconfirmed that she does not support action. She put a concise argument under any circumstances. She said: Under no circumstances should the CPRS be supported—under no circumstances. It is little wonder that there is profound, obvious division in the coalition. Senator Cash is unmoved by the fact that average rainfall decline of 10 to 20 per cent since the 1960s has caused a 50 per cent decline in dam inflows in south-western Australia. One would expect that she might have some concern about that. Another confirmed sceptic from WA, the member for Tangney—a denier, it is suggested to me—told the AAP today that more than a third of the Liberal Party would probably cross the floor to vote no, even if the government agrees to the coalition’s amendments. With just five days left to vote on the CPRS, all of those opposite should be acting to limit the impact of climate change on Australia, cut out the nonsense, stop the delays and vote for the CPRS. 12266 12266 14:27:00 Bishop, Julie, MP 83P Curtin LP 0 Ms JULIE BISHOP —My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to comments reported today from the detainees at the Tanjung Pinang detention centre: We have been here seven months, and some of the boys have only now been registered … and half of the people have not been interviewed, but in less than one week (the Oceanic Viking Sri Lankans) have been interviewed and registration is going on. Does the Prime Minister continue to deny that the guarantee to the Oceanic Viking asylum seekers that they will be resettled within four to 12 weeks is not special treatment? 12266 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 Mr RUDD —I welcome that question again from the member for Curtin. I think today we are coming sort of from the left and maybe a bit from the right as well. On the question about processing times for those in Indonesia, first of all by way of context I say to the member for Curtin, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, that she may be unaware of the fact that in times past—including when the good old member for Berowra up there was in the chair—there was of course quite considerable processing of Indonesian-based refugees by Australia. There was quite a lot of it—several hundred in fact; 400, 500 or thereabouts—and quite a number by other countries. Guess what? The individual circumstances concerning each of those individual processing arrangements differed according to the circumstances. What are the sets of conditions which pertain here? First, whether a person has already been through UNHCR processing, which of course means that the a lot of the early work has been done; second, if they have not then of course there are a whole lot of primary documents to be checked; and third, if it is established that they are not bona fide refugees then they are sent back home. These are the three categories which we are dealing with here, as were those opposite when they were in office dealing with the 400 to 500 that were settled in earlier years under the UNHCR Australia reprocessing arrangements from detention centres in Indonesia. Each of these varies according to the circumstances. That is the approach we have applied here. A similar approach has been applied in the past and we will deal with all challenges as they present themselves to us in the future as well. 12267 12267 14:29:00 Campbell, Jodie, MP HWC Bass ALP 1 Ms CAMPBELL —My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. What are the budget implications arising from current negotiations regarding the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme? 12267 Tanner, Lindsay, MP YU5 Melbourne ALP Minister for Finance and Deregulation 1 Mr TANNER —I thank the member for Bass for her question. In the current negotiations that the government is pursuing with the opposition with respect to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, we have two broad objectives. They are maintaining the environmental integrity of the scheme and maintaining its fiscal sustainability. The government is, of course, committed to returning the budget to surplus as quickly as possible and it is important that if we reach agreement it does as little damage as possible to the overall position of the budget, both in the short and in the longer term. I remind the House that the people we are seeking to negotiate with are the same people who have been seeking to tell the Australian people for months that the projected deficits in the budget are too high and that the projected debt as a result of that is too high. So I hope they take that on board in the negotiation process. But, unfortunately, the process of negotiation has been somewhat complicated by the people behind the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Groom who do not quite have the same perspective on these issues as they appear to have. We have some leading figures in the Liberal Party suggesting that this is all some kind of communist conspiracy and others suggesting that it is about a Nazi approach to science. We have the member for Tangney offering some kind of intergalactic conspiracy involving various planets and things of that kind. In spite of that, the government is seeking to negotiate in good faith, and we accept that the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Groom are seeking to negotiate in good faith, but unfortunately they are being held hostage by the wackier outer limits of their own party. To illustrate just how ludicrous the statements were by Senator Minchin last week, just contemplate these facts. He is suggesting that there is some kind of global world government left-wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world, some kind of communist conspiracy, that apparently his own leader is party to and his former leader John Howard is party to, and one of the very first international leaders to draw attention to the seriousness of the climate change challenge was none other than Margaret Thatcher—the great icon of the conservative movement all around the world, to which Senator Minchin adheres. This is sure some communist conspiracy. This is a real ripper of a communist conspiracy. It is so devious, it is so subtle and it is so pervasive that it includes the Leader of the Opposition, it includes John Howard and it includes Margaret Thatcher. Senator Minchin is incubating a kind of rural militia from backwards Montana in the Senate. He is out there in his fatigues. He has the bandana wrapped around his head. He has the gun-racks, he has the pick-up truck and he has the stock of beer there, and he is off chasing all those global conspiracies. The big problem here, unfortunately, is that he is holding the rest of Australia hostage in this process. He is holding the rest of the country hostage. I am asked about the budget implications of these issues. We can work out with reasonable accuracy the budget implications of proposed changes to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, but there is another aspect of this that I would like to draw to the House’s attention. The government is looking at budget matters with a long-term horizon because of the impact of the global financial crisis. We have 10-year projections in the budget papers and, indeed, projections going slightly beyond that. So that is a 10- to 12-year period. As well as asking the question, ‘What impact might these negotiations have on the budget?’ which is a legitimate question that we are very concerned about, we are also interested in the question of what happens if Senator Minchin, the member for O’Connor, the member for Tangney and all the other wacky crew get their way? What happens if there is no action on climate change in Australia and no action on climate change globally? 9V5 Pyne, Chris, MP Mr Pyne —Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I think you would agree with me that the phrase of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation is unparliamentary against my colleagues in the House, and I would ask you to ask him to withdraw it. Government members interjecting— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! I think that the word was used early in the answer in relation to actions rather than in relation to the people, and I think that is the interpretation that we should leave that word with. I will allow it to be left there. YU5 Tanner, Lindsay, MP Mr TANNER —The point I am making is that there is a serious price to pay for inaction on climate change—not just a price for the nation but specifically a price for the budget. If we see a collapse in tourism in the future in Far North Queensland because of the Barrier Reef, if we see Australian agriculture shrinking dramatically as a result of climate change and if we see the costs of dealing with amelioration and remediation on Australia’s coastline rising because of climate change, all of those things will inevitably impact on the budget in the medium to longer term. There will be the need for adjustment packages. There will be higher unemployment. There will be the need for specific compensation to assist people who are affected. So I would urge the House, and in particular the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Groom and those people in the Liberal Party who still have at least one foot on planet earth, to think very carefully about the implications of being held hostage by the urban and rural militias in the Senate that Senator Minchin is incubating because the implications of that for Australia, for the budget and for the people in rural and regional Australia in the longer term will be very serious. 12268 12268 14:36:00 Ley, Sussan, MP 00AMN Farrer LP 0 Ms LEY —My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister confirm that, under his new fast-track access policy, the Oceanic Viking asylum seekers that will be resettled in Australia within 42 days can expect to be granted permanent residency with full family reunion rights, working rights and access to the full range of health and social welfare services, including Centrelink benefits such as income support, the baby bonus and family assistance, as well as Medicare and public housing? 12268 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 Mr RUDD —I think we have lurched to the right again on that question. I think I might have picked up the subtle subtheme as I heard those opposite and observed some of those opposite burying their heads as that question was asked. The honourable member’s question goes to the assumption concerning the processing outcomes of individual asylum seekers. Therefore I say to the honourable member that, when it comes to the processing of this group of individuals on this particular vessel, some will be determined to be of refugee status, depending on where they have got up to in the overall process, and some will be determined not to be, depending on what evidence presents itself. Those who are not determined to be refugees will be sent back to their country of origin and those who are determined to be refugees will be subject to the resettlement processes which apply across the 16 to 21 resettlement countries. That is the first point. The second point goes to what provisions apply in terms of any asylum seeker who is granted asylum in Australia. I draw the honourable member’s attention to the following: under the Howard government in 2007 more than 33,000 people who had held a refugee and humanitarian visa received income support payments. That was in 2007. Secondly, more than 2,200 baby bonus payments were made to those holding refugee and humanitarian visas. I just draw that to the honourable member’s attention as well. Furthermore, under the Howard government, asylum seekers holding TPVs—that great and successful instrument of public policy—were able to access a special benefit paid at the same rate and with exactly the same means and eligibility test as the following: unemployment benefits, family tax benefit, the baby bonus, childcare benefit, the maternity immunisation allowance, double orphan pension and rent assistance. In 2002 there were nearly 5,000 temporary protection visa holders in Australia receiving income support payments. Furthermore, temporary protection visa holders were provided with all other normal provisions which applied under Australian law at the time. Under this government, refugees are provided the same range of services as has generally been applied in the past. When the honourable member asks a question of this nature, I suggest that she should reflect carefully on the arrangements, which I thought had prevailed on a bipartisan basis in this country for some time, rather than engage in the politics in which she is engaging. I also draw this to the honourable member’s attention. Here we are on this sitting day, one week before the end of the parliamentary sitting, and it is now some 30 days since we have had a question on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is 97 days since we had a question on jobs. It is 29 days since we had any question on the economy, 22 days since we had a question on infrastructure, 22 days since we had any question on education, 23 days since we have any question on nation building. That is a lot of days, and I always think it is great that those opposite are keenly concerned about the interests of Australian working families. Honourable members interjecting— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! Has the Prime Minister concluded? 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr Rudd —Yes. 12269 12269 14:40:00 Sidebottom, Sid, MP 849 Braddon ALP 1 Mr SIDEBOTTOM —My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. What is the government doing to prepare Australia’s workforce for the transition to a low-carbon economy? 12269 Gillard, Julia, MP 83L Lalor ALP Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion 1 Ms GILLARD —I thank the member for Braddon for his question. Mr Speaker, it was my pleasure earlier today to ‘try a trade’ in front of Parliament House with my colleagues Minister Wong, Minister Arbib, Minister Combet and Parliamentary Secretary Jason Clare. Now, I will let the parliament in on something that probably would be fairly obvious: we were not particularly good. In particular, I was not very good at the bricklaying that I was asked to do. I thank WorldSkills Australia for bringing ‘Try a Trade’ to Parliament House. Try a Trade is a program to interest young people in apprenticeships to make sure that they get the skills they need for the future. Through WorldSkills Australia our young people compete internationally, showing their trade skills to the world. Last time we did that as a nation we ranked fifth in the world, which was a tremendous achievement, and many of those young people came back from showing their skills to the world with gold medals, silver medals and bronze medals. As we were trying a trade today we had a discussion that we have had on many occasions with those who work in training, and that is they are already embracing the future. They are already training young Australians for jobs in a low-carbon economy. Of course, some of those jobs are jobs that we find it hard to imagine today, jobs that will evolve in a low-carbon economy. But many of the things we need to do to train Australians for a low-carbon future are in the very traditional trades—in plumbing, in electrical trades, in the way in which we design and construct buildings— SJ4 Tuckey, Wilson, MP Mr Tuckey interjecting— 83L Gillard, Julia, MP Ms GILLARD —and we are already moving to embrace this future. The government has already moved to ensure that 50,000 Australians get an opportunity in green jobs and green training opportunities and we have moved to provide $200 million through our teaching and learning capital fund to enable our vocational education and training system to get ready for training in areas like green plumbing, EcoSmart electricians, efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning and the work that will need to be done on hybrid cars. I am pleased to be able to announce at the forthcoming COAG meeting that right around the nation there will be agreement on a new National Green Skills Agreement, which is about making sure that our training system is ready for the jobs of the future and that even the most traditional trades have their training arrangements updated for new green skills. As the nation moves forward and embraces the future, getting ready for the green economy of the future, of course we find the Liberal and National parties stuck in the past—in climate change denial, scepticism and inaction. They are stuck in the past, they are divided and they are unable to imagine how they can get to this new green future. Of course, the answer is obvious: get out of the way and support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and work with those Australians who are readying themselves for the future. The opposition, including the member for O’Connor, stay firmly in the past where the dinosaurs are. They still think that is appropriate. Australians are marching past them in their embrace of the future. It is time that they got out of the way and passed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. 12270 12270 14:44:00 Turnbull, Malcolm, MP 885 Wentworth LP 0 Mr TURNBULL —My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer the Prime Minister to the 255 asylum seekers on board a boat in the port of Merak and the statement made by them yesterday: … we are the same as the 78 on the Oceanic Viking. We are refugees and should be treated equally … Under the Prime Minister’s new fast-track access policy will he now offer what he himself has described as a standard and thoroughly ‘non-extraordinary’ deal to the asylum seekers on board the boat in the port of Merak; and, if he does not propose to do so, could he tell the House why? 12270 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 Mr RUDD —I thank the honourable member for his question. The first thing I would say in response to his question—and to one asked question earlier today—is that he cites as his authority (a) today the statements from individual asylum seekers and (b) in question time, I think, a week or two ago the statements of people smugglers themselves as underpinning the veracity of the question. I would simply draw that to the House’s attention. The honourable member cites as his authority these untested statements of an individual asylum seeker and the untested statements of people smugglers themselves. That is the first point I would make. The second point I would make is that, as the honourable member would be fully aware, the resettlement arrangements for asylum seekers in Indonesia are coordinated by the UNHCR, and they do so in cooperation with resettlement countries right across the world, of which there are some 16 to 21, and with some additional voluntary arrangements as well. Thirdly, as I said in the House earlier today, it is entirely consistent with the 400 or so who were granted permanent residency in Australia by the previous government from detention centres in Indonesia as well, and that will be the case, obviously, as we work our way through resettlement procedures with other resettlement countries. That is normal. Finally, in terms of the boat that he refers to at Merak, I would simply draw the honourable member’s attention to this: first of all, when it comes to those who came into the custody of the Australian vessel, that was in the Indonesia search and rescue area; secondly, the call went out from the Indonesians for assistance because they had no vessel in place; thirdly, we then answered that call, as I assume those opposite would ask us to do in response to any call for assistance under international maritime law; fourthly, with the consent of the Indonesian authorities, that vessel was then brought to shore; and, fifthly, we are therefore processing, in Indonesia, those on board, as you would expect. As for the vessel at Merak, the honourable member would also be familiar with the fact that this vessel was interdicted in Indonesian waters by the Indonesian navy and therefore the circumstances surrounding its interdiction and the particular responsibilities of Indonesia associated with it are of a different type. I say to the honourable member also that I still find it passing strange that here we are in the country’s parliament and it is getting on for 100 days since we have had a question on jobs and nearly 30 days since we have had a question on the economy. I think it is time they gave Joe a go! He is back from paternity leave—congratulations on the birth of a new addition to the family. We want Joe to have a go! The Treasurer is getting lonely up here; we would like some questions on the economy. And we would also like those opposite to reflect upon the range of priorities which affect the interests of working families across the country, not all of whom are necessarily subject to the campaign of fear being conducted by those opposite on this matter. 12271 Motions 12271 12271 14:48:00 Turnbull, Malcolm, MP 885 Wentworth LP Leader of the Opposition 0 0 Mr TURNBULL —I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Wentworth moving immediately—That this House censures the Prime Minister for losing control of Australia’s borders with badly thought through policy changes that have dramatically increased the number of unauthorised boat arrivals and handed control of our immigration policy to the people smugglers, and in particular for: failing to be upfront and honest with this House, and the Australian people, about the nature of the special deal done for the asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking; the Prime Minister’s inept handling of the diplomatic relationship with Indonesia; and trying to abrogate his responsibility to take charge of this latest border protection crisis by hiding behind a wall of spin, his own staff and the bureaucracy when as he said himself, he is the Prime Minister and the buck stops with him. Only a moment ago the Prime Minister said that it was so many days since a question had been asked on jobs and so many days since a question had been asked on the economy. I do not know whether that calculation is correct, but the one thing we do know is that it is more than two years since a Prime Minister in this House answered a question straightforwardly on any topic. We have seen the most extraordinary spectacle of a Prime Minister standing up, looking the Australian people in the eye and unblinkingly saying black is white. Here is a situation where, obviously, a special deal was done in order to entice the asylum seekers off the Oceanic Viking. It was a special deal; it has no counterpart. It went to the Border Protection Committee of the cabinet. It went there because it was such a special deal. The Prime Minister says, of course, that he knows nothing about that. He says his staff did not advise him about this deal either before the committee meeting or subsequently. One just has to note how incredible this sounds to us all, given recent comments by Cameron Stewart which I think sum up most people’s views of the Prime Minister—certainly, most of his colleagues’ views. He said: … he … craves control, which means too often he tries to do everything. He hates to delegate and he is loath to rely on the work of others … Apparently, on this minor matter of the Oceanic Viking, he became a laid-back, relaxed kind of guy, happy to delegate everything to his staff! If you believe that, you will believe anything. But there it is. The one thing that is beyond question is that the Prime Minister’s claim that there was no special deal has been comprehensively, universally disbelieved. I do not believe there has ever been a statement by a Prime Minister in this House in respect of which nobody is prepared to give agreement or endorsement. We will just work through some of the commentary in the media. We had Dennis Shanahan in the Australian say: … the … Sri Lankans …will disembark because they have wrung a special deal from the Rudd government. Greg Sheridan in the same newspaper said: For some bizarre reason Rudd keeps saying the people on the Oceanic Viking have not got a special deal. This simply defies the ordinary meaning of language and common sense. Paul Kelly said: He seems to think almost any line can be spun and will be believed, even when it is nonsense. But, I am afraid to say, the disbelief extends past that centre-right newspaper with which the Prime Minister is so unhappy at the moment. Tony Wright in the Age says: There was no special deal for the Sri Lankans, Rudd insisted. Which, presumably, is why the last of them were content to leave the ship yesterday after refusing to budge for more than a month. Annabel Crabb in the Sydney Morning Herald—and not many people would say that is a right-wing newspaper—wrote on the 18th: Against this crowded palette of lunacy, it’s almost possible to overlook lesser offences against human intelligence—such as the Prime Minister’s insistence that the Sri Lankan passengers disembarking the Oceanic Viking have not received any sort of special deal. Today, the same writer notes: A Denialist so shameless that he can stare barefacedly back at the electors and his parliamentary opponents and deny, again and again and again, that a bunch of Sri Lankans currently being processed in record-fast time in Indonesia are not in receipt of any ‘special deal’. The Prime Minister’s spin has not been able to fool anyone, even in his own town. Dennis Atkins wrote in the Courier-Mail today: The consensus view that the Rudd government provided a special deal for the 76 asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking is now stronger than the much trumpeted world scientific agreement on the causes behind climate change. Michael Gordon yesterday in the Age—and surely, Prime Minister, that is not a right-wing newspaper—wrote: The truth is that the group was offered a special deal to leave the boat. But the disbelief extends even, I am afraid, to the ABC. This reluctance of the Australian media to accept this spin seems to be spreading. Barry Cassidy: Just to say there is no special deal is silly. Probably the neatest summary of all of this was in the editorial in the Financial Review today. It said: Mr Rudd’s refusal to give a straight answer to opposition questions on the asylum issue follows a consistent and unattractive pattern of behaviour. The Prime Minister’s pattern of behaviour is consistent and it is unattractive, but not simply because it involves saying black is white—saying that no special deal was done when plainly a very, very special deal was done for a very special reason. It is unattractive because it has resulted in the collapse of our border protection policy. The Prime Minister may think he can spin his way out of his problems here in the House, but the real challenge is on our borders. We used to have a border protection policy that sought to achieve—and did achieve—two goals: firstly, the compassionate and fair reception and treatment of refugees in accordance with the UN convention and, secondly, the security of our borders and ensuring that as far as possible people-smuggling was stamped out and there were no unauthorised arrivals. Both of those goals were achieved, and the record is there. From 2002-03 until the change in the border protection policies by this government last year, there was, relative to the current situation, a very, very small number of arrivals—in some years zero and in other years only a few boats. Since those changes we have had 52 boats and over 2,300 arrivals. How does the Prime Minister defend this? He defends it firstly by denying another fact of life. He defends it by saying that Australia’s border protection policies have absolutely no influence on the number of arrivals. This is as big a denial, as bizarre and absurd a denial, as his denial about the nature of the deal offered to the asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking. He has been told not simply by the opposition but by the Federal Police, by the International Organisation on Migration, by the Indonesian Ambassador and by the Sri Lankan Ambassador, via the New Zealand immigration minister, that our border protection policies are sending a very strong signal. This is a strong pull factor. Indeed, as the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the UN only recently said—and it sums it up: If the pull factors are addressed, attempts to enter Australia will cease. That is what the Sri Lankan ambassador said, that the Prime Minister will have none of this—they are all wrong. The difference between the government and the opposition on this issue is simply this: when we are in government we stopped the boats. They stopped. We protected our borders. We complied with our international obligations, and our borders were secure. And we have set out clearly the changes we would make to the policies he has instituted that will ensure, once again, that a strong signal is sent to the people smugglers so they can no longer market the absolute certainty of permanent residency in Australia to their customers in return for the large fees they charge—$10,000 to $15,000. We are prepared to undermine their business. We are prepared to undermine the people-smuggling trade and protect our borders. The Prime Minister is not. 12274 14:58:00 Bishop, Julie, MP 83P Curtin LP Deputy Leader of the Opposition 0 0 Ms JULIE BISHOP —I second the motion. It is a fundamental duty of this parliament to ensure accountability—accountability of the government, of the executive and of the ministers. This Prime Minister may not like it, but he cannot avoid it. Yet when serious questions are asked in this House of Representatives to hold the government and in particular to hold this Prime Minister to account about his border protection policies, about deals made with other governments in relation to resettlement of asylum seekers, about offers that his government has made to asylum seekers to settle in Australia within record time, this Prime Minister has a duty to at least give a constructive response if not answer the question. Why is it so difficult for this Prime Minister to stand at the dispatch box, look this country in the eye and tell them what is going on in relation to border protection? Why can he not be straight with the Australian people? The Prime Minister’s behaviour this week in refusing to answer questions—the ducking and weaving, the avoiding and evading—has been bordering on the pathological. The consistent, repeated denial that he offered a special deal to 78 asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking when all of the evidence shows precisely that he did is what we call ‘mythomania’. This is a case study in it. It is a compulsion to, shall we say, embroider the truth. Mythomania means embroider the truth. So we have in our midst a mythomaniac. This reminds me of a Monty Python sketch. You remember the dead parrot sketch where the pet shop owner insists that the very dead parrot is not dead; it is just resting. The very special ‘deal’ is not a special deal; it is just non-extraordinary. This has become comical. If this were not so serious—and it is a serious matter, deserving of serious attention by the Prime Minister—it would be hilarious. In fact, watching him has been hilarious. This Prime Minister is incapable of answering a straight question—a question on facts, a question asking for a yes or no answer. He gives us these self-indulgent monologues. He reminds us of Fidel Castro, as he stands up there and rants and raves and refuses to answer questions that the Australian people want to know the answers to. All the evidence is against the Prime Minister. All the opinion is against the Prime Minister. There is the case of the letter that he so shamelessly forced a public servant to write to try and justify his outrageous behaviour. There is the fact that a cabinet subcommittee met especially to consider this ‘deal’ that he tries to say is just standard and that everybody in Indonesia gets it. The fact is that he cannot point to one refugee anywhere in the world, let alone in Indonesia, who has been offered a special deal by the Australian government. If there was a standard offer, why wasn’t it made on the first day? Why did we have to wait 31 days or more for the offer to be made? Why didn’t they just get the standard offer—just like everybody else, the Prime Minister says? They could have hopped off the boat, gone ashore and been resettled in four weeks or 12 weeks or whatever fast-track timetable this Prime Minister has offered to the people on board the Oceanic Viking. There is the department of immigration’s own annual report that says offshore processing for asylum seekers, and that includes those in Indonesia, is running at about 52 weeks—75 per cent have been finalised within 52 weeks. Prime Minister, that is a little different from four to 12 weeks. It is 12 months, not 12 weeks. The Prime Minister’s contempt for the opposition on this is something that we live with. That is the standard he chooses to apply to his position as Prime Minister of the country. But there is the contempt that he shows to the Australian people by refusing to admit that he was involved in this decision to offer the special deal. He said to this parliament that he did not know of it; he did not approve it. That is inconceivable. This is a man who micromanages every issue that crosses his desk. This is a man who is so focused on the polls that he gave 14 interviews in 14 hours. This Prime Minister must be censured for his behaviour. (Time expired) 12275 15:03:00 Rudd, Kevin, MP 83T Griffith ALP Prime Minister 1 0 Mr RUDD —I thank the member for Curtin and the Leader of the Opposition for the contributions which they have just delivered. One thing about the Leader of the Opposition’s censure motion or attempts thereof is the one predictable element to them: it is always a Thursday. It is Thursday, it is censure day. We have had a debate about this issue ranging over various days this week. As the Leader of the Opposition sought to prosecute a particular charge, he would move up to the point of almost launching a censure and, nope, he fell over the edge again. That was on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but today is Thursday and we need to send away the troops in good cheer. That is what Thursday censure motions are all about and that is what has been applied in these circumstances as well—only added to by the extraordinary eloquence of the member for Curtin—she, who we know, is capable of all manner of original thoughts. If you are going to launch a suspension motion of the standing orders, it assumes that the other business of the House is less important; therefore, that is what it is about—and we are debating a suspension motion. When it comes to the other matters before the House and the parliament, we are dealing with the challenges of the global economy, we are dealing with jobs for working Australians, we are dealing with the impact of climate change, we are dealing with the extraordinary circumstances which now confront many parts of Australia with extreme weather events, we are dealing with the rollout of the education revolution, we are dealing with the broader challenges of infrastructure and we are dealing with the broader challenges of nation building. On all these matters, we have seen a pattern of behaviour by those opposite whereby they do not wish to engage in the mainstream policy debates of the nation. Jobs for working Australians are unimportant. If they were important, you would think that we would have had a question on that within the last 97 days. On the economy more broadly, given that we are wrestling with the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression, you would think that it would have been worthy of a question within the last 30 days. Given that we have currently got legislation before the parliament on climate change and we have a Copenhagen conference looming on a global deal within only a few short weeks, you would think that somehow within the last 30 days it might be worthy of question or two—no. No questions have been coming forward on any of these matters, which go to the concerns of working Australians everywhere. The opposition say that these debates are much more central than the concerns of working families and working Australians everywhere. I think that would be a very interesting question to be debated by those, whom I know various members of this House are dealing with, who are losing their jobs today. There are those across the country who are having difficulty getting a quality education. There are also those across the country who are having great challenges when it comes to: ‘How do I deal with my banks and the availability of credit to me in my small business and how do I keep it going? How do I access the infrastructure packages which the government is unfolding across the country? How do I keep my small business going? How do I wrestle with all these challenges and with getting proper access to health care?’ We saw reports on that in today’s national newspapers. These are all the challenges that the government is engaged in day in, day out and week in, week out for working Australians everywhere. Our priorities are working Australians and dealing with the great challenges of today and preparing for the great challenges of tomorrow. That is what our mission is, and we intend to stick with that mission. It is what we were elected to do and that is what we will continue to prosecute. I suggest that those opposite reflect for a moment on their sense of national priorities concerning these real challenges for working Australians. The other thing about a suspension motion which seeks to create a censure motion is that it is supposed to be about, ‘The government is doing X wrong and we, the opposition, would do Y instead.’ That is what a censure motion is about. I look at this censure motion and see that it has nothing to do with any of that. The reason it has nothing to do with any of that and why they are so engaged with this debate right now is that they have no policy. It is so easy to go out there and whip up a fear campaign about asylum seekers. That is what it is about. We had the good old member for Farrer out there today whipping it up, from time to time the ‘member for worry’ out there whipping it up, various other members from those opposite, inside and outside the chamber, whipping it up—good old fear, good old scare, the No. 1 and No. 2 strategies of the Liberal Party. Let us look at what actually happens in the general national policy debate. What is the common denominator across all the big exchanges on policy we have here? On the national stimulus strategy and the debt and deficit necessary to underpin it, no alternative, just a fear campaign. Look at climate change. Instead of acting for the future, what do they run? A fear campaign about the impact on jobs now. On every other matter, whether it is concerning the future of the education revolution, whether it is the future of infrastructure or the future of health, we have instead a campaign and so, too, do we have a fear campaign here as well. What is a fear campaign? It is designed to animate people’s emotions as a substitute for any clear policy alternative. They do not want to have a policy on what debt and deficit they would sustain in order to underpin a stimulus strategy. Do you know why? Because they do not want to have a small target strategy; they want to have a zero target strategy. They want a zero target strategy also when it comes to border protection because they are aware of the different views which exist within their own side of politics. Therefore, you go to the substance of what they then say—and I listened carefully to what the Leader of the Opposition’s charges were before—and the Leader of the Opposition said their policy was a smashing success. The policy that they pursued in office saw nearly 250 boats arrive carrying almost 15,000 people over a period of time. That is their definition of success. They say that the temporary protection visas were a measure of success, the same temporary protection visas which resulted in 90 per cent of those holding them being resettled in Australia. On top of that again we were told that the Pacific solution was a success—60 per cent of whom were granted permanent residence in Australia. We were also told somehow, by implication I suppose, that kids behind razor wire was some sort of badge of success. Even they started feeling shamed by that towards the bitter end but that was part and parcel of their approach to this. Then of course we have the prophetess of doom and gloom on international relations, the good old member for Curtin. She has predicated the demise of the following sets of bilateral relationships: (1) that our relationship with Japan was about to implode—our exports to Japan I think went up 25 per cent last year, although I stand to be corrected; (2) our relationship with China was about to implode—exports there went up about 20 per cent last year, apart from the fact that we have been meeting recently with the President, the Premier and other members of the standing committee of the polit bureau and others, but these are all of passing no consequence. I will mention in passing for the member for Curtin—the champion of Chinese human rights, she who walked very elegantly, inelegantly, on both sides of the street on that one—the China relationship has not actually imploded. Then we are supposed to see the collapse of our relationship with the United States—remember that one?—over the G20. Well, I cannot see a lot of evidence of that happening. But the latest one to enter the scene here is our relationship with Indonesia. That forms part of the motion we have before us, upon which this suspension motion is now based. Our relationship with Indonesia is in such absolute disrepair that it has resulted in multiple disruptions of people-smuggling events across the archipelago, as it does today and into the future. These are the facts which underpin their failed policy approach of the past, which is why the Leader of the Opposition, cobbling together slowly but surely some coalition to keep Joe Hockey at bay up there in terms of the leadership stakes, is running a four-week-long fear campaign on asylum seekers, hoping to mask the divisions on their side on climate change. That is what it is all about. Then you go to the direct consequences of the challenge we have had to deal with as the government of Australia. No. 1 challenge, a civil war in Sri Lanka, with 260,000 internally displaced people. How do you therefore deal with that practical challenge as any government in the region? In response to that, the foreign minister has visited Colombo recently and is working with the World Bank on a humanitarian stabilisation program in that country. No. 2, transit arrangements with Malaysia and Indonesia. 0J4 Ruddock, Philip, MP Mr Ruddock —Stop gilding the lily! He doesn’t even know when the war in Sri Lanka began. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr RUDD —The human rights advocate, the member for Berowra, can never restrain himself. He who boasts his record on these matters, he the architect of kids overboard seeks to make an intervention on these matters. Transiting Malaysia: what we have now for the first time, through the cooperative arrangements between ourselves and Malaysia is criminalisation of people smuggling in that country, operations of interruption of people-smuggling activities, 89 of them with Indonesia, Malaysia and otherwise. There have been some 63 arrests, prosecutions and otherwise convictions of people smugglers. This is the practical business of dealing with border protection, the practical business that we have to deal with day-to-day, as opposed to those opposite whose approach is simply this: (1) no policy; (2) all fear; and, (3) create as much mayhem as you can on the way through. Those opposite may think that is a responsible way to govern the country. We do not. Our policy on border protection is clear and we will continue to implement it in the future. Question put: That the motion (Mr Turnbull’s) be agreed to. 15:17:00 The House divided.     (The Speaker—Mr Harry Jenkins) 49 Billson, B.F. Bishop, J.I. Briggs, J.E. Broadbent, R. Chester, D. Ciobo, S.M. Cobb, J.K. Coulton, M. Dutton, P.C. Farmer, P.F. Forrest, J.A. Gash, J. Georgiou, P. Haase, B.W. Hartsuyker, L. Hawke, A. Hawker, D.P.M. Hockey, J.B. Hull, K.E. * Irons, S.J. Jensen, D. Johnson, M.A. * Keenan, M. Laming, A. Ley, S.P. Lindsay, P.J. Marino, N.B. Markus, L.E. May, M.A. Mirabella, S. Morrison, S.J. Moylan, J.E. Pearce, C.J. Pyne, C. Ramsey, R. Robert, S.R. Ruddock, P.M. Schultz, A. Scott, B.C. Secker, P.D. Simpkins, L. Smith, A.D.H. Southcott, A.J. Stone, S.N. Tuckey, C.W. Turnbull, M. Vale, D.S. Washer, M.J. Wood, J. 75 Adams, D.G.H. Albanese, A.N. Bidgood, J. Bird, S. Bowen, C. Bradbury, D.J. Burke, A.E. Butler, M.C. Byrne, A.M. Campbell, J. Champion, N. Cheeseman, D.L. Clare, J.D. Collins, J.M. Combet, G. Crean, S.F. D’Ath, Y.M. Danby, M. Debus, B. Dreyfus, M.A. Elliot, J. Ellis, K. Emerson, C.A. Ferguson, L.D.T. Ferguson, M.J. Fitzgibbon, J.A. Georganas, S. George, J. Gibbons, S.W. Gillard, J.E. Gray, G. Grierson, S.J. Griffin, A.P. Hale, D.F. Hall, J.G. * Irwin, J. Jackson, S.M. Kelly, M.J. Kerr, D.J.C. King, C.F. Livermore, K.F. Macklin, J.L. Marles, R.D. McClelland, R.B. McKew, M. McMullan, R.F. Melham, D. Murphy, J. Neal, B.J. Neumann, S.K. Owens, J. Parke, M. Perrett, G.D. Plibersek, T. Price, L.R.S. * Raguse, B.B. Rea, K.M. Rishworth, A.L. Roxon, N.L. Rudd, K.M. Saffin, J.A. Shorten, W.R. Sidebottom, S. Smith, S.F. Snowdon, W.E. Sullivan, J. Swan, W.M. Symon, M. Tanner, L. Thomson, C. Thomson, K.J. Trevor, C. Turnour, J.P. Vamvakinou, M. Zappia, A. 4 Neville, P.C. Ellis, A.L. Bailey, F.E. Bevis, A.R. Andrews, K.J. Garrett, P. Somlyay, A.M. Burke, A.S. * denotes teller Question negatived. 83T Rudd, Kevin, MP Mr Rudd —Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. 12278 Personal Explanations 12278 15:23:00 Southcott, Dr Andrew, MP TK6 Boothby LP 0 0 Dr SOUTHCOTT —Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? TK6 Southcott, Dr Andrew, MP Dr SOUTHCOTT —Yes. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Please proceed. TK6 Southcott, Dr Andrew, MP Dr SOUTHCOTT —Yesterday, in summing up on a bill, the Parliamentary Secretary for Employment misread, misunderstood and misrepresented a speech I made at the National Employment Services Association Conference in August. His assertion was that I had ignored research showing that the best results for job seekers came from a mixture of job search and work focused education or training. In actual fact, I made that very point in my speech. I also said that the Productivity Places Program was very much a skill first, or training first, approach for job seekers. That comment is supported by the latest figures— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! TK6 Southcott, Dr Andrew, MP Dr SOUTHCOTT —showing that the Productivity Places Program is currently achieving employment outcomes of only 7.1 per cent. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The member has shown where he was misrepresented. He must not debate. 12279 15:24:00 Irwin, Julia, MP 83Z Fowler ALP 1 0 Mrs IRWIN —Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? 83Z Irwin, Julia, MP Mrs IRWIN —Yes, definitely. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Please proceed. 83Z Irwin, Julia, MP Mrs IRWIN —On Wednesday, 18 November 2009, the member for Flinders, the Hon. Greg Hunt, issued a media release titled ‘Rudd must repudiate offensive attack on school chaplains’. The honourable gentleman has selectively quoted from my speech of 19 October 2009 in the Main Committee on the subject of school chaplains to support his attack upon me. I understand the honourable member may be overly sensitive to criticism of a program with which he was involved, but he must realise that there are many who do not always subscribe to his point of view. I find his vitriol offensive and would point out that selective quoting makes for inaccurate argument. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will resume her seat. 83Z Irwin, Julia, MP Mrs IRWIN —I have not attacked— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The member has shown where she has been misrepresented. 9V5 Pyne, Chris, MP Mr Pyne —She claims to have been misrepresented. 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —All right. She has made her personal explanation. 12279 Auditor-General's Reports 12279 12279 15:25:00 SPEAKER, The 10000 PO N/A 1 0 The SPEAKER —Order! I present the Auditor-General’s Audit report No. 12 of 2009-10 entitled Administration of Youth Allowance—Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper. 12279 Documents Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler —Leader of the House) 15:26:00 —Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings and the Hansard. I move: That the House take note of the following documents: Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority-Report for the period 28 May to 30 June 2009. Australian Fair Pay Commission—Report for 2008-09. Australian Sports Commission—Report for 2008-09. Skills Australia—Report for 2008-09. Debate (on motion by Mr Hartsuyker) adjourned. 12279 Matters of Public Importance 12279 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —I have received a letter from the honourable the Deputy Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The government’s failure to properly manage Australia’s foreign relations. I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places— 12280 15:27:00 Bishop, Julie, MP 83P Curtin LP Deputy Leader of the Opposition 0 0 Ms JULIE BISHOP —One of the most important roles of the person who holds the office of Prime Minister of Australia is to manage our international relations in a way that benefits the national interest. In fact, the annual report of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade states that one key goal of foreign policy is to have: Australia’s national interests protected and advanced through contributions to international security, national economic and trade performance and global cooperation. Members on our side can recall the very high expectations after the election of the current Prime Minister, who had served a lengthy stint as shadow minister for foreign affairs and who clearly regarded himself as a foreign policy expert. That was largely based, it would seem, on his work for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the 1980s. Australia’s foreign relations would be ‘taken to a new level’ under this newly crowned expert, it was proclaimed. It is now very obvious that those expectations were grossly overinflated. But I think it is instructive and, indeed, prudent to look at some of the statements of this Prime Minister when in opposition—that is, statements he made about the coalition’s handling of foreign affairs—so that you can put in context the confected outrage we hear now when questions about his handling of foreign policy matters are raised. In 2000, the Prime Minister inferred that John Howard was a racist and that he was an impediment to Australia forging closer relations with Indonesia. In 2001, this Prime Minister attacked the International Monetary Fund as—and, Leader of the Opposition, you will like this—a ‘flagship of global neoliberalism’. In 2002, the current Prime Minister issued a series of media releases claiming there was Australian taxpayer funded people smuggling going on in Indonesia. Again in 2002, the current Prime Minister issued a media release repeating false claims that the coalition government was prepared to ‘dump Asia for the US alliance’. And despite saying in a speech that ‘Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction’ is ‘a matter of empirical fact’, he later changed his stance and became a scathing critic of the war in Iraq. In 2005 the current Prime Minister criticised Prime Minister Howard for saying that Australia could play a bridging role between China and the United States, but now the current Prime Minister claims that role for himself. He has variously accused the previous Prime Minister of being ‘loose with the truth’ and of ‘misleading parliament’ yet refusing to produce any evidence and many times without any evidence at all. Indeed, there are many examples of the current Prime Minister, when in opposition, using foreign policy issues to launch personal attacks and cast slurs against the then Prime Minister, the then trade minister and the then foreign minister. So, given this track record, we should not be surprised that this Prime Minister is quite prepared to exploit Australia’s important foreign relationships for domestic political gain. But, of course, this Prime Minister will ruthlessly and arrogantly use anything for domestic political purposes. One of the first signs of this arrogance was the infamous phone call with the then President of the United States. You will recall that one. The United States of course is Australia’s most important ally, the only global superpower, the world’s leading democracy and a crucial contributor to stability and prosperity in our region. Our relationship with the United States has never been broader, deeper or closer than in the past decade or so, and relations remain strong. However, this Prime Minister was prepared to provide the media with a false version of a private conversation with the President of the United States—and not only false, but designed to make the Prime Minister look smarter than the US President, who was supposedly meant to look stupid. But an adviser to President Bush, Daniel Price, appeared on Sky television recently and exposed this once and for all. He made it very clear that President Bush had not asked the question: ‘What’s the G20?’—that is the question the Prime Minister claims he asked—because President Bush had already made the decision to elevate the role of the G20 and had already contacted world leaders about the G20. While it is hard to conceive of a circumstance where damage could be caused to the Australia-US alliance, that is no reason to take the relationship for granted and to treat our closest international friend with contempt simply to score cheap domestic political points. This incident raised serious question marks over the Australian government’s reliability and trustworthiness, not only among Americans—Democrats and Republicans alike—but across the wider diplomatic community. Who would take a call from a man with a track record of leaping into print on sensitive issues raised privately and confidentially? Where does this sort of behaviour lead? Remember, we have witnessed the unprecedented step of the US administration having to issue a disclaimer to the Washington Post to explicitly deny the claims made in Australia about the conversation between this Prime Minister and the then President of the United States. And we still have had no explanation from the Prime Minister about how or why this debacle came to pass. Similarly, we have a long and valuable relationship with Japan, one of our most important trading and security partners. Relations have strengthened far beyond the traditional trade links to include cooperation between our forces in Iraq. The relationship with Japan is a valued asset. It should not be neglected, much less squandered. What were the Japanese to make of the Prime Minister’s baffling decision to exclude Tokyo from his first major trip to the region as Prime Minister? And what were our friends in Japan to make of the incredibly insensitive declaration of a ‘war’ on Japanese whaling and the decision to send an Australian government boat to collect video footage of whaling that this government then released to the media? India, with its strength, its stability and its rising prosperity, is also a beacon for political and economic freedom. A strong and successful India is a blessing for the world. India is facing great challenges as it develops an economy to lift millions out of poverty. One of those challenges is to limit or reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, yet this Prime Minister imposed a ban on sales of uranium to India, which is striving to greatly expand its range of nuclear reactors to provide low-emission energy for its industries and cities. This Prime Minister is saying that we cannot trust India to use Australian uranium for peaceful purposes. Yet Canada has lifted a ban on uranium sales to India. Canada believes that India is a trusted friend and that the sale of uranium to India is absolutely appropriate. So not only have we missed the colossal opportunity to export uranium to one of the most developing countries in the world with huge energy needs; the Prime Minister is denying India uranium from Australia so that it is not able to expand its nuclear capability using Australian uranium. And then we come to China. The Mandarin reading and speaking Prime Minister, it was hoped, would improve relations with the nation that is rapidly growing in importance economically but also in terms of regional stability. While there have been several well-documented stumbles in the relationship, it was brought home to me recently during a visit to Beijing that one issue takes precedence over all of the other stumbles of this government when it comes to our relationship with China. The government of China, the people of China, are deeply offended by the implication in the Prime Minister’s defence white paper that Australia regards China as a military threat. It was impressed on me repeatedly that China viewed Australia as a valuable partner who they hoped would be a long-term, reliable supplier of the resources and energy they needed to develop their economy and lift many more millions of people out of poverty. Make no mistake, the Chinese leadership have taken serious offence at the inference in this government’s white paper that China could seek to invade Australia within the next 20 years. It is also deeply regrettable that the Labor government is overturning Australia’s longstanding bipartisan policy of refusing to support one-sided resolutions against Israel in the United Nations General Assembly. The coalition has always recognised the aspirations of the Palestinian people to self-determination. But any prospect for a lasting peace in the Middle East also requires that the Palestinian people and Israel’s neighbours recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist and the right of the people of Israel to live within secure borders. This must be the crucial foundation for any durable two-state solution. Resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly that speak only of Palestinian rights to a homeland yet make no reference to the right of the state of Israel to exist are inflammatory and counterproductive. This is especially so when key backers of these resolutions such as Iran speak openly of seeking the destruction of the state of Israel. Late last year we first saw a shift in Australia’s voting patterns for United Nations General Assembly resolutions on the conflict in the Middle East. It is disappointing that the Australian government has again voted in support of such a resolution. We in the opposition again express our hope that the Labor government is not trading on fundamental questions of principle in order to attract support at the United Nations for the Prime Minister’s personal campaign to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council. More than 60 years ago the Australian government was one of the first countries to vote in support of the creation of the state of Israel at the United Nations. It has not been the traditional practice of Australian governments to adopt or endorse some of the one-sided resolutions against Israel that now come before the United Nations. This government has now voted in favour of three of these resolutions. Why? Why have they done this? We can only assume it is to do with the Prime Minister’s effort to garner votes for his personal crusade to secure a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Australia should never get into the business of trading on principle or on our support of Israel simply to gather votes for the campaign for the Security Council. It is a slippery slope. If some principles are compromised, where will this government stop? Most recent in the list of the Prime Minister’s foreign policy difficulties has been Indonesia and the circumstances surrounding the Oceanic Viking. The Prime Minister, with megaphone diplomacy, announced that he had struck a deal with President Yudhoyono. In other words, the failure of his government to protect our borders was now a problem for Indonesia to resolve. It became known as the ‘Indonesian solution’. The Prime Minister and his ministers repeatedly called on Indonesia to honour their side of the bargain. In other words, the government had made it Indonesia’s problem. They outsourced to Indonesia the problem caused by this government’s failure to keep our borders intact and to maintain the integrity of an orderly immigration program. Indonesia is undoubtedly and conspicuously one of the great new stories of this decade. It is a flourishing democracy. The re-election of President Yudhoyono marked an explicit repudiation by Indonesians of those espousing extremism. We are supportive of any effort to ensure that our relationship with Indonesia is one of close cooperation and mutual respect. What are the Indonesians to make of the fact that this government has repeatedly turned to Indonesia and directed all criticism of the Indonesian solution to the Indonesians: the Indonesians should get these people off the boat; the Indonesians should provide support; the Indonesians should provide detention facilities; the Indonesians have to resolve the Labor government’s policy failures? But in this whole Indonesian solution they did not stop with Indonesia. They then went to New Zealand and said that New Zealand had to take the people off the Oceanic Viking, then the Philippines, and, what about Sri Lanka? In this attempt to cover up the shambles of the failure, the colossal policy failure on behalf of the Labor government, they have chosen to use the relationships that have been built up over many years with Australia’s neighbours to cover up their failures. They have used foreign policy to score cheap domestic political points. All Australians should condemn this government’s failings on foreign policy. It is summed up by the government’s Asia-Pacific community where the Prime Minister announced that the architecture of the Asia-Pacific would be realigned in accordance with his vision of a European Union community and yet he did not contact one other country to consult. (Time expired) 12283 15:42:00 Smith, Stephen, MP 5V5 Perth ALP Minister for Foreign Affairs 1 0 Mr STEPHEN SMITH —The subject of the matter of public importance this afternoon is the government’s failure to properly manage Australia’s foreign relations, and we have heard the shadow minister for foreign affairs on that matter. She started with comments that the Prime Minister had made when in opposition. Let me return the House to the commitments that the Labor Party made at the last election so far as our foreign and international relations were concerned. They can be summarised very clearly in three essential undertakings: that Australia needed to enhance its engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, that Australia needed to re-engage with the United Nations and multilateral institutions, and that Australia needed to continue to ensure that our alliance with the United States continued to be the bedrock of our strategic security and defence arrangements. The Labor Party in government has met all those commitments. Let me deal with each of them in turn and then I will come to the various bilateral relationships that the shadow minister has referred to. In the course of the election campaign and in the course of the last parliament, the Liberal Party asserted that if the Labor Party was elected to office, if there was a Rudd Labor government, then the alliance would be in tatters and the alliance would fall. What we have seen since we came to office is to the contrary. The alliance is continuing to serve Australia’s national interest very well. The Australian government has worked very closely with two United States administrations of different domestic United States political persuasions—the Bush Republican administration and the Obama Democrat administration. The high-level engagement has been very productive as we have seen from the engagement between the Prime Minister and President Obama. The formal instrument that we use to engage our alliance relationships on a regular basis, the so-called AUSMIN meetings, where the Foreign Minister and the defence minister of Australia meet with the Secretary of State and the defense secretary of the United States, has been effected very well and was effected very early into the first year of the Obama administration’s term of office, in Washington in April of this year. So in the course of her remarks the shadow minister made assertions about the state of the relationship between Australia and the United States. The alliance has served us well for a long period of time and on anyone’s objective measure—not the political utterances of a parliamentarian in the House but on anyone’s objective measure—that alliance is in good shape. When I spoke to Secretary of State Clinton in Singapore in the margins of the APEC meeting, she is looking very much forward, as is Secretary of Defense Gates when I spoke to him in Washington recently looking very much forward, to next year engaging again formally in the AUSMIN consultations. So far as the Asia-Pacific is concerned, in the last parliament we were very critical of the way in which our responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific either had been neglected or were in a state of disrepair. When we came to office, Australia effectively had no relationship with Papua New Guinea. That relationship was in tatters and has now been restored, as reflected by the close working relationship we have with Papua New Guinea and the success of the two Australia-Papua New Guinea ministerial forums. That key Pacific relationship was in tatters and it has now been repaired. Our relation with the Solomon Islands was also in the very unhealthy state of disrepair. That has also been repaired. Australia’s engagement in the Pacific as a partner—not as a hectoring lecturer—is widely appreciated by our Pacific friends and neighbours and is one of the reasons that Australia was warmly welcomed as the new chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, underlined by the very successful leaders meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum that we had in Cairns recently. Let me move to the United Nations. The government very strongly believes that it is in Australia’s national interest to engage not just at the bilateral level, not just regionally but also internationally and multilaterally, through the United Nations as the premier international institution. We know that when the Liberal Party were in office they took an entirely contrary view. Their view was to walk away from the United Nations, to criticise it, to suggest that it was no longer of any utility whatsoever. As I said previously, instead of seeking to engage with the United Nations, they wanted to stand outside the building and throw rocks at it. We are very strongly committed to the United Nations and to multilateralism, for the very fundamental reason I will outline. Every major challenge that Australia faces and that other nations face, whether it is climate change, whether it is international economic circumstances, whether it is transnational crime, whether it is pandemics, whether it is disaster relief—every major challenge that we have as a nation nestled in the Asia-Pacific with a population of 22 million, every challenge we face requires engagement regionally and multilaterally, requires engagement institutionally in the important international forums. That is what we are doing because that is unambiguously in Australia’s national interest. So we were absolutely committed to continue to engage with our United States alliance. That is in a very good state of repair. Unlike the Liberal Party in government, we are very conscious of dealing with our Pacific partners on an equal basis, not lecturing them, and those relationships have been restored. And we are very strongly committed to working with the United Nations and other international institutions to secure outcomes and objectives that are in our national interest. A couple of other points. When we came to office one of the first things we did, indeed the first thing we did, was to ratify the Kyoto protocol. Often people forget that the Kyoto protocol is a protocol to a United Nations treaty. That reflected two things: our engagement with the United Nations and our adherence to the view that climate change is one of the major challenges of our time. That was one thing which sent a signal to the international community that Australia was back, in a respectable way, that we wanted to be part of the international community. The second thing through which we sent a very good signal that Australia was back, that our international standing and reputation had been restored, was the apology, which sent a very good signal, followed up by our recent adherence—very belatedly, I must say, so far as a national timing is concerned—to the General Assembly Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. A third thing which sent a signal that Australia was committed to internationalism, was committed to international norms, was committed to trying to deal with difficult problems on a regional and international basis, was the way in which when we came to office we changed some of the arrangements that the previous government had put in place so far as people smuggling and people movements were concerned and the holding of people in detention. I regret to advise the House that, on the basis of my consultations and what I have heard over the last few years, the previous government’s approach to detention, to boat people, to people smuggling left an indelible stain on our international standing and on our reputation. Fortunately, because of the changes we have made to detention arrangements in particular, that has also been substantially rectified. Whilst we have had our difficulties in the last month so far as the Oceanic Viking matter is concerned, one thing we have not done is seek to take domestic political advantage off the back of vulnerable people. One thing we have not done is seek to take domestic political advantage by vilifying people in a difficult circumstance. One thing we have not done is to put an indelible stain on our international reputation by riding roughshod over people in a very difficult situation. We have responded by discharging our obligation to search and rescue, by discharging our obligation to the international conventions so far as refugees are concerned and by dealing calmly and patiently with a matter instead of trying to take domestic political advantage by vilifying people who are not in a position to take care of themselves. Let me now deal with some of the baseless assertions made by the shadow minister. If one were to believe the shadow minister, then one would proceed on the basis that our important relationships with Indonesia, China, Japan, India and the United States were in tatters. On any measure, our relationship with the United States is in good repair. I have dealt with that. Let me deal with our relationship with Indonesia. Whilst it is clearly the case that we have had a difficult period dealing with the Oceanic Viking matter, that has not in any way disturbed the fundamental nature of the relationship between Australia and Indonesia. Indonesia was one of the relationships that the previous government did leave in good repair when we came to office. I have said that in the House before. I acknowledge that unreservedly. Australia and Indonesia have, however, taken that relationship to an even better and higher level. The ratification of the Lombok treaty, or the Perth-Lombok treaty as I refer to it—brought into force when Hassan Wirajuda and I signed it in Perth—sets the framework for the modern relationship between Australia and Indonesia. I have had many conversations with my counterpart, new Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, and one thing we are absolutely clear on is that the future challenges for Australia and Indonesia, both on a bilateral basis and in our region, have not and will not in any way be disturbed as a result of the Oceanic Viking matter. When I had dinner with Marty in Singapore, in the margins of APEC, we spent most of the time talking about the future challenges; how Indonesia was on the rise; how it was moving from a regional influence to a global influence; how we were partners in the G20; and how Indonesia had changed qualitatively as a nation, adhering now to democracy. Its current president is the first to start a second democratically elected full five-year term. It is attached to the institutions of democracy, wanting to protect and enhance human rights. This is a vital relationship and it is in a better state now than it was when we came to office. So far as China is concerned, yes, there have been tensions in the relationship in recent times. Those tensions crystallised over the issuing by Australia of a visa to Rebiya Kadeer. I could, if I wanted to, detail to the House all of the commentary that was rendered about the Liberal Party and the shadow minister when the Liberal Party said that the government had made a mistake in issuing that visa. I am very happy to relay to the House, if the shadow minister wants me to, the comment that the Liberal Party was not a fit and proper party to be in office while it held that view. If you read the white paper carefully and assiduously, as I have done, it does not identify one particular country in respect of which threats come. All of these issues crystallised with the Rebiya Kadeer visa. I refused to intervene and allowed a visa to be granted to her because, unlike the Liberal Party, the Labor Party believes in freedom of speech. The Labor Party believes that a person can come to this country and express a view whether the government believes it or not. If the Liberal Party had been in office they would have bowed their heads and refused to allow her to come to this country. China continues to enhance its economic and general relationship with us. I conducted with Foreign Minister Yang the first two strategic dialogues between Australia and China. The Gorgon deal that was signed with China is the largest trade deal made by Australia with any other country. Our economic and general relationship continues to improve. The visit here of Vice-Premier Li was a most successful visit. The speech I made at the Australian National University’s China Institute and the speech that Vice-Premier Li made here make it crystal clear: we have in some areas different values, different virtues and different approaches. There will from time to time be differences. This government, unlike the Liberal Party, will not compromise on our values and virtues. We will manage whatever differences arise in the way in which we have. Let me now turn to Japan. 83P Bishop, Julie, MP Ms Julie Bishop —What about Israel? 5V5 Smith, Stephen, MP Mr STEPHEN SMITH —I will deal with all of them; do not worry. Japan’s Prime Minister and Australia’s Prime Minister were close to the first two prime ministers to speak when the new Japanese Prime Minister came to office. Our relationship with Japan is very strong. The trilateral strategic dialogue I had with Foreign Minister Okada and Secretary of State Clinton in New York reflected the strength of our relationship, the strong economic, social and strategic partnership that we have with Japan. On India: during the Prime Minister’s visit to India we signed a strategic partnership. Regrettably, Australian foreign policy for over a quarter of a century has neglected India. In the first speech I made as foreign minister, I said that we have to enhance our engagement with India, and we are. India is on the rise, just as China is on the rise. Let me deal finally with the Middle East. The government has changed three votes before the General Assembly— 83P Bishop, Julie, MP Ms Julie Bishop —Why? 10000 Burke, Anna (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms AE Burke)—The Deputy Leader of the Opposition had her turn earlier. 5V5 Smith, Stephen, MP Mr STEPHEN SMITH —They were on settlements, reflecting precisely the same view as the United States administration; on the Geneva conventions applying to the occupied territories—and how would Australia have looked in the terrible Gaza conflict last December and January if we had not adhered to the application of the Geneva conventions?; and, thirdly, on the right of self-determination of the Palestinians. 83P Bishop, Julie, MP Ms Julie Bishop interjecting— 10000 DEPUTY SPEAKER, The The DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Deputy Leader of the Opposition had her turn. She is abusing the standing orders. 5V5 Smith, Stephen, MP Mr STEPHEN SMITH —When you look at who votes in those matters, at the strong stand that Australia takes defending Israel’s interests on the Goldstone report and at the strong stand that Australia took in the Durban II review, we are in very good company because our approach to these matters is a two-nation-state solution and to support the peace process. (Time expired) 12287 15:57:00 Johnson, Michael, MP 00AMX Ryan LP 0 0 Mr JOHNSON —I am very pleased to speak on this important motion in the House of Representatives and to commend the motion by my senior colleague the deputy leader of the parliamentary party. The government’s failure to properly manage Australia’s foreign relations is a very important topic because in today’s world it has all kinds of implications. It is not just an issue of hardcore security but it affects softcore security as well. It has enormous implications for social and economic prosperity in our country, so it is absolutely incumbent upon Australians, Australia’s Prime Minister and the Australian government to manage our relationships with all the key countries of the world, and indeed those nations in our part of the world, with great care and diligence. My view on the role of the Prime Minister and an Australian government is that their absolute first priority is the defence and national security of the country. The first obligation of any Prime Minister and any Australian government must surely be to ensure the security of their country. For me, and I suspect for all the constituents of Ryan that I represent and the overwhelming majority of people in this country, that must also extend to the protection of our national borders. Clearly in the last week in particular, but also in the preceding weeks, the integrity of border protection policy has come to the fore. I will also put forward what I think is the second most important view of a Prime Minister of this country and his or her government: that must be to promote, facilitate and strengthen the international relations of this country. Clearly, the Asia-Pacific region is of fundamental importance. To use the words of a former Labor Prime Minister, our security does lie in Asia. Absolutely it does and there is no doubt about that. Equally, of course, we cannot disentangle or disconnect ourselves from the critical importance of the United States to Australia. We have longstanding historical and cultural ties with the US, which is a nation that will always be dear to our hearts—indeed, so dear to me that I married an American, and a very fine lady she is too. That is how much I think of Americans. This motion that the Deputy Leader has put up is critical, because it asks Australians to question the quality of leadership of the Australian Prime Minister and the Australian government. I want to raise this in relation to three countries in particular. It might be said that the government’s failure to manage Australia’s relationships with these countries is glaring. It is inconsistent, it is counterproductive and it is highly politically driven; absolutely so, in my view. I have a passion for international relations. It is something I have a particular affection for, having had the great pleasure and great privilege of studying foreign affairs at Cambridge University. For me, ‘inconsistent’, ‘counterproductive’ and ‘politically driven’ are tags for this government’s management of our foreign relations. Let me take the case of Indonesia, because it is very pertinent at the moment. Indonesia, measured in purchasing power parities, rates as the 16th largest economy in the world, at $910 billion. Its GDP is actually greater than Australia’s. The United States stands at $14.4 trillion, China at $7 trillion, followed by Japan, India and then Germany. From the Parliamentary Library’s research, on 2009 figures measured in US dollars, Indonesia’s purchasing power parity is $910 billion. Australia, at No. 18, follows Indonesia at $799 billion. This is a country of enormous significance to us. This is a country of some 231.5 million people. We all know it is the largest Muslim democracy in the world. Australians might not know that the capital city, Jakarta, is the 14th largest city in the world. In mid-2007 it had a population of 15.1 million people. Our country’s population in 2007 was 21 million people. This nation of Indonesia, with its 13,600 islands that make it a sovereign nation, is one which is absolutely fundamental for the Australian government and the Australian Prime Minister to have very warm ties with. I commend former Prime Minister Howard for the way in which he embraced Indonesia, and President Yudhoyono for the way in which he absolutely put our relationship front and centre. Yet of course we know now what Prime Minister Rudd thinks of Indonesia and how he handles it. My understanding is that Indonesia is very unhappy with Mr Rudd, because there was a leaking of a private conversation between the Australian Prime Minister and President Yudhoyono over the fate of asylum seekers and the Deputy Leader, the member for Curtin, alluded to how it seems somewhat interesting that the Prime Minister has a tendency to reveal private conversations with leaders of other countries. I think it is untenable that the integrity of the leader of our country could be put in question by the leaking of conversations with other world leaders. That is just unacceptable. Indonesia is critical. We have seen in recent days how the management of our relationship with Indonesia has just been torn to pieces, with the news that President Yudhoyono is actually not coming to Australia this week. That is terrible because it has been some time since he has come here. The last visit was in 2005, during the Howard government. For a nation of this significance the postponing of such a visit is not a slap in the face to this country or to the Prime Minister; it is more like a punch in the head. It shows a lack of respect for the Prime Minister. As an Australian citizen—let alone as the member for Ryan, a member of this parliament—I feel terribly disappointed that President Yudhoyono would have such a lack of respect for my Prime Minister that he would postpone an important bilateral visit. In fact, I would like to ask the Prime Minister when he actually knew the Indonesian President was not coming to Australia. When was the Australian government told that he would not be coming here? It was only revealed very recently that he was not coming. That was a great disappointment. With border protection, we have all these boats coming here, we have all these asylum seekers coming here, and some 50 boats have arrived since Mr Rudd and Labor decided to weaken the coalition’s legislation. We cannot have a situation in this country where people can just hop on a boat and come to this country and hold hostage the policies of the country. That is just unacceptable and a terribly poor way to formulate immigration and foreign policies. In fact, I touched on this issue in my maiden speech in 2002. I talked about how important it was for this country to be generous and tolerant but to never compromise border security and the domestic security of this country. I regret very much that my time is fast running away, so let me touch very quickly on India, another incredibly important country in our part of the world. Mr Rudd was in India last week and I have gone through all the press releases and his speeches and local papers and nowhere do I see any commentary about Australia selling uranium to India—probably the greatest thing we could do to strengthen and enhance our relationship with India. This is a country of some 1.1 billion people, a country that in a few years time will be the largest nation on earth, in terms of its population. We could do so much for our bilateral ties with India if we sold our uranium to India. After all, we are happy to sell it to Russia and we are happy to sell it to China, and now Canada is selling uranium to India. But, no, Australia cannot do that. Yet former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr and Paul Howes, the Secretary of the AWU, say let’s sell our uranium to India. Mongolia is selling its uranium to India. But, no, we must not do that. Why is this politically driven? It is politically driven because the Australian Labor Party says, ‘No, we must not sell our uranium to India but we will sell it to Russia; we will sell it to China. There are no problems there.’ This is the inconsistency. This is how counterproductive it is. Imagine the jobs. Imagine the strength of our economy. Imagine all the flow-ons of that, the billions. Which hospital in this country would not take some proceeds of that? Which road? Certainly the roads in the Ryan electorate would take some of that cash from selling our uranium to India. I could go on, because this is an issue of great passion for me. I say to Mr Rudd and to his colleagues, let us sell our uranium to India. Let us do what John Howard did. We can sell our uranium to India. It would be good for Australia. (Time expired) 12289 16:07:00 Dreyfus, Mark, MP HWG Isaacs ALP 1 0 Mr DREYFUS —In the Deputy Leader of the Opposition’s matter of public importance motion there is an almost palpable desperation to create some kind of relevance for the Liberal Party. They are almost bereft of coherent policy on foreign policy or international relations, as we have seen with the small assistance the member for Ryan has attempted to provide with his claim to have an interest in international relations—which, I regret to say, is usually manifest in his spending more time overseas than he does in Australia. In the speech she has just given, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition shows her failure to understand the broad strategic foreign policy framework which the Rudd government has worked so assiduously to create in the two years since the last election. What we have seen in the last two years since the election of the Rudd government is a renewed commitment to multilateralism and, with that renewed commitment to multilateralism, a regaining of the respect of the nations of the world for Australia’s position in the world. There is a long list of foreign policy achievements which I have not even remotely got the time to deal with in the time available. I would start by pointing to the way in which Australia’s commitment to multilateralism and engagement with the world is enabling Australia to participate in the global battle—and we should not be in any doubt about its global nature—to deal with climate change. What we saw from the former government was a disengagement with the global process in relation to climate change. What we have seen from the Rudd government is an engagement at every level with the councils of the world, an engagement which will enable Australia to play a major role, we hope, at Copenhagen. The Prime Minister has said that he has been invited by Denmark’s Prime Minister Rasmussen to be one of the ‘friends of the chair’. Australia has been instrumental in strengthening and confirming the role of the G20 as the premier institution for global economic governance, and Australia’s participation in the G20 has enabled our country to raise climate change issues in that forum as well. I will just list a range of other relationships that the Rudd government has forged and is working on, all of which have been able to be called upon for aid in relation to the global battle against climate change. We could point to APEC, which was of course initiated by a Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, in 1989. APEC is now flourishing. It was attended by the Prime Minister last week, and it of course has a link with the G20. Nine of the members of the G20 are also members of APEC. One of those common members is Australia, and Australia has been able to raise climate change in both of those forums. Australia is spearheading efforts in the Pacific region to secure stability and security for small island states. We have been working hard on stabilising the Solomon Islands and we have been pressing for an early return to democracy in Fiji. The role that Australia has been playing in the Pacific has enabled Australia, again in the climate change context, to champion the particularly pressing need that a number of the smaller countries in the Pacific have for action to be taken on climate change. Australia is currently the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum and at the Cairns conference was able to be instrumental in the delivery of the Pacific Leaders’ Climate Change Call to Action, which of course is a call to action to deal with the threats to some of our Pacific neighbours. In September, at the request of the UN Secretary-General, Australia co-chaired a roundtable at the UN Special Session on Climate Change. We have been able to forge a relationship with Mexico on climate change. At the G8 meeting at L’Aquila in Italy in July—and Australia is not a member—Australia was able to attend and we helped to form a two degrees Celsius, 450 million parts per million ambition for global action on climate change. I have no doubt left out some other multilateral engagements that Australia has been able to make to assist in the global battle against climate change, but I should also mention the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, which Australia launched at that meeting of the G8 at L’Aquila in Italy. That is how the new form of engagement, the commitment to multilateralism, that Australia has demonstrated under the careful stewardship of foreign minister Smith and Prime Minister Rudd, has been able to assist us in relation to climate change. But I also wanted to mention just how absurd are some of the nitpicking propositions that were advanced by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, notably in relation to China and in relation to Australia’s longstanding and continuing support for Israel. In relation to China, I happen to have coincided with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on a visit to China. I participated with you, Deputy Speaker Burke, in a parliamentary delegation, led by the President of the Senate, which arrived in Beijing on 1 November. Over the subsequent 11 days we visited Shanghai, Chengdu and Lhasa, finishing in Hong Kong. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition was not present at any of the very high level meetings that the parliamentary delegation was able to have with the Chinese leadership. Who knows what the Deputy Leader was listening to, because, at the parliamentary delegation’s meetings with the Chinese leadership—and I should stress that it was at the highest levels of the Chinese leadership—we heard over and over again about China’s commitment to its relationship with Australia and how much China values its relations with Australia. And just before the parliamentary delegation went to the People’s Republic of China, there was of course the visit by Vice Premier Li Keqiang. Perhaps the most significant of the meetings that our parliamentary delegation had with the Chinese leadership was with the Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, who made it very clear just how much China values its relationship with Australia, pointing to the massive increase in trade with Australia in recent years. Our two-way trade with China has grown from quite a small amount when another Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, restored our relations with China to some $78 billion in 2008. The senior Chinese leaders with whom we met, who included the Deputy Minister for Commerce, Madam Ma, pointed out, as is obvious, that as a result of the global financial crisis there had been some lessening of that two-way trade. But they were at pains to point out in all of our meetings that the lessening of the two-way trade between China and Australia has been a smaller lessening than the trade drops experienced with other countries. As the foreign minister has just told the House, the relationship we have with China is one which does not prevent our government from raising human rights issues when those issues need to be raised. We as a delegation were able to raise with the Chinese leadership our concerns about the human rights situation in Tibet and about the need for a speedy resolution of the situation of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu. The strength of the relationship is demonstrated by the fact that we are able to raise these matters. In relation to Israel, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of herself for suggesting that there has been any lessening in the strength of Australian support for the state of Israel. She omitted to mention—and this is the selective approach she took to almost all of the topics she mentioned—the support Australia gave to Israel during the Gaza conflict at the start of this year; the vote that Australia made at, and Australia’s position in withdrawing from, the Durban review conference and its assistance to ensure that other countries did the same; the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Israel as part of the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum in June this year; and Australia’s position on the Goldstone report. (Time expired) 12291 16:17:00 Laming, Andrew, MP E0H Bowman LP 0 0 Mr LAMING —This is one of those rare moments when members of the government actually stay around and listen during an MPI. They are obviously willing to listen to any discussion other than the obvious mammoth in the room, that being the events in Indonesia. As many of those government members scurry back to their electorates tonight, I say to them: you may be able to escape the questions this week but you will not be able to escape the questions from your own electorate. The tradies, the subbies and the apprentices in your electorates will be asking you the very simple question: ‘Where do you stand on asylum seekers?’ It is a simple question to which could not get an answer from our Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is all but a neighbour of mine in Brisbane, but the people in Bulimba, Morningside, East Brisbane and Redlands have not got an answer to this. Where was the fair go? Where was the honesty? This Prime Minister is walking not both sides of the street but both sides of the Timor Sea on this issue, trying to appease Indonesia—and that has been left in smoking rubble—and trying to appease Australians with all of these conflicting messages about being ‘tough but humane’ and ‘compassionate but fair’. But there is absolutely nothing consistent. In the end the only casualties are those poor unfortunate souls sitting in Tanjung Pinang—those poor souls who cannot rely on fair treatment—and the Australian public servants who do a good job, who cannot look these asylum seekers in the eye and say: ‘We will treat you fairly. There is a process around our foreign relations and we will consider your case fairly. You will be heard within an average of 52 weeks in 85 per cent of cases.’ But no. By any definition, this is a special deal. No matter what arm of the media you come from this is a special deal. In the pubs, clubs and school pick-up zones of my electorate, this is a special deal. Talk to the mums in the shopping centres, talk to the fathers commuting home from work: it is a special deal in anyone’s eyes. You are not fooling anyone. We started with a Prime Minister who was all ‘Mr Nambour’ about ‘not throwing fairness out the back door’; we saw the television ads. I went to Mooloolaba State School— 10000 Burke, Anna (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms AE Burke)—Member for Bowman, there is no need to shout. There is no need to shout, thank you. E0H Laming, Andrew, MP Mr LAMING —and we did not have time for people whose attitude was to walk both sides of the street. He did it at Nambour State High School, he did on the TV ads and he is doing it right now. The other question which Australians would ask is about honesty. Will you stand up for your decisions or will make up a border protection cabinet committee that makes a quiet, secretive decision and then scurry off whispering in each other’s ears: ‘Whatever you do, don’t cc the PM’s office. Just send this letter off in Tamil after you’ve found an interpreter, but make sure the Prime Minister doesn’t know about the decision because, when he’s asked, he needs to be able to say he knew nothing.’ He is only the place where the buck stops. But no decision is made if it is a tough one. No, that is done by some completely unelected committee. I say to members of the government, to the staffers and bureaucrats: how do I convince the people sitting at the Cleveland Sands Hotel? How do I look them in the eye and tell them who cut this smokin’ deal? Do I say to them, ‘No, they’re staffers and bureaucrats’? Was the Prime Minister involved in this one? ‘No, the greatest collective control freak we’ve known as a leader of this country didn’t even know about the deal!’ I cannot sell that message at the Capalaba Tavern or the Grand View Hotel. I could not sell that if I tried, and I challenge anyone to attempt to. Finally, there is the notion of a fair go, the one thing that we have always relied on in this country. Illegal arrival rules were tightened and improved in 2002 and, with that, the boats dropped away to three boats a year and then one boat a year—putting all the trickery of counting the numbers before 2002 aside. We clearly set up rules in this country which most Australians were extremely supportive of. I understand the Prime Minister has, as I have said, an awkward walk on both sides of the street, trying to appease conflicting constituencies. But the Australian people—and many of them do not read the papers every day, listen to the radio every day or watch TV all day—will be asking a simple question: was it really a fair go for those 78? First of all, they would not leave the Oceanic Viking, so they are rewarded for being obstructive. Second, when they are taken off they are promised, ‘Everything will be okay for you and you will be treated differently from those on the other side of the bars.’ This is a triumph for these asylum seekers, and their obstruction, over our Prime Minister. It has weakened our Indonesian relationship. It has been exposed for what it is by this side of the House. This government needs to look again at its actions of last week. I support this motion. (Time expired) 12293 16:22:00 Parke, Melissa, MP HWR Fremantle ALP 1 0 Ms PARKE —This debate is another case of the opposition grasping a highly questionable premise for the sake of some dubious political point scoring. No-one in this place expects that a political debate should be anything other than frank and even fierce, but at the same time one would hope that debates on the really important topics would spring from justifiable cause. Yet in the course of this year we have seen the opposition make claims against the Prime Minister and call for the Prime Minister’s resignation on the basis of a fraudulent email provided to them by a disgruntled public servant with a track record of assisting the Liberal Party. Today we debate a proposition with an equally hollow and questionable basis. Again, it is a proposition that rebounds upon those who advance it. Australia’s foreign relations are of critical importance to this country, and it follows that criticism of our foreign relations should only proceed on substantial grounds. This is a serious matter of national policy and international reputation. It is not something one should drum up lightly in between contributions via Twitter. Such a debate might usefully proceed, for example, where there is evidence that the government has taken Australia into a war that does not directly affect its security, that is without the sanction of the United Nations and that is based on an ever-shifting, ever-dissolving rationale. Or it might proceed from circumstances where the government has failed, at the very least, to adequately supervise Australia’s wheat exports, with the result being the payment of millions of dollars to the regime of Saddam Hussein in Australia’s largest trading scandal. Or it might be applicable where the government has consciously and deliberately undermined the United Nations and multilateralism and ridiculed the findings of UN human rights bodies and rapporteurs concerning Australia’s treatment of its Indigenous peoples and asylum seekers. But none of these circumstances obtain in relation to this government. They applied, rather, in relation to the previous government. As someone who worked within the United Nations for eight years before entering parliament and who maintains contact with UN and other governmental and NGO personnel across the globe, I will state the obvious: the shift in Australia’s international standing between this government and the last is stark beyond belief. Whereas a great number of Australia’s actions under the Howard government were an international embarrassment, the Rudd government has cooperated constructively with other nations and brought great credit to Australia in the view of the international community. On the question of this government’s record when it comes to foreign relations, let us consider the facts. From the moment of its election in November 2007, the Rudd government has comprehensively re-engaged with the international community. The government’s first act was to ratify the Kyoto protocol. In so doing, we reaffirmed Australia’s historical position and role as a state that is proactive in the cause of international cooperation. In two years of government we have ratified a number of important international agreements and incorporated the substance and purpose of a number of international agreements into Australian law. Today, for example, the Attorney-General introduced the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Bill, which will enact a specific offence of torture within the Commonwealth Criminal Code and will extend the application of the death penalty prohibition to state laws, in accordance with Australia’s international obligations under the second optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This government, in the context of the global financial crisis and in addition to its world-leading management of the domestic economy, has also played its part in achieving the acceptance of the G20 group of countries as the premier international forum for dealing with global economic issues and challenges. This not only gives Australia a seat at that important table but, in taking the consideration and carriage of such matters from the G8 to the G20, also now includes the crucial participation of countries like Brazil, India and China. On that historic shift, Andrew F Cooper, Associate Director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, remarked: As witnessed previously at Washington and London, Prime Minister Rudd has made good use of his seat at the G20 table. Certainly, he has been one of the biggest supporters of the expanded club. If the G20 is to continue at the leaders’ level, it will be a reward for Australia, recognising its ability to mobilise and enhance global debates. Does that assessment in any way conform to the proposition that this government has not properly managed Australia’s international engagement or its foreign relations? When it comes to important bilateral relationships, this government, through the work of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has carried forward our engagement with all our important bilateral partners—with the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, India, Indonesia, New Zealand and our Pacific Island neighbours, and our other Asia-Pacific regional partners. The government’s record and its achievements in managing Australia’s foreign relations and its international engagement speak for themselves. This is a record of which we are proud, and these are achievements that are for the long-term economic, social and security benefit of this country. 10000 Burke, Anna (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms AE Burke)—The discussion is now concluded. 12294 Bills R4210 12294 Message received from the Senate returning the bill without amendment or request. 12295 Bills R4160 12295 Message received from the Senate returning the bill and informing the House that the Senate does not insist upon its amendment (6) disagreed to by the House and has agreed to the amendment made by the House in its place. 12295 Adjournment 10000 Burke, Anna (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms AE Burke)—Order! It being almost 4.30 pm, I propose the question: That the House do now adjourn. 12295 12295 16:28:00 Forrest, John, MP NV5 Mallee NATS 0 0 Mr FORREST —I take this opportunity to bring before the House my concerns regarding the tsunami of debt recovery that is occurring across the federal division of Mallee. With drought now in its seventh year, we have the situation of water shortages associated with the Murray Valley, particularly Mildura and Sunraysia in my electorate. I am grateful to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who has taken me into his confidence and shared discussions he has had with the big four banks and other lenders across my constituency. The situation in my electorate is a huge challenge. The people I am concerned about are principally primary producers, but the impact of debt recovery on the whole economy has also affected small businesses across the region. I have been discussing the circumstances of this situation with David Bell, the CEO of the Australian Bankers Association. There are protocols on how to deal with debt recovery for domestic housing. These protocols require a proper process to be followed and the borrower to be engaged in a debt negotiation procedure so that their dignity is retained. These circumstances do not exist for commercial lending. I have asked the Bankers Association to get its members together and form some protocols on how to deal with this situation. My experience with too many lenders in the last 18 months, which has come to a head in the last six months, is that there is a propensity for their middle-management, hairy-chested negotiators to move in far too quickly and to proceed to court action, with the end result of the complete removal of any control of the destiny of my constituent, particularly primary producers. The problem with the process of a court order, which is where some judge orders the closing down of the facilities, results in a mortgagee in possession sales. The impact of that is that a farming family is left with no dignity whatsoever. The control of the sale is completely in the hands of their lender and, as soon as the sale is announced that this is a mortgage in possession sale, which is required by law, the price collapses and there is a fire sale. All a lender really wants is to redeem enough out of the transaction to have their debt paid, which does not leave the opportunity for my farmers to recover at least some of their equity. I have pleaded with all the lenders that there is a better way to do this. This drive to represent my constituency comes from an incident that occurred seven or eight years ago, when I was part of supporting a grieving family whose principal worker in the entity ended up committing suicide because he could not cope with the shame that he felt, which was that the whole community knew he was being washed up by his lender. There have been more incidents, even as recently as in last couple of weeks. I say to those borrowers out there, whether they be members of the Bankers Association or not—and some of them are not; some of them are lenders of convenience: I demand that my constituents be treated with dignity. There is a process where a commercial settlement can be negotiated. In New South Wales, it is a requirement by state law that a negotiation occurs. This is like a-round-the-kitchen-table process. A commercial arrangement is put in place where the borrower concerned has the capacity to negotiate their own sale, run their own auction, and the term ‘mortgagee in possession’ does not get mentioned. Time after time, I have been part of supporting families through this process. I have no problem with a lender redeeming what they are owed. Primary producers are businessmen just like anyone else. They acknowledge the fact that they have overextended themselves. To some extent it is unfortunate that each year they try that gamble again and borrow to do their cropping, and then the rain does not come. It is not entirely their fault but they accept their responsibility. So, on the basis of the examples that I have seen, I say to all of those lenders out there—I have been negotiating with some of them today: you will treat my constituents with dignity and you will involve me in the negotiations, because I am left to support my constituents through the emotional trauma that results. I have one case now where it is not just about the farmer himself. He is a first-generation father, and he is going through a traumatic process. Be warned: I expect consultation. (Time expired) 12296 12296 16:34:00 Saffin, Janelle, MP HVY Page ALP 1 0 Ms SAFFIN —I want to thank all of those people who participated in, helped to organise and supported an event, called ‘Stand for freedom’, that I hosted at the Sydney Opera House on 27 October. Five hundred people gathered at this event to show their support and solidarity for Burma’s Noble Peace Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. I want to give particular thanks to the following people: Therese Rein, Lucy Turnbull, Di Morrissey, Jenny Morris, Claire Mallinson and Nyein Aye Kyi. These were the special guests who each spoke at the event and, in so doing, demonstrated strong support from the Australian community, particularly from women in the Australian community. Each brought their own thoughts and dignity to the occasion. All called for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from incarceration. We know that she is still under house arrest, having been there for some 14 of the past 20 years as she has struggled to bring freedom and democracy to her country. Jenny Morris sang a song that was most apt. It was about the revolution. I commented at the time that Aung San Suu Kyi, a devout Buddhist, extols a revolution of the spirit, and the two resonated remarkably well. I also want to thank the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts for securing Jenny Morris at the event for me. Claire Mallinson, as National Director of Amnesty International—I am a long-term member of Amnesty International—made a plea for all Burma’s political prisoners; there are over 2,000 who are known. I also wish to thank the team of people who all volunteered their time and professional skills to ensure the event’s success: the Sydney Opera House executive and staff and the newly appointed artistic director, opera singer and great artist and community person, Lyndon Terracini, who happens to come from Lismore, my home town—that was convenient! I also want to thank the national and international media for their coverage of the event. Radio Free Asia sent a senior reporter from their Washington head office, Mr Khin Maung Soe, who also visited our parliament. I particularly want to thank Alan Jones and Deborah Cameron, who covered the event so well and, therefore, the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi and that of the people of Burma. Some women came to the event after hearing me talk on Alan Jones’s program. The major daily newspapers covered it, as did TV, radio, SBS and Radio Australia, which recently launched its coverage into Burma. I want to thank the Prime Minister for that policy initiative, which he promoted, announcing it on the day that Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentencing on these trumped-up charges was announced. There were three high schools represented as well by senior girls, and good on them for coming along. Jackie Laurence was there. She is one of our Olympic medallists and one of my constituents and also the Australia-Burma Campaign’s supporters. Kerri-Anne Kennerley came, as did New South Wales political leaders. The Australian Burmese community came out, as did the Australian Karen organisation and Aunty Pyone, as she is known, brought a huge photo of Aung San Suu Kyi, a photo which hit the headlines worldwide. She asked a friend to asked me if she could bring it. I said, ‘Of course, and don’t turn up without it.’ I hoped she would and she did. Some of them were overwhelmed, coming from their motherland, knowing the tragedy and travesty which has beset their nation for a long time. Many still have family living there. As we know, on every indicator, the country scores poorly in terms of infant maternal mortality morbidity, health status, malaria, TB, HIV-AIDs, school rates of attendance and attrition, economy, food security—once a rice bowl, now a dust bowl—and we all know of the terrible cyclone and tsunami that devastated their nation. I am also mindful of current political initiatives on the part of Australia-US friends groups, ASEAN, the secretary-general, and I watch with interest. There are the views expressed both ways, but everybody has to try. (Time expired) 12297 12297 16:39:00 Scott, Bruce, MP YT4 Maranoa NATS 0 0 Mr BRUCE SCOTT —I rise this afternoon in the adjournment debate to bring the attention of the parliament to a very serious problem which is threatening the livelihood of fruit growers on the Granite Belt in my electorate of Maranoa and at the same time to present a petition regarding the flying foxes and damage mitigation permits that would be required to militate against the devastation that flying foxes cause on fruit orchards on the Granite Belt. The petition read as follows— To the honourable The Speaker and members of the House of Representatives This petition of citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House: The desperate and uncertain situation facing Southern Darling Downs fruit growers who have been banned from using humane lethal deterrents to protect their orchards from the threat of flying foxes this coming harvest season; The absence of an alternative, reliable, proven and affordable non-lethal method to deter flying foxes from roosting in orchards and damaging fruit crops; The adverse impact the Queensland Government’s revocation of Damage Mitigation Permits will have on the viability of orchards across the Southern Darling Downs and Granite Belt; The potential health risk for orchardists who will be in close contact with flying foxes, which are natural reservoirs for deadly diseases, such as the Hendra Virus. We therefore ask the House to: recognise the importance of protecting these orchards, which provide Australia with clean, green fruit; recognise the possibility of the mutation of viruses carried by flying foxes and the potential health risk for humans should these diseases be capable of direct bat-to-human transmission; recognise shooting of the Flying Fox ‘scout’ is an effective, safe and humane method to deter flying foxes from roosting in orchards; intervene to pressure the Queensland Government to immediately reinstate Damage Mitigation Permits until a reliable, proven and affordable non-lethal alternative can be implemented to protect fruit orchards from flying foxes. from 220 citizens Petition received. YT4 Scott, Bruce, MP Mr BRUCE SCOTT —The Granite Belt boasts highly reputable wineries and fruit orchards. However, their viability is being threatened by a city-centric state Labor government which cares more about securing the green vote than they do about orchardists who grow our apples, grapes, cherries, olives and other stone fruit—peaches and nectarines in abundance. As I speak in the House this afternoon I know that many of those people will be out there harvesting this year’s crop. Last year the Bligh government revoked the damage mitigation permits and imposed a ban on using lethal methods to control flying fox populations. Despite their promise to have a non-lethal deterrent put in place in time for the next season, which is the season currently before us, they are nowhere near ready and so the Granite Belt orchards remain available and in danger of being destroyed by flying foxes as they colonise at this time. Why would they do that? There is an abundance of fruit. It is not a natural habitat. It has been made by orchardists who have put in orchards for their own income to sustain their families. This is not only an issue for the viability of these orchards and the families they support; it is also a very serious health issue. Bats are a natural reservoir for many deadly diseases, including the Hendra virus. Recently in Queensland, in Rockhampton, the veterinarian Alister Rodgers tragically lost his life after contracting the disease from an infected horse. It may be only a matter of time before this virus could be transmitted directly from bat to human. I am strongly against the mindless culling of these animals, but look at what is happening in Victoria and within five minutes drive of where these orchards are which I visited recently on the granite belt in New South Wales. You could be given a damage mitigation permit to use a method which had been used for many years and that is the humane destruction of the scout bats which go in to establish an area where bats could colonise—but not in Queensland. It is more about Green votes, not about the health of orchardists nor the viability of these orchards. In order for us to protect one of the strongest fruit growing regions in Queensland, if not Australia, their viability is essential. I visited one of these orchards only recently and they gave me some of the new season apricots and nectarines. They said they will get better and better as the season goes on. The problem is that, as bats colonise the area, they will attack, as they did last year when they took something like 40 per cent of the fruit in these orchards, particularly the apples. The state government have said that they will put in a scientific approach to the control of these bats. They are already picking out there, harvesting the fruit, but the alternative method, as the Queensland minister would have it, is not even in place. Yet these families and the fruit pickers are going to go out there and each day they will be at risk of being infected by a virus which we know has deadly consequences. It may be that at the moment it is transmitted by horses, but it is only a matter of time—as we have seen with the swine flu and all the other viruses that humans can contract—before it mutates and goes direct from the host to humans. This is a very serious issue. I am calling on the state Labor minister to make sure that these orchardists are able to use the same mitigation measures as they are across the border in New South Wales and down in Victoria. That is the only way they can guarantee the health and safety of this wonderful fruit— 10000 SPEAKER, The The SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. His petition is presented under standing order 207(b). 12299 12299 16:44:00 Parke, Melissa, MP HWR Fremantle ALP 1 0 Ms PARKE —I want to reflect today on the government’s decision to keep in place the system of territorial copyright and the parallel importation restrictions that have served Australia’s writers, readers, publishers, printers and independent booksellers so well. I commend the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy and Labor’s working party on this issue for their conduct of this matter and its outcome. As the member for Fremantle, I was happy to be one of the many people making the case to retain the existing arrangement. Fremantle is a place that has inspired and nourished artistic production of the highest standard across the full range of the arts. It is home to many writers, including prominent authors such as Tim Winton, Joan London, Mark Greenwood and Craig Silvey and a soon to be famous author, Josh Wilson. I have spoken before in this place in praise of the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre which, as a centre dedicated to the writing and teaching of Australian kids’ literature, is one of its kind in this country. And, from its raffish heritage building on Quarry Street, Fremantle Press has been a breeding ground for important Western Australian writers for more than 30 years. It published Sally Morgan’s My Place. It published Kim Scott’s Miles Franklin winning novel, Benang. It continues to seek out and support and foster the work of developing Western Australian writers. It concerns me that in the aftermath of the minister’s decision on this issue some people continue to misrepresent the debate and its outcome. I have seen the campaign against the proposed changes characterised as being ‘relentless’, ‘well organised’, ‘expensive’, and waged by ‘well-connected spruikers’. That is hugely ironic when you consider those who led the campaign for change and the nature of that campaign. A front-page article in the Australian newspaper on the day after the minister’s decision described how the campaign to keep the current system was prosecuted by a so-called ‘Labor-saturated lobbyist’—while somehow failing to mention the countervailing effort of former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. Bizarrely, the decision was repeatedly characterised as constituting a mortal blow to the life prospects of under-privileged kids. Indeed, reading the press coverage, one could be forgiven at times for thinking that the streets were full of impoverished school children with not quite enough loose change in their hands to purchase the text book that was critical to their entire future. But where was the evidence of this straw victim? It is as if, in reading the post mortems on the now dead effort to tear down an effective market design, that it was poor David who had fallen here at the hands of a terrible Goliath; that a powerful ogre in the shape of, say, Jose Borghino or Tim Winton, had done terrible things to the puny but noble people’s champion in the form of Woolworths or Coles. This is laughable. Never mind the fact that of the nearly 270 submissions received by the Productivity Commission, something like 260 were made against the proposed changes. Never mind that this issue had been considered by four or five previous inquiries, and that each time the decision had been to leave the system unchanged. Never mind the fact that the proponents of change pitched their argument on this complex issue to the ever-reliable hip pocket. As Jose Borghino pointed out: The other side had a two-word, simplistic slogan: cheaper books. Yet even that basic case could not be made with any certainty. First, the assertion that the parallel importation restrictions were the cause of more expensive books in Australia was never convincingly established. Second—in what was to my mind the most telling observation on this point—the Productivity Commission itself acknowledged that the free rein given to the enormous retailers that dominate the Australian market might well in the end result in any small price reduction being undone by the way oligopolies tend to operate in this country. Let us remember in all this that the principal advocate for change was the Coalition for Cheaper Books—a group which included Dymocks, Woolworths, Kmart and Coles. Among these are the same large retailers that dominate the market for liquor, groceries and fuel. It might just as accurately have been called the Coalition for Greater Market Dominance, Less Competition and Higher Profits. Even if you accept the premise that the removal of the parallel importation restrictions would have delivered some cheaper books, the question remains: what would those books have been? Once the big retailers had been allowed to undercut local editions with imported remainders, and once the small independent publishers and booksellers had been ground under in the name of unfettered market forces, what would the range of books available in Big W or Kmart have looked like? This is the point that is always missed by those who marshal the figures. It is not just about cost and quantity but also about substance and quality. The government has rightly decided to keep in place a market arrangement that is structured to maintain Australian writing and publishing, and to ensure that books of the highest quality are something that we continue to write and make and teach and read to our children in this country; that Australian books and Australian writers continue to be the deep-running undercurrent of our national voice, character and identity. 12300 12300 16:49:00 Simpkins, Luke, MP HWE Cowan LP 0 0 Mr SIMPKINS —Today, East Wanneroo Primary School is visiting the parliament for the first time and, given that it is their first time here and for almost all of the children their first time in Canberra, I will take this opportunity to speak about the school. This will be the first time that East Wanneroo Primary School has been mentioned in parliament and I welcome the opportunity to speak of the school and mention some of those who are here today. The school is situated about 25 kilometres north of Perth in the suburb of Wanneroo. Wanneroo, of course, has a great history as demonstrated by the coming 100th Wanneroo Agricultural Society show on 27-28 November. There is no doubt that the East Wanneroo Primary School is the oldest primary school in the Wanneroo district in terms of original buildings, celebrating 35 years next year, as I understand it. Until the opening last year of the new primary school at nearby Hocking, East Wanneroo had in excess of 600 students. It is now around about 430 students. Yet I foresee another rise in enrolments as the development of housing blocks on the north side of Elliott Road begins to fill. This is just one reason why I see a great future for the East Wanneroo Primary School. It is not really about the numbers; it is about the sort of young people who are at the school and it is about providing those young people with every opportunity to fulfil their potential. As I said to the senior students during a recent visit to the school, one day they will have a great and very positive future, adding value to this nation and to our local community. Their success—for themselves and our nation—will be achieved firstly through their embracing the educational opportunity provided by the teaching staff at East Wanneroo Primary School, and, secondly, through the support, encouragement and active participation of their parents in a strong partnership. That success will be achieved through hard work and commitment, not through luck or waiting for someone else to deliver success on a plate. It is not automatically owed to them; they must seek and work to achieve that success themselves. To help the students achieve this success, the school has strong literacy and numeracy programs with the ability to provide for an individual student’s learning needs at their level of development. Although I would like to speak of individuals at the school, before doing so I would also say that, like their neighbouring schools in the district, they have taken on the polo shirt with a vertical panel on the front—so magnificently demonstrated today—in the colours of maroon and dark blue. They look very smart in those uniforms and I commend the school community for the spirit demonstrated not only in the uniforms but also in the drive for educational success. The principal is Bill Dawson, the deputies are Brian Williams and Amanda Kelley, the registrar is Sue Barr, and the P&C president is Lisa McMinigel. During the visit today I met all the staff, parents and students. I would like to acknowledge the staff present—Bill Dawson, the principal; Brian Williams; Marie Atkinson; Chantelle Cochran; Carly LeCras; and Michelle Dinsdale. I also note that one of the fathers, Glenn Garrand, is here. I hope I got the pronunciation right, Glenn. To finish up, I would like to mention the students. In the last three hours I have been greatly impressed by their excellent behaviour around the parliament, and they are also very nice young people. I wish that I could mention all of their names. However, I apologise that I can only mention a few of them. But I want them to know that I was impressed with them all. The ones that I understand have contributed particularly well today are James Duyvestyn, Lauren Found, Shanae Campbell, Chaelee Paul, Tia D’Arrietta, Hennie Capello, Jack Mason, Jake Pruiti, Joel Almond, Jack Doxey, Tahlia Whitehead, Emma Carruthers, Caitlin Marlow, Carys Graf and Jasmine Clark. What I would say to all the students from East Wanneroo Primary School is that I am very impressed with you all. While I have mentioned some of you today, I look forward to the next opportunity when I can again speak of students from the school—whether for your successes as individuals or for your collective success as a great school. In the future I would imagine that as you make your contributions to this great nation of ours, Australia, you will again come to the notice of the parliament and again be spoken of in this place. Indeed, maybe one of you will one day sit in this place and be able to make speeches about great schools in your area. Finally, I commend Principal Bill Dawson and his staff, I commend your parents for the way they have raised you and I commend all of you for being very nice young people and great Australians. 12301 16:54:00 SPEAKER, The 10000 PO N/A 1 0 The SPEAKER —I join in the warm welcome to the visitors from East Wanneroo Primary School. Even as a lad from the northern suburbs of Melbourne and an Australian Rules football culture-vulture, it would be insensitive of me tonight not to acknowledge that we have in the gallery at the moment an Australian rugby union legend in John Eales, and I warmly welcome him on behalf of the House. Honourable members—Hear, hear! 12302 12302 16:54:00 Hale, Damian, MP HWD Solomon ALP 1 0 Mr HALE —I rise today to draw the parliament’s attention to the organisation One Laptop per Child. One Laptop per Child is a global organisation that was founded by visionary Nicholas Negroponte. Its vision is to engage children living in remote communities in their own education by providing them with its specially designed laptop, the XO. Today, there are over two million XO laptops in the hands of children around the globe. In less than three years Uruguay has deployed nearly 400,000. One Laptop per Child Australia is the local arm of the organisation and has been operating since 2008. The initiative was formally launched in May of this year. The XO or, as the children call it, the ‘green machine’ is a rugged, low-cost, low-powered, connected education tool, purpose-built to resist the harsh conditions of the locations it is being deployed to. The XO comes preloaded with over 50 educational applications and with software that allows the devices to connect to one another and to the internet, creating a virtual classroom for collaboration and sharing between the kids. In nine short months, the charity has made remarkable progress and, as the recent release of an interim report by the Australian Council of Educational Research shows, a noteworthy impact on education. In nine short months OLPC Australia deployed 900 XOs to Indigenous children attending 16 different community schools across remote Northern Territory and Western Australia. As well, it received over $2 million in corporate funding and expanded from what was an informal group of like-minded individuals last year to a full-time staff of six employees today. OLPC Australia has been able to achieve all of this because of its unique business model, which ensures that the XO is part of a sustainable solution. This is being made possible first and foremost by its partners, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and more recently Telstra, which paid for all administration costs—leaving the doors open for day-to-day business. This means that all donations that come into the organisation—be they government or public contributions—go directly to the procurement of XO laptops and put those laptops straight into the hands of children. OLPC Australia deploys laptops based on its six core principles. These principles are as follows. Low ages: the XO is designed for children aged between four and 15 inclusive, as the charity realises that to make the greatest difference to a child’s education trajectory you must engage them in the early years. Saturation: the XO is deployed on the basis of one laptop per child in a class, grade, school or community. Connection: the machines connect to each other and to the internet. I have one with me here today. Free and open source: the XO has been designed to be disassembled and reassembled by children. This opens up possibilities for local industry through the deployment of community support centres. Finally, empowering teachers: OLPC Australia is committed to engaging the teachers as much as students to ensure the ongoing educational benefit. Today OLPC Australia is collaborating with six universities in the country. The organisation wants to give each child in remote Australia—that is, over 400,000 kids—their own XO laptop, and they need to do it in the next five years in order to create a generational shift in the communities that are involved in the program. While these targets sound ambitious, this is not a pipedream. The Uruguayan case study is proof in point. OLPC Australia needs from us our support. It is a real education solution for our remote children. As members of this parliament, we have a duty, an obligation, to support this organisation. Rangan and Kelly from OLPC made a presentation to a number of colleagues today. I urge all colleagues to embrace and support OLPC into the future. This is business partnering government, with philanthropic and public support, making a difference where it is most needed: at the grassroots of our community. I also welcome the children from the East Wanneroo Primary School. Our greatest asset is our children. Our greatest gift to them is education. Question agreed to. 12303 16:59:00 House adjourned at 4.59 pm 12303 Notices The following notice was given: HWA Rishworth, Amanda, MP Ms Rishworth to move: That the House: notes that the Henry Tax Review: concluded that the existing occupational superannuation scheme is only capable of providing ‘adequate’ income for most retirees in Australia; made the in‑principle recommendation that the fairness of the existing tax assistance to superannuation needs to be improved and that the generous salary‑sacrifice concessions need to be limited; and projected that under the existing system people on higher incomes will continue to be much more likely to make large contributions and take advantage of the taxation concession; (2)   recognises that in anticipation of the final December 2009 report, a national debate on superannuation reform is needed; and acknowledges that this debate should focus on: increasing the superannuation contribution rate above the current level of nine per cent; delivering better outcomes for Australian retirees through a superannuation scheme which aspires to deliver more than ‘adequate’ outcomes, especially for low and middle income retirees; the need for equity in Australia’s superannuation scheme; and addressing the fact that the existing 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions is a concession which disproportionately advantages high‑income earners. 2009-11-19 The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms AE Burke) took the chair at 9.30 am. 12304 Constituency Statements 12304 12304 09:30:00 Morrison, Scott, MP E3L Cook LP 0 0 Mr MORRISON —Since late 2008 in my electorate of Cook I have received a considerable number of complaints about aircraft noise from the residents of Sylvania, Kareela, Miranda and Gymea Bay. In July this year I noticed that those complaints had reached a considerable level and referred them to Airservices Australia. Airservices Australia reported back to me in August 2009 that the aircraft movements were the result of normal operations of the airport and that they all complied with the long-term operating plan. They also indicated in that letter that aircraft positioning at higher levels to enter the approach for landing at the airport were not covered by the long-term operating plan. Subsequently, Airservices Australia, in meetings held with the Sydney Airport Community Forum, have said that that is not the case and all of these movements are covered by the long-term operating plan. I was also concerned in their response to see a map which had a very heavy dark line running right across the electorates of Lowe and Cook. That line showed a heavy concentration of flights. The aviation community advocate, who has since been dismissed or not had his contract renewed by the government, alerted me to a standard terminal arrival route called Boree Four, which has also been programmed into the computers of aircraft arriving at Sydney airport which concentrated these movements along a very specific and defined path, increasing significantly some four or five times the number of flights over this area and these homes. I come here this morning to table a petition from residents in my electorate. There have been earlier petitions by residents from Kareela tabled, but on this occasion I table petitions from the adjacent suburbs of Sylvania, Miranda, Gymea, Gymea Bay and Grays Point. At the last meeting of the Sydney Airport Community Forum I received an undertaking from Airservices Australia to look not only into these matters but into changes in procedures which would ensure the dispersal of aircraft over the suburbs in my electorate. One of the most important things we need to do in managing aircraft noise, whether it be at Sydney airport or Perth, where I know there are increasing concerns about aircraft noise, is ensure that the community is engaged and the community is not fobbed off. The community deserves straight answers from the government, particularly from Airservices Australia, about the complaints. I had concerns in the early phases of my discussions with Airservices Australia. I do not believe we were given the full facts. Those full facts have now emerged. They have emerged as a result of having the Sydney Airport Community Forum, which is an excellent forum and needs to be supported. Those concerns now need to go to the next level, where we get action. I am looking forward to the meeting on Friday week where I will hear, I hope, a report from Airservices Australia on what changes they are going to make to ensure that these planes are spread further and fly higher and to ensure the residents can have confidence in how the long-term operating plan operating at Sydney airport is implemented. The petition read as follows— To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives This petition of citizens of the Federal electorate of Cook draws attention of the House: To the increased concentration of aircraft movements along a corridor from Sylvania to Gymea Bay; To the increase in aircraft using this flight path from 2.8% of all arrivals to 7.8% within a 12 month period; To Air Service Australia’s failure to adequately assess the environmental impacts of the introduction of the Standard Arrivals Routes for Runway 34L at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, particularly the impacts of using of Boree Four STAR; and To the significant increase in noise impact that has been associated with the above aircraft movements and has a detrimental impact upon the residents of the Cook electorate. We therefore ask the House to: Call for Minister Albanese to reaffirm the Ministerial Direction requiring Air Services Australia to fully implement the flight paths and noise sharing principles contained within the Long Term Operating Plan for Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport; Call for Air Services Australia to immediately review the cause of the aircraft noise affecting residents of the Cook electorate; and Call for Air Services Australia to implement a solution involving but not limited to a less concentrated flight path, aircraft movements at an increased altitude over residential suburbs and an increased proportion of aircraft movements being made over water. from 132 citizens Petition received. 12305 12305 09:33:00 George, Jennie, MP JH5 Throsby ALP 0 0 Ms GEORGE —I take the opportunity this morning to advise my parliamentary colleagues of my intention to retire at the next federal election. It has indeed been a great privilege to represent the people of the Throsby electorate since first elected in 2001. It is a wonderful community to represent in the national parliament. I and my electorate staff have worked diligently over the years to represent their many and diverse interests and needs and to deal with their concerns as effectively as possible. We do not always win each case we pursue, but we always try our best. We have campaigned locally over the years on many issues of importance, such as doctor shortages, dental care, youth unemployment, apprenticeships and funding for education and training, to name a few. I am so pleased that, since the election of the Rudd Labor government, we have seen a remarkable investment of funds and resources locally to address the neglect of the past. The benefits of these investments, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, will be with us for many decades ahead. At the last federal election Labor recorded a 65 primary vote in my electorate of Throsby—the highest in New South Wales. I am sure that all who placed their faith in the election of a federal Labor government can already see the tangible benefits that have resulted in such a short space of time. Our successes are the result of collective efforts. In that regard I want to place on the record my sincere thanks to my electorate staff—Idalina, Michel, Sarah and Danielle—and to their back-up relief staff: Annie, Ben and Brian. My thanks go to my loyal supporters in the branches and to all who worked on the election campaigns and polling booths over the years. I have been sustained by the comradeship of my local union colleagues. In particular I want to mention Andy Gillespie, Garry Keane and Arthur Rorris. It will be sad to move on but the time is right. My first appointment as a teacher was way back in 1969. My 40 years in the workforce means that I can retire well satisfied that I have made a contribution to public life in a variety of positions. But of course there is still some unfinished business between now and the next election which will keep me fully occupied. Among the issues are the establishment of the promised Medicare/Centrelink office in Warrawong, which was taken away by the Howard government, the finalisation of the CPRS and advocacy of the cogeneration plant at the local steelworks—just to name a few. In conclusion, I want to thank the community for the privilege it has afforded me in representing them in the federal parliament. 12306 12306 09:36:00 Chester, Darren, MP IPZ Gippsland NATS 0 0 Mr CHESTER —I take the opportunity to commend the member for Throsby on her service to our nation in a variety of public roles over many years. I rise today to raise my concerns over the continued violence on the streets of Melbourne and in many regional centres, which has sickened us all. I believe it is time for a national strategy and for more resources to combat the problem. The headline in today’s Herald Sun newspaper about taking back our streets should be a call to action to all Victorians who have had a gutful of the violence on our streets. We are sick of the images of drunken thugs bashing innocent victims or one-punch cowards killing and maiming other young people on our streets. We are not immune from the violence in regional areas, including Gippsland, as we have seen several alcohol and drug fuelled incidents in Lakes Entrance, Bairnsdale, Sale and the Latrobe Valley. There are plenty of theories about what needs to be done. There is no escaping the fact that changes need to be made and the issue of community based violence should be made a national priority by the Prime Minister and all national leaders. Increased numbers of police on the beat and more security at known trouble spots are just part of the solution. We are also going to need to change laws regarding liquor licences, impose harsher penalties on gang offenders, act decisively to take licences off poor business operators and work hard to change the culture which appears to have desensitised people to violence. The Victorian state government has failed miserably to keep our streets safe and serious assaults have increased over the past decade. Our police need more numbers on the ground on active patrols. But this is not just a policing problem. It will require a concerted effort from all sections of the community. As we know, many of us enjoy a drink but we need to break the culture of excessive consumption of alcohol. It will take leadership at every level of the community, and I believe change is needed in our homes, at our sporting clubs and at community functions and in the behaviour of our sporting role models who many young people look up to. We have to get the message ingrained in our community that you can have a good time and you can a have few drinks but you do not have to end the day vomiting in the gutter and picking fights with the police. I believe we need to overhaul our liquor licensing laws. Also, banning our hotels and nightclubs from selling alcohol after 2 am and forcing them to close by 3 am would be a very good start. I refer to some comments by the Police Commissioner of Victoria, Simon Overland, in today’s Herald Sun. He said: “Past 1am, there’s little good that happens in the city. Past 6am, it’s just all bad,” … Court imposed penalties for gang violence should also reflect the community’s abhorrence of these attacks. In the short term I am concerned that the federal government has not gone far enough in providing funding for local communities, under the National Community Crime Prevention Program, which would help local communities find solutions to local problems. I believe the federal government is failing in this regard. In the community of the Latrobe Valley we have the Traralgon CBD Safety Committee, which has been working hard to clean up the streets and has sought funding for closed-circuit television, but its application has been rejected. The government should be supporting such local solutions, which, in this case, have the complete support of local police. I quote from the Latrobe Valley Express, from an interview with Traralgon Police Senior Sergeant Ann-Marie Stevens, who said: “It assists us to identify offenders at a later time and if people know these things are in existence, it prevents crime,” … …            …            … “We will be able to identify people we previously haven’t been able to identify and that makes people feel safer.” In our homes and our schools we need to be teaching our young people that respect for other people is a core principle of a civilised community and that they must take responsibility for their own actions. We must take action to make our streets safe again. 12307 12307 09:39:00 Livermore, Kirsten, MP 83A Capricornia ALP 1 0 Ms LIVERMORE —I want to use this opportunity today to highlight the Rudd government’s continued support for the coal industry in Central Queensland. Yesterday the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government announced that the government has granted major project facilitation status to Waratah Coal’s proposed Northern Export Facility Infrastructure Project. This is a $7.5 billion project to develop a new coalmine in the Galilee Basin, near Alpha, as well as associated rail and port facilities. In May this year the President of Waratah Coal said: I don’t think the CPRS is going to have enough of an impact to present insurmountable problems … We have not seen that comment featured in any of the Australian Coal Association’s recent ads and it has not stopped the Coal Association’s scare campaign on the impact of the CPRS on the coal industry. This morning we saw yet another example of what I talked about in my speech on the CPRS and the reason that the president of the coal miners union, Tony Maher, called the coal association campaign on jobs deceitful. On one page in the Australian there was the usual full-page ad from the ACA spelling out doom and gloom, and then when you turned to the business pages of the same paper you saw the real story of what is happening in the coal industry in Central Queensland. The headline says ‘Canberra fast-tracks Clive Palmer’s $7.5bn Queensland coal project’. The article states: The company has said previously that the project will create 6000 jobs during construction and 1500 once it is operating. There is also a story about Macarthur Coal, which has seen its profits fall due to a rising Australian dollar and unexpected demurrage payments. Demand for their coal is in fact increasing. It was the same in the Morning Bulletin in Rockhampton last week. The ACA scare campaign was alongside stories describing a new deal between Stanmore Corporation and Wesfarmers that will see the Curragh mine at Blackwater expanded, creating up to 300 construction jobs. As I have previously mentioned, the Queensland Department of Mines and Energy lists some 50 Central Queensland coal development projects in exploration or early development stages. The miners union has released a report showing that at least 10,000 coalmining jobs will be created by 2020 under the government’s proposed ETS. The report goes on to say that $6 billion has been spent on new coal-mining developments since late last year. So I would say to my constituents: by all means, read the ads if you want to, but do not skip the articles in the same newspapers that tell the real story of the coal industry—growth in investment and mining jobs. There is a commitment by the Rudd government, reported on page 2 of the Australian today, to compensate the gaseous mines that need assistance to meet their higher carbon liability under the CPRS and protect their viability. The real story of the coal industry is there for all to see in these reports. The ACA needs to get onto the real job of representing the companies to negotiate a successful outcome on the compensation fund for those mines. 12308 12308 09:42:00 Johnson, Michael, MP 00AMX Ryan LP 0 0 Mr JOHNSON —At the last federal election, in November 2007, federal Labor and the then opposition leader, Mr Rudd, gave a very strong commitment to veterans: if he were elected, his government would be very supportive and would do all that they could in their power to improve the superannuation conditions for veterans. I would like to draw to the parliament’s attention, and for the benefit of the constituents of Ryan, that, now that federal Labor has indeed become the Australian government and Mr Rudd has become the Prime Minister of our wonderful country, there is a big gap between the pre-election commitment and government policy implementation. This is what the Prime Minister said when he was opposition leader: Military superannuation is also a vital component of our ability to attract and retain talented ADF personnel. A Rudd Labor Government will maintain a generous military superannuation system, in recognition of the importance of the ADF and the immense responsibility placed on personnel in securing and defending Australia. That was Mr Rudd in the role of opposition leader. Of course, today he is the Prime Minister of our great country. As far as the constituents of Ryan are concerned—indeed, I have received many emails from many throughout Brisbane—this is a glaring commitment that has not seen the light of day in reality. A colleague of his in the government and a member of the executive, the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support, said pre-2007 that his top priority was to change the method of indexation used to calculate Commonwealth pensions. This was his ‘top priority’ because, if they remained indexed to the CPI, those retiring on a Commonwealth pension of $20,000 would be $7,000 worse off in 20 years time. He said it was only fair that that were changed. Again, now that they are in office, this has not come to pass. I want to quote one constituent, Mr Frank Maloney, who is very strongly and very eloquently representing the frustrations in the veteran community in relation to veterans superannuation. He says: All we ask for is to be treated fairly and in like manner to the rest of the Australian community. So I just want to put on the record for Mr Maloney and for the many others in his situation that, as the member for Ryan, I intend to bat for him and to make it clear also to my leader and my party that this is something that must be rectified. It was a failure of the Howard government to not address it and the government must address it now. (Time expired) 12309 12309 09:45:00 McKew, Maxine, MP BP4 Bennelong ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government 1 0 Ms McKEW —One of the more extraordinary days that I have seen in the federal parliament was Monday this week when both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition joined in offering an apology to half a million Australians who experienced a loveless and often abusive existence while in institutional care. I think you had to be there to see the faces in the Great Hall, because the stories and the pain of a brutish life were in those faces—some, I think, old beyond their years, others who have battled their demons, with limited success, and yet others who have triumphed over early adversity but still obviously carry the scars. I think the most frightening thing in the world is to be an abandoned child, to be young and powerless, to lose a parent through death or disappearance and to not have other family or neighbours prepared to step in. I think we are left to wonder about the nature of such a massive failure—a failure of stewardship and certainly a failure of governmental oversight. We have to ask: how is it that there was such a high level of tolerance—and in the 20th century, for heaven’s sake—for using children as cheap labourers, for failing to ensure that they had an adequate education? And, in particular, how is it that, when it came to men and women with a religious vocation, there were some who failed to offer mercy and compassion? I think it is important to understand what happened here. So this week I talked to some women whom I know well. They are the Sisters of Mercy and I know they try to live their lives every day for others. Having been educated by the Sisters of Mercy and, on many occasions, having acknowledged their exceptional contribution to providing quality education and health services in this country, I also think it is important to look at the other side of the ledger. We cannot ignore those now remembered Australians who say that, while they were in the care of the Mercy sisters, their own experience was merciless. So what happened? From my conversations this week with leaders of congregations I believe there is now a profound acknowledgement that some very bad things happened, but I was asked to consider this: many religious organisations were dealing with very large numbers of children and often had little or no training. Many were entirely unsuited to be the guardians of children. Often the hierarchy of orders dictated that the least educated were deemed good enough for this kind of work. But the important thing now is that there is a process underway, and has been for some years, whereby the sisters and many others provide practical help to people who have suffered. It is a program called Towards Healing, and former home children are listened to, their claims are investigated and, in many cases, meetings are facilitated between complainants and the former heads of institutions. Sometimes counselling is sought; in other cases, practical help is sought. I was told that some individuals just want to be able to learn to read and write. That simple request—a plea to be a literate adult—tells us so much about a period of very deep neglect that we must never allow to happen again. I recall the lines of Arthur Miller, the great playwright, on behalf of Willy Loman, who always said, ‘Attention must be paid.’ Attention was paid this week and rightly so. (Time expired) 12310 12310 09:48:00 Jensen, Dennis, MP DYN Tangney LP 0 0 Dr JENSEN —I have been receiving many emails and other expressions of support from my constituents on the issue of school chaplains. Louise, from Willetton, says: I am writing to ask that you request the renewal of the school chaplaincy program beyond 2010. I have seen the wonderful work that our chaplain, and those at Ardross, Thornlie and Yale primary schools do with our children and their families. Geraldine, of Leeming, says: I am aware of the importance of having the services of a school chaplain. I believe that funding needs to be secured for chaplaincy so we can have a wholesome educational system and I urge you to ensure this happens. In the same vein, Gaye, from Riverton, says: They do an excellent job and are much appreciated by school staff and students. Wendy, from Shelley, says: Our youth as a whole are bombarded by so much media pressure and an objective listener can be the difference between life and death decisions sometimes, and chaplains are a great neutral role model between students and their teachers. Donald, of Willetton, says that it would be ‘a grievous error if federal funding was not continued’. He goes on: In these days of violence amongst our youth, this programme is essential for the well-being of our youth. One mother simply says: … please continue funding for school chaplains. The Applecross school chaplain has been so helpful to my son. These are just a small sample of the messages that I have been getting; words from the heart of grateful people. Mind you, to hear the member for Fowler on 19 October, you would think these were all wild-eyed, religious fundamentalists whose only goal was to brainwash our children. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps the only reason she never received a request for a chaplain was that the people knew that such a request would fall on deaf ears. These chaplains are fine, caring people whose aim is to help, console, listen to, advise and comfort by filling a role not filled by teachers and, sadly, sometimes not by parents. I have not received one complaint about any school chaplain from anyone in my electorate. I have only heard good things; unsolicited expressions of support for people who do a tough job. I am not sure whether the member for Fowler objects to chaplains because they have a faith—heaven forbid—or whether they are hard to unionise. Her virtually Marxist view of the world certainly does not fit with the reality of chaplains in Tangney schools. Her snide and contemptuous slur of ‘praise the Lord and pass the Ritalin’ plumbs new depths in the character assassination so beloved of the Far Left. As for the bleating about using money for better things, perhaps she does not realise that at least in Tangney part of the funding is provided from the community, not from Treasury. 12311 12311 09:51:00 Hayes, Chris, MP ECV Werriwa ALP 1 0 Mr HAYES —We know that cycling is becoming a very popular pastime and is very much a practical alternative mode of transport for many people given the high petrol prices, concern over climate change and the desire to lead healthier lifestyles. In fact, cycling is the fourth most popular physical activity for the age group of 15 and over, with almost 50 per cent of the people in that category cycling at least once a week. This is indicated also in the growth of bicycle sales across Australia. Bicycle sales continue to eclipse those of motor vehicle sales, outselling cars for the ninth consecutive year. In 2008 there were 1.2 million bikes sold across Australia and, when you take this into account with the cost of purchase of accessories and servicing of bikes, the bicycle industry in Australia is worth approximately $1 billion and employs an estimated 6,000 people. Being physically active is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle and cycling is an activity that can be undertaken by people of all ages. We know that numerous studies have found that cycling provides a variety of health benefits to lifestyle. I know that cyclists in my local community are looking forward to new bike tracks being built in the local area. Campbelltown City Council is planning a kilometre-long triathlon track at Macquarie Fields, which is a project that I have been working closely on with Glenn Schwarzel, President, Macarthur Triathlon Club, to secure. Also, importantly, the council is developing a new cycle path to link with car parking in the CBD of Campbelltown. That project will cost about $350,000, which has benefited from the Rudd government’s national bike paths fund. These cycle ways will play an important role in getting many people active who would not ordinarily ride on roads. These local infrastructure projects are welcome news in my community, given the health studies released only recently, which found that one in every two people aged over 16 in the Macarthur region is obese. These are areas of concern and something that we need to address in a positive way and give people options for a lifestyle that is going to be conducive to better health outcomes. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Campbelltown City Council which is planning for the future by building new bike paths. These are vital pieces of local infrastructure and are very much focusing not only on the present but also on the future in developing our local communities. 12311 12311 09:54:00 Irons, Steve, MP HYM Swan LP 0 0 Mr IRONS —I rise to discuss the recent meeting I attended with the Manning Community Association in my electorate of Swan. The Manning Community Association was established by local resident Steve Neates in June this year as an advocacy group for issues affecting local residents. I am pleased to report that the group already has over 100 members and has been concentrating on a number of issues, including the high concentration of Homeswest state housing and crime. Steve said his motivation for starting the organisation was threefold; first, crime and antisocial behaviour are out of control—some members of the group see a link between antisocial behaviour and a small minority of troublemakers in Homeswest housing; second, as an opportunity for networking and building better community ties; and third, to advocate for infrastructure upgrades—particularly along the streetscape of Manning Road and the trouble spots at Ley Street, Welwyn Avenue and Elderfield Road. I have spoken about the Homeswest housing issue before, but I will just make one further point today. I note on 27 October the WA housing minister, Troy Buswell, extended a pilot scheme that aims to provide specialised support to highly disruptive or antisocial tenants to end cycles of poor behaviour. During the first stage of the program, 14 tenants finished the program and two were evicted. This small minority of troublemakers do cause so many problems for communities across the electorate. I hope that this scheme delivers a good result over time and improves the situation. I know the WA Minister for Housing and Works is committed to an equitable spread of public housing across Perth and I remind him of the commitments he has made to people in my electorate. The affected areas extend to all parts, including Ascot, which I recently wrote to the minister about. Today I want to focus more on the crime, networking and infrastructure priorities of the Manning Community Association. I know the government do pay attention to some of the speeches I make, because I have seen the results of it. Today I would like to call for an on-ramp at Manning Road-Kwinana Freeway intersection. I will be writing to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government to see if he can support local community, because it is much needed in the area. I have spoken on this matter before and it is a matter the state member for South Perth has been pursuing for a long time. Hopefully between the two of us we can get a federal and state outcome. Steve Neates has said that his members are concerned about crime—everything from antisocial behaviour to carjacking and assaults on residents. Tackling the issue of crime is important. I have been sending crime information packs to residents in East Victoria Park and Rivervale, where there has been a recent crime spike. One part of the crime information pack I have been sending contains a Neighbourhood Watch application form. This brings me to another point about networking. Many people have commented to me on the importance of strengthening community ties to tackle this issue. Neighbourhood Watch does provide a way of achieving this. Only a couple of weeks ago I attended another neighbourhood watch meeting in St James. I congratulate the Manning Community Association for their formation and advocacy for the people of Manning and I offer to listen and work with them in the future. 12312 12312 09:57:00 Hall, Jill, MP 83N Shortland ALP 1 0 Ms HALL —Last Friday, 13 November, I held a breast cancer forum at the Belmont 16 Footers Club. I would like to put on the record my thanks to the Belmont 16 Footers Club for providing the facilities and tea and coffee free of charge. I would also like to put on record my thanks to Kylie Warnock-Rowley from the Cancer Council, who was one of the speakers. In the remainder of my contribution to this debate I would like to concentrate on Professor John Forbes, who was the keynote speaker at the Breast Cancer Forum. Professor Forbes is one of the most outstanding medical researchers and doctors in the field of breast cancer. He is a person who has made an enormous contribution. He was responsible for setting up the Australia-New Zealand Breast Cancer Trials Group. I would like to refer to a speech that was made in this House on Monday night by the member for Hume, Alby Shultz. The member for Hume in his speech highlighted the enormous contributions that have been made by Professor Forbes. He has been involved in national programs with more than 40 institutions. The ANZ BCTG is held in the highest regard throughout the world. Professor Forbes is a person who not only excels in the area of research and the care of women who suffer from cancer but is also a person that has the ability to transfer his knowledge to other people. He is an outstanding speaker, he is a person of great compassion, a person who really cares and a person who has made such significant contributions in the area of breast cancer that it is amazing that he has not received recognition for this. In 2005 there was a nomination, which the member for Hume was involved in, for Professor Forbes to receive an Order of Australia honour. This was refused. I cannot understand why, because he has been recognised as one of the top clinical researchers in the Thomson Scientific ‘Hottest Researcher’ list. There is a new nomination going forward. I take great pleasure in supporting that nomination. Professor Forbes is an outstanding researcher and professional in Australia. (Time expired) 10000 Burke, Anna (The DEPUTY SPEAKER) The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms AE Burke)—Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded. 12313 Motions Debate resumed from 18 November, on motion by Ms Macklin: That the House support the apology given on this day by the Prime Minister, on behalf of the nation, to the Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants in the following terms: We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter in our nation’s history. And we come together today to offer our nation’s apology. To say to you, the Forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without your consent, that we are sorry. Sorry – that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry – for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care. Sorry – for the tragedy of childhoods lost – childhoods spent instead in austere and authoritarian places, where names were replaced by numbers, spontaneous play by regimented routine, the joy of learning by the repetitive drudgery of menial work. Sorry – for all these injustices to you as children, who were placed in our care. As a nation, we must now reflect on those who did not receive proper care. We look back with shame that many of you were left cold, hungry and alone and with nowhere to hide and nobody to whom to turn. We look back with shame that many of these little ones who were entrusted to institutions and foster homes – instead, were abused physically, humiliated cruelly and violated sexually. We look back with shame at how those with power were allowed to abuse those who had none. And how then, as if this was not injury enough, you were left ill-prepared for life outside – left to fend for yourselves; often unable to read or write; to struggle alone with no friends and no family. For these failures to offer proper care to the powerless, the voiceless and the most vulnerable, we say sorry. We reflect too today on the families who were ripped apart, simply because they had fallen on hard times. Hard times brought about by illness, by death and by poverty. Some simply left destitute when fathers, damaged by war, could no longer cope. Again we say sorry for the extended families you never knew. We acknowledge the particular pain of children shipped to Australia as child migrants - robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children but regarded instead as a source of child labour. To those of you who were told you were orphans, brought here without your parents’ knowledge or consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers and fathers, and the pain these lies have caused for a lifetime. To those of you separated on the dockside from your brothers and sisters; taken alone and unprotected to the most remote parts of a foreign land – we acknowledge today the laws of our nation failed you. And for this we are deeply sorry. We think also today of all the families of these Forgotten Australians and former child migrants who are still grieving, families who were never reunited, families who were never reconciled, families who were lost to one another forever. We reflect too on the burden that is still carried by your own children, your grandchildren, your husbands, your wives, your partners and your friends – and we thank them for the faith, the love and the depth of commitment that has helped see you through the valley of tears that was not of your making. And we reflect with you as well, in sad remembrance, on those who simply could not cope and who took their own lives in absolute despair. We recognise the pain you have suffered. Pain so personal. Pain so profoundly disabling. So, let us therefore, together, as a nation, allow this apology to begin healing this pain. Healing the pain felt by so many of the half a million of our fellow Australians and those who as children were in our care. And let us also resolve this day, that this national apology becomes a turning point in our nation’s story. A turning point for shattered lives. A turning point for Governments at all levels and of every political colour and hue, to do all in our power to never let this happen again. For the protection of children is the sacred duty of us all. 12314 10:01:00 Scott, Bruce, MP YT4 Maranoa NATS 0 0 Mr BRUCE SCOTT —During my contribution on the motion for the apology to the forgotten Australians yesterday, I was talking about Robyn from Stanthorpe when we were called to a division in the House. I want to pick up where I left off and talk about what Robyn has told me. Robyn’s mother, as I said in my contribution thus far, had been divorced from her husband for more than 10 years. This was back in 1959. Robyn’s mother decided that the best thing for her daughter, because she wanted to make sure that Robyn had the best chance in life, was to entrust her to the care of the Pastorelle Sisters at their hostel for girls in Carlton, Victoria. They were to make sure that she had a job, went to work and went to night school and continued her studies. In the space of less than eight months the Pastorelle Sisters had convinced Robyn that she should become a nun. She was convinced. She was then asked to basically, using Robyn’s words, ‘lie’ to her mother. She was then sent to Rome. The Pastorelle Sisters really failed Robyn and, using Robyn’s words, her, ‘passport application and documents were falsified’ as far as she was concerned. Robyn’s mother had no assets. She was a divorced lady, a single woman, having at that time in history to make her own way and maintain a job for her own wellbeing. When her mother found out, she was powerless to act. Robyn was sent to Rome. It was at the convent in Rome that she was sexually molested, physically abused and ill-treated. She was ‘neglected’, as Robyn says, to the point where her youthful vigour waned and she became very ill. She was detained in this situation because her passport had been taken away. She had no money, no civilian clothes and no friends on the outside, and she could not speak the language. All of her correspondence home was censored. As Robyn says, she was subjected to ‘behaviour modification’. In the last two years of the seven years she spent there she was, really, a stateless person because she did not have a passport. She had not been able to apply for a renewal of her passport. She was not even able to register to vote for federal elections in Australia. Robyn is a constituent of mine, and when she came back to Australia she lived with this for some 30-odd years. She is now on a disability pension. But when you talk to Robyn and read her story—and there is a lot more than I have time to put on the record today—you can see that it was an appalling situation: a whole life destroyed because of the treatment that she received. Her mother was a single mother who entrusted her daughter into the pastoral care of the Pastorelle Sisters at the Carlton hostel for girls in Victoria. I want to briefly, because I do not have a great deal of time, talk about John Walsh, who now lives in Roma. His story is that he and his brothers and sisters were taken away from their mother while their father was serving overseas during the Second World War. John has written to me. He said that there was a knock on the door of their home at 10.30 at night. Child welfare, the police and the Salvation Army had arrived. Their mother, fearing what might be happening—because she was aware that children were being taken away from their mothers—would not open the door, so they heaved it open and took the children away. They were sent to Hay Street East in Perth. I wish that I had more time, because I know that John’s story could be told over and over again. It is harrowing, as are the stories we have heard from so many speakers. I also want to say something about another lady in my electorate, Jenny, who is dealing with children who have been taken away from their mother, a single mother, in the last month. I know that child protection agencies today go to great lengths to make sure that children are safe. These children have been taken away from their mother, who is expecting another child in fact to Jenny’s son. She has been the subject of domestic violence. I know it is not a very pretty situation, but those children have been taken away and fostered in other homes. Jenny said to me, ‘Bruce, wouldn’t it be better if we were able to put a parent into the home to keep the mother and children together to help the mother cope with the situation rather than take them away and put them in foster care?’ One of the children who were taken away has already run away from the foster home and gone back to her mother. The mother is pregnant, so you can imagine the strain on her and the baby she is carrying. Wouldn’t it have been better to have brought foster parents into the home to live with the family and to make sure that she is able to cope and look after the welfare of the children? I put that on the public record and I think it is a suggestion that we should all look at. I hope that the government will look at it as an alternative in each case to fostering out children and taking them away from their parents, where they get mothering, nurturing love and care. I thank the chamber and I hope that as a nation we continue to work on this issue and make more restitution to those who have been so mentally and physically abused by churches and government. Care from government is what we must make sure of in the future. (Time expired) 12316 10:08:00 Ruddock, Philip, MP 0J4 Berowra LP 0 0 Mr RUDDOCK —I do not speak on the motion on the national apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants with any alacrity. It is a very tragic situation that brings us to this point and, like many who have spoken on this matter, I intend to inform the parliament and hopefully the people of Australia of the circumstances that some people have suffered and continue to suffer. When I spoke on the apology to our Indigenous brothers and sisters I talked a little about the reconciliation movement because I think it is appropriate to remind people that the genesis of it was in fact after the Second World War in the organisation that a former leader of the Labor Party and, before him, his father was associated with—Moral Rearmament. Moral Rearmament is a very interesting organisation. It has had a name change. It is now called Initiatives of Change and it has, over a long period of time, conducted what is euphemistically known as second level diplomacy. It works to resolve those issues that often divide people and can have tragic results. It played a role after the Second World War in bringing people together from Germany and around Europe. That was its genesis, but it later played a role in the industrial movements in some of the differences between employers and employees. It played a role in relation to Indigenous peoples. It had an active role in what was happening in South Africa. It is interesting that South Africa had a reconciliation commission, which functioned after the first democratic elections, which I witnessed, in 1994. In Australia I do not think it is recognised that a gentleman called John Bond, who is very much associated with Moral Rearmament, Initiatives of Change, has worked on the issues affecting our Indigenous people. He organised the last conference in Europe, which I participated in. He spent many years here in Australia promoting the concept of reconciliation. A lot of us do not understand, as I have mentioned previously, that reconciliation has two parts to it. The first is an apology from those who may have been guilty of some very unfortunate activities or acts. But it also is meant to evoke a basis upon which you can move on together, and that is the concept of forgiveness. In relation to a lot of the issues that we are dealing with, there is a quest for apology but the circumstances that can give rise to the second element of forgiveness are often not there. That is something I am going to speak to today. I note that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 16 November there was a very interesting article by Hugh Mackay, the social commentator. He is a person I have known over a long period of time. He does not always agree with me, I might say. I once included him on an advisory committee for the former government. I do not know how much he relished that. But I have always respected his opinions. He writes: It’s a sorry state of affairs when forgiveness is not the main objective. He goes on to say in this article: So we’re to have another … apology … This time, it’s the turn of the “forgotten children”—those who languished, and were often neglected or abused, in institutions … He goes on to say: No doubt an apology is called for. …            …            … But there’s a terrible gap in this process that no one seems to be acknowledging. You can easily identify that gap if you ask yourself: what is the purpose of an apology? The glib answer is that an apology is an admission of wrongdoing and an expression of regret for harm caused to another person by our actions or by our failure to act. We apologise to get all that off our chest, and who doesn’t feel better once that’s done? But is that all an apology is about? Is that all we try to achieve when we apologise—feeling better? I don’t think so. An apology is more than a declaration; it’s not just a message we send to the injured party. It is also, importantly, an appeal to the injured party to forgive us for what we did to them. An apology without a corresponding act of forgiveness is only half the story. If the forgiveness is withheld, the apology is left hanging in the air, like a gift you offered someone that they never formally accepted or thanked you for. Worse, an apology that is not met with forgiveness ends up looking like a solo performance: something we did to the injured party, rather than something we did together in the true spirit of reconciliation. I think they are very, very telling words. He goes on to say of an apology: Too easy, in fact: to say “we’re sorry” without having negotiated our way through to a meeting point where forgiveness can also occur is simply to have taken the first step. It is in that context that I want to talk about some litigation in the state of New South Wales. The matter involves Shane Paul Nicholls and the state of New South Wales as the defendant. In this judgment, His Honour, Justice Malpass, says this: The plaintiff was born on 3 October 1957 (he is now 48 years of age). Since the commencement of the proceedings, he has changed his surname to Bell. He is the same person that Tony Abbott mentioned in his comments earlier this week. The judgment continues: The plaintiff became a ward of the state on 21 February 1973 (when he was about 16 years of age). He remained as such until 1979 (when he was 22 years of age). He did not return to the family home. It recounts how he was brought before the Penrith court, charged with being uncontrollable. That was in 1971. It continues: In October of that year, the plaintiff was committed to an institution. He remained institutionalised till 1979. During this period, he exhibited … symptoms (one of which was nocturnal enuresis). He was still bedwetting at the age of 20. His appearance disclosed, inter alia, constant smallest of stature and excessive thinness. He was treated as being mentally retarded and his education was neglected. … Prior to institutionalisation, he had suffered an unfortunate home life. He was one of eight children in a household of poor financial circumstances. He suffered, inter alia, sexual and other abuse … After institutionalisation, he had little contact with his mother. What becomes apparent is that, while he was taken into care, little was done to address his circumstances—and this is in the time that I have been in this parliament. This man was committed in 1973, in a period in which I would have expected that some attention would have been paid in institutions in New South Wales to the needs of the young people entrusted to their care. This litigation retails medical opinions about the way in which, in later life, conditions that should have been identified were found. I read here a letter from a Dr Ryan in 1993: You can be assured that I am doing everything that I can to seek an early settlement of your claim. I have given advice to the Department that your condition should have been diagnosed when you were in the departments care. This is a man of whom the judge says: … when he was discharged from the wardship, he was functionally illiterate … he had few, if any, life skills. He has never held a serious job for any length of time … he is now realistically unemployable. He is clearly a person whom we—our generation—failed. What was this litigation about? This litigation was about when this man had identified that he had certain claims that might ordinarily be addressed through our legal system. Those who are dealing with these issues now in the state of New South Wales used legal remedies available to them to ensure that that claim could never be addressed. We all know what they are. They are statutes of limitation, which demand that even if you had no knowledge of any rights and entitlements to bring forward a claim, no advice that suggested that there might be a difficult issue that had to be addressed, if the time that has elapsed—in this case, three years—is too long, unless you receive a special waiver from a court, which has to be obtained in very limited circumstances, you have no remedy. The very point I want to make is that, at a time when we are seeking to apologise, there are people in this country, governments in this country, who have resisted any inquiry into their handling of these issues and continue to do so, who ensure that even the legal system will deny a remedy to a person deserving one. If you cannot guess, I have come to know Shane Nicholls over a period of time. He is not an easy person to deal with. He is a person greatly wounded by what he has been forced to endure, and he does seek a remedy. I think people wanted to have him here in Canberra for this apology, but he feels the apology without at least some effort to get those responsible in New South Wales to address these issues is hollow. I do not know what the relationships are in these matters, but we apologise and he is denied a remedy. We say to him, ‘Are you prepared, having received an apology, to forgive?’ I do not like to say it, but, unless we are prepared to pick up some of the points that Hugh Mackay has made, in a lot of these situations we are not going to move forward. I think the very least that is required in New South Wales is for those in authority—and for those here who can speak to those in authority in New South Wales—to say, ‘We will no longer use statutes of limitations to deny people the opportunity to have their claims heard and addressed on their merits.’ It is a pretty simple step but one that I think would, in the context of these issues, help some people to address those matters and move forward. Likewise, I see the resistance that has occurred in my state of New South Wales to an inquiry in relation to these issues. In the time that I have been sitting in this parliament, I have heard about the way in which people were physically abused—were wounded—by those who were entrusted to care for them. As it said in this litigation, they were not even given an education which would unable them to go out and get a job. Those in authority kept them institutionalised until 22 years of age and then tried to get them off on benefits so that, hopefully, they could survive. I think we still have a long way to go in addressing these issues before some of the wounds that are there are healed. I hope some, particularly in New South Wales, if this speech of mine is read more widely, might recognise that they have some responsibility if they endorse this apology to take the practical steps to provide some remedies for redress. Equally, I think it ought to be clear to governments that this litigation—this case; I have it before me—was resolved by the judge simply saying: ‘Because of statutes of limitations, I have no basis upon which I can provide a remedy.’ I hope some people will take on board the pain that that sort of approach by those in authority evokes amongst those whom we recognise have suffered a great deal. 12319 10:23:00 Hall, Jill, MP 83N Shortland ALP 1 0 Ms HALL —I rise to support the apology that was given in an extremely bipartisan way by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and by many members on both sides of this parliament. I will say nothing about the previous contribution to this debate other than that I am disappointed in the tone and the nature of that contribution. In relation to the apology, I, like many other members of this House, have had constituents who have been gravely affected by the care that they had as children. These are people who were separated from their parents for one reason or another. Some came from the UK as child migrants and lived in very appalling, uncaring institutions that were run by the state government or privately. The impact that that had on their lives was enormous. I have had people sit in my office and cry about the treatment they have had. I have had people say to me in relation to this apology: ‘The thing that is special about it is that it is a starting point. The apology actually recognises that our lives were impacted on in such a grave and detrimental way.’ My thoughts go back to one of my constituents on the Central Coast who came to Australia as a child migrant. His story has been told time and time again this week by others who were in similar situations. They thought they were going for a holiday somewhere. They thought that their parents were no longer living. They went to another country and then lived in institutions. When they finally went out into the world they did not have the personal skills that they needed to survive. They worked through so many issues. Eventually they married and had their own families, which in itself put in place a number of challenges. Finally, they found out that they did have a mother and they did have sisters. This constituent travelled to the UK. Unfortunately, he did not meet his mother, but he met his siblings, and that was very special to him. Another of my constituents was brought up in an institution. His mother died and his father could not look after the children so he put them in an institution. He told me how he was always the smallest. When it came to food he missed out every time. He told me about the lack of care and compassion and about the brutality of living in that institution. That story has been told by numerous members in this parliament. Monday was a very special day. You could see just how important this apology was to all the people who gathered in the Great Hall. It was very moving. You could see staff from FaHCSIA handing tissues to the people who were there to receive the apology. I would like to put on the record my support for this apology, my support for an unconditional apology, my support for a bipartisan policy and my support for seeing this as a start for the rest of the people who have been affected by this dreadful period in our history. I am absolutely committed to see that this never happens again. In conclusion, I would like to put on the record my thanks to Origins for the fine work that they have done over the years in reuniting families that have been separated—people like my constituent Sue and her daughter. Sue had her daughter when she was 16 and was forced to give her up. The child moved from foster parent to institution and had a very disturbed life. She suffered all the types of things that are mentioned in this apology. It was only through the efforts of Origins that she was reunited with the daughter that she had not even seen. The work that Origins do is invaluable and they should be congratulated for the contribution they have made to alleviate the pain of so many Australians. This is a fine apology, and I am pleased to be associated with it. 12320 10:30:00 Marino, Nola, MP HWP Forrest LP 0 0 Ms MARINO —I rise today to speak on the national apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants and the motion moved by the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. But, firstly, I acknowledge and thank all those who have worked so hard for so many years to make this apology happen. I also rise to speak on behalf of those in my electorate who have suffered as child migrants and forgotten Australians. I apologise to all of those people in my electorate. As many previous members have stated, childhood should be a time of learning and growing in a nurturing environment and of simply being a child. Children should be able to grow up with a loving family and/or in a loving, secure environment that they can trust. However, as we continue to hear, so many of these basic rights and opportunities were robbed from many tens of thousands of forgotten Australians and former child migrants, and many of those are in my electorate. This week we have heard a range of stories and recollections of painful childhood memories. No-one can understand, seriously, what these people have gone through and, while we in this parliament can speak, we do not understand, because it was not us. But I would like to acknowledge one person, one of my colleagues, Steve Irons, who was exactly one of those people who were so affected. I would like to acknowledge Steve’s commitment, passion and hard work. I congratulate him on not only his journey in life but also his very dignified speech in the parliament on a day that would have been particularly emotional. I congratulate him as well on how, in spite of the beginning that he had, he has lived his life, and how he has gone on to be a balanced individual who has got so much to offer not only to this parliament but to the community. He is an inspiration to all those who, in any way, shape or form, have suffered and are suffering with challenges in their lives. So, Steve, I thank you as well, and I offer you my apology as well. Monday’s remembrance ceremony formally acknowledged what happened in the past—firstly, that it did happen, and, secondly, that it was wrong. The ceremony was also a stark reminder to the broader community of the reality of what happened to those people—something that happened to children so many years ago and continued for so long. A local newspaper in my electorate recently ran an article regarding a constituent from the town of Collie who suffered abuse whilst in government children’s homes. The article stated: TORTURE at the hands of a foster mother and further abuse in a government children’s home so damaged 55-year-old Collie man Johnno … that he still carries the scars, mental and physical. The article detailed the story of just one forgotten Australian, and I would like to take this opportunity to share some of his story from that article. Johnno’s father was an alcoholic war veteran who married Johnno’s mother after the war. The article says: Probably because of the bashings she took from her husband and her lifestyle as an entertainer … she developed her own alcohol problems. Johnno’s parents split when he was just three years old, and his mother was unable to care for him or his siblings. Johnno clearly remembers the day that the police arrived at his house and handcuffed his eight-year-old brother, his six-year-old brother and him to the police car so they could not run away while they were searching the house for their parents. Johnno was put into care for eight years, away from his brothers for most of the time. Initially, he was placed in an institution called Turana. He was then put into foster care with a woman who had five children of her own and took him purely for the money she was paid to care for him. However this was only a short-lived arrangement as Johnno was put into the Menzies boys’ home after the foster mother tried to kill him. Johnno’s suffering continued at Menzies boys’ home, being forced to eat his meals alone as it was said that the damage from his former foster mother forcing his face onto the lighted gas stove ‘would put the other children off their food’. His foster mother’s sister repeatedly reported the abuse to the authorities. However, the government did not listen to her. This is a story that is continually repeated. This was a common occurrence. No-one wanted to listen and no-one wanted to acknowledge that these actions were actually taking place, because someone would have had to have taken responsibility. As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, Johnno was a defenceless child like the so many others subject to ongoing physical and mental abuse. I was so pleased that Johnno from Collie and Bob were able to be part of the apology in the Great Hall on Monday. I am absolutely sure that this process will have a profound effect on Johnno, as it will on all of those who were present and even those who were not there. Speaking afterwards to many of the people, including Johnno, simply reinforced the value of the ceremony, the value of the apology and how important the whole day and experience was for them. As the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition said in the Great Hall, it was a very important day for each of the people who were there. In conclusion, while we will never be able to take back the suffering of the forgotten Australians and former child migrants, I hope that this week’s recognition and sincere apology are a step in the right direction. I repeat my apologies to all of these people in my constituency for what they have suffered. I support this motion. Debate (on motion by Mr Robert) adjourned. 12321 Bills R4206 12321 Debate resumed from 16 September, on motion by Mr Shorten: That this bill be now read a second time. 12321 10:38:00 Ciobo, Steven, MP 00AN0 Moncrieff LP 0 0 Mr CIOBO —We are here in the chamber to talk about the government’s Tax Laws Amendment (Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists) Bill 2009. This is an additional piece of legislation as part of the package of bills being put forward to the parliament by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, who is the member for Kingsford Smith, as part of the federal government’s ongoing—as it claims—commitment to Australia’s arts sector. This includes in particular the instrument of resale royalty right for visual artists that the federal Labor government introduced with the support in some respects—and certainly as a matter of principle—of the opposition. To go back to the beginning, the Labor Party took to the last election a commitment that if elected they would seek to introduce a resale royalty right, a right that has been recommended on and off over the years by a number of inquiries into Australia’s visual arts sector. In principle, it is a right of which the coalition is supportive. At the outset of this journey we commenced on the pathway to where we are today—and ultimately to what we hope is the end point—that is, the establishment of the resale royalty right at law, its assent being received by the Crown and the legislation being put into practical effect. At the outset, the vision espoused by the minister was that, after the resale royalty right came into effect, artists would receive five per cent of the sale price when artworks were resold for $1,000 or more. A collecting society on behalf of artists and at the specific request of artists would move to collect the fee and subsequently disperse it to the artists. This has been an issue of some controversy over the years. Historically, the opposition did not support the notion of a resale royalty right, but I was pleased to play a role in arguing that there was merit and scope for the opposition to support this as a matter of principle. Fundamentally, what has transpired in the months and years since the resale royalty right was first advocated by the Labor Party can only be described as a debacle. The fact is that the minister responsible for this legislation—this enabling Tax Laws Amendment (Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists) Bill 2009 and the main instrument, the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Bill 2009—has handled it poorly. At the outset, the minister said that the legislation would provide a raft of benefits for visual artists. The situation now is that there are so many caveats, compromises and concerns that, in large measure, this legislation has effectively become unworkable. The opposition will not frustrate the passage of this legislation because we believe it is better to have something than to have nothing. But, time and time again, the minister responsible for the carriage of the legislation that introduces the resale royalty right has demonstrated his inability to remain abreast of the issues and to keep this legislative package moving forward with appropriate speed. I will run through in chronological order what has transpired. On 3 October 2008, the minister put out a media release entitled ‘Artists to benefit from resale royalty right’, which outlined the vision the minister had about what the resale royalty right would mean for visual artists. Understandably, at the time artists in Australia’s visual art sector were excited about the proposal. On 21 October 2008, 19 days later, the minister provided a ministerial statement to the parliament, and I was able to outline the opposition’s response to that ministerial statement and highlight the opposition’s views and concerns about how the resale royalty right would operate. On 27 November 2008, the minister introduced the legislation and immediately referred the legislation to a committee for investigation and report. That was the first unusual step taken. On 20 February 2009, 140 days after the announcement of the resale royalty right, the committee tabled its report. I know some Labor members speaking in the parliament today were part of the committee that undertook that report. They recommended a raft of amendments to the initial legislation, which had its genesis in a thought bubble from the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. On 19 March 2009, 168 days later, I spoke on the bill which had been amended by the government—the minister amended his own legislation to take into account some of the recommendations put forward by the committee. On 28 May, the government tabled its response to the committee’s report. Bear in mind that, as shadow arts minister, I had already spoken on the legislation that was being amended, 168 days after the announcement, and then 238 days after the announcement the government actually tabled its response to the committee’s recommendations. Most people who observe the flow of legislation through this building would recognise how completely back to front this whole process has been. I have spoken previously about how the minister assured me only 10 minutes prior to my speaking on the bill that I would not in fact need to speak on it because the bill would not be before parliament, although only 10 minutes later it was brought on. To me, that really demonstrates how little knowledge the minister has of the process of this legislation and what has been happening with it. Debate on the bill resumed 321 days after the announcement of the resale royalty right on 19 August this year. This was after I agreed to refer the legislation to the Main Committee to assist the minister in delivering on his commitment. On 7 September 2009—340 days after the initial announcement—the bill finally passed the lower house. And here we are on 19 November talking about the establishment of a resale royalty right—a key priority, a key election commitment of the Labor Party—with the legislation still most unlikely even to be debated in the Senate. It took 340 days for the legislation to get through the House of Representatives. Now, another 60 days or so after that, we are still waiting for this minister to provide some influence to get the legislation brought on in the Senate. I am regularly contacted by Australian artists expressing their dismay at how inept this whole process has been and how utterly inept the minister for the arts has been on one of the key platforms that he outlined, espoused and advocated prior to the election of the Rudd Labor government. But we should not be too surprised because, frankly, we have seen not only with respect to resale royalty rights but across the board that this is a government that is very big on talk but very poor when it comes to actual action and delivery. The legislation that is currently before the chamber seeks to amend the tax laws with respect to the resale royalty right effectively to do three things. The amendments ensure that the resale royalty right collecting agency is not taxed on amounts that it collects on behalf of resale royalty right owners and then holds pending allocation or disbursement to the actual artists themselves. This makes inherent sense, because the second limb of the legislation provides that, when those resale royalty right holders receive the amounts from the resale royalty right collecting society, they are then required to include those amounts as part of their assessable income to the extent that those amounts are not subject to income tax in the hands of the collecting society, which is what this bill provides for. The third limb of the bill provides that the resale royalty right collecting society is not taxed on other income it derives from other sources, provided that the amount of this other income falls within certain limits which, in broad terms, are $5 million, or five per cent, of its total income in the income year. That is what the bill before the chamber currently deals with. It is non-controversial in that it simply seeks to provide an incentive for the resale royalty right collecting agency to operate. It provides enhanced profitability but, if you actually dig a little deeper beyond the bill that is before the parliament today and consider the enabling framework that has been put in place for the resale royalty right, you will find that although there will be direct funding in the initial start-up years for the resale royalty right collecting agency—as is anticipated not only by the opposition but by independent third parties who know Australia’s visual arts sector well—it is likely to collect so little money that the commercial profitability of the resale royalty right collecting agency is likely not to be there right from the beginning. Even as funding from government is withdrawn or is anticipated to be withdrawn, I make the prediction that the resale royalty right collecting agency will be placed in a situation where it will need to come to government for additional funding in order to remain viable or, alternatively, will need to seek to cross-subsidise its operations in some way through profit centres that it has in other businesses. To the extent that this particular piece of legislation provides some additional commercial attractiveness to undertaking the role, it is little surprise, frankly, because the enabling legislation for the resale royalty right is so fundamentally flawed with respect to creating a commercial business case for the resale royalty right collecting agency that, without this additional carrot, I doubt there would be much incentive to get into the business of being the resale royalty right collecting agency at all. I will be interested to hear what Labor members opposite have to say about the complete debacle that this process has become. I would be interested to hear, as Labor members attempt to explain why—and I note that this time the member for Leichhardt is not listed to speak. I wonder why, given that he has historically been a proponent of a resale royalty right. In fact, the member for Leichhardt, when he spoke on the enabling legislation previously before this chamber, said that for too long visual artists had not been recognised and that the legislation needed to be brought on as soon as possible to enable that right to flow to the artists themselves. Given that it has now been well over a year and the minister still has not been able to get the legislation debate brought on in the Senate, it is little wonder that visual artists have such little faith in this minister. I will confine my comments to those observations on both the operation of the specific tax laws amendment bill that is before the parliament today and, more broadly, the operation of, and flaws within, the resale royalty right. On numerous occasions now I have facilitated this minister’s inability to deal with the legislation in a timely way, and the opposition has worked constructively to help this minister get this legislation through the parliament and has conceded a number of process matters to assist the minister. The fact is this Labor government really needs to pull its socks up when it comes to delivering on the resale royalty right for artists if anybody in the Australian original art sector is going to take this minister seriously when it comes to providing a framework for the resale royalty right in the future. 12324 10:52:00 Neumann, Shayne, MP HVO Blair ALP 1 0 Mr NEUMANN —I speak in support of the Tax Laws Amendment (Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists) Bill 2009. I was pleased to be at the national conference of the ALP and to support this legislation when it was originally proposed in the form of a policy statement before the 2007 federal election. Our policy statement was titled ‘New directions for the arts’ and that is what this is all about. I am very supportive of the many arts societies and collectives and galleries in my electorate of Blair in South-East Queensland. The legislation before this chamber deals with tax and how the collecting society will not be taxed for the purpose of assessable income in relation to moneys received concerning the resale of artworks. The situation is that the arts play an important role in our community, whether in national life or at the local level. This was acknowledged by former Labor Prime Minister John Curtin in 1942, when he distinctly commented on it at the height of Australia’s involvement in a conflict which could have seen us invaded. When we were under threat from the Japanese empire, he made it very clear that the pursuit of the arts and culture was crucial to a young democratic nation, and it was the measure of our development as a nation that we focused on those pursuits. So it was a Labor government under him, and later under Chifley, and later under Whitlam, that promoted the arts, whether drama or music or theatre or the visual arts, which promoted our culture and which promoted our development. Gough Whitlam, the former Labor Prime Minister, said that the arts should not be remote from society but should be central to our culture. That is what Labor governments through history have supported. The substantive legislation will benefit up to 20,000 people who are involved in visual art. This legislation, which enhances the scheme that we are undertaking, helps the people who develop our national identity and recognise our long history and enduring culture, our Indigenous people—those from the Torres Strait and our Aboriginal brothers and sisters—whose artwork, sadly, at times is despoiled by people who take advantage and counterfeit it. What we are doing here is enabling the tax laws to better line up with income so that the collecting agency is not taxed. One of the things that really infuriate companies and individuals in dealing with the tax system that we have in this country is when there are transfers of money or land, or restructuring of corporate arrangements, and no income is actually earned or needs to be assessed, and they are subject to complicated tax laws that deal with corporate structures and trusts. We cannot have a situation in this country which is adverse to the taxpayers of this country in that way. This legislation is about ensuring that our complex trust taxation laws and rules do not impinge on the collecting agency and in effect there is no double-dipping when it comes to taxation. This government has made it clear that it is determined to establish a resale royalty scheme for visual artists, allocating $1.5 million in the budget of 2008-09, as the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts announced on 13 May 2008. This scheme that we intend to establish is important for our economy but it is also important for our national identity and our community activities. We will assist artists to get fair payment for their works—proper recognition of their talent, skill and capacity as demonstrated in the artwork they so lovingly develop. This will provide an additional source of income for artists and bring us in line with so many advanced Western economies, in Europe and elsewhere. The independent collecting society which is established under the substantive bill will collect the money. When there is a resale of a piece of art such as a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, a photograph, an item of glassware or some other such artwork, the artist will receive up to about five per cent when those original artworks are resold through the market for more than $1,000. We hope this will continue beyond the artist’s life so that the beneficiaries in their estates, whether in intestacy or under will, will benefit as well from the artwork developed. Labor is strongly committed to ensuring that we have a better system to recognise the value of people in the arts. I love sport—absolutely love it—Brisbane Broncos tragic that I am. I played a lot of sport when I was younger. But it must be recognised that more people visit our art galleries in this country than attend sporting activities. We may see 100,000 people at the MCG or 40,000 at Suncorp Stadium or tens of thousands at Parramatta Stadium, but the truth is more people visit art galleries and are interested in the arts than are interested in sport in this country. Art is not given the recognition it deserves in our cultural and community life. The legislation that is before this chamber ensures, as I said, that the resale royalty collecting society is not taxed on the amount it collects and holds on behalf of artists. What will be established, in effect, is a trust arrangement where the society holds that money in trust. If you establish a unit trust, it is likely that there will be tax on income that is brought into the unit trust. It is the same with respect to a family trust or even a discretionary family trust: income is often taxed unless the money is disbursed to the beneficiaries under the family trust. So there is a risk that the tax laws will impinge and adversely affect artists and the collecting society. As the shadow minister outlined, the changes are accurate. What we are doing here is making it clear that the collecting society is not to be taxed on income it derives. It is subject to certain limits as well: five per cent of its total income or $5 million, whichever is the lesser. There is the streamlining of tax treatment, which replicates what happens with respect to copyright payments handled by copyright collecting societies. There are also some technical amendments replacing references to copyright income and non-copyright income with general terms and making sure they are consistent across copyright arrangements as well as the resale royalty arrangements. The arts are so important at a national level, but they are also important at a local level, as I will explain in a minute. A body will be established, a collecting society, which will apply in relation to the holding of money. A body can apply to the arts minister to be a collecting society for the purposes of the royalty scheme. The arts minister has the discretion, as he or she should have, to appoint a body as a collecting society. That body must be a company limited by guarantee. In other words, there are no shares in relation to that company. I established dozens and dozens of companies limited by guarantee when I was in legal practice. The members of the company are usually the directors. I established many for churches and charitable institutions. They hold the assets, usually preferring to establish a company limited by guarantee rather than, say, in Queensland, being associated or incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act. This is a useful corporate entity, and it is different from a public company or a proprietary limited company. As I said, the resale royalty rights scheme and legislation that is before this chamber will help my local area. I want to speak about how and why it will. In South-East Queensland, as the population has continued to grow—and we expect another 1.2 million people to come to South-East Queensland in the next 20 years—we have seen a burgeoning outside of Brisbane of interest in the arts, particularly visual art. You can see that in small areas outside Brisbane, as they continue to expand—for example, in Ipswich, in the Somerset region, in the Lockyer Valley and in the Scenic Rim area. In the Scenic Rim area, the Boonah Arts Collective, which runs the very successful SPAR Arts Festival every year, has seen an incredible interest in visual arts. Literally hundreds of works are displayed in Boonah and Kalbar in that festival, and there are hundreds of people involved. Good friends of mine, Sharon Murakami and Julie Jackson, were actively involved in that society. Clive Beaton is the current secretary. The committee meet four to five times a year and annually for their AGM. They promote the arts tremendously well. The artists often show their artwork in Ipswich and elsewhere. Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of being at the Laidley Art Society, where artists from the Scenic Rim area were showing their wares. I was a major sponsor of the Boonah Arts Collective and the SPAR Arts Festival. At Laidley, where I am the patron of the Laidley Art Society, tremendous quality artwork was shown. I congratulate all those people involved. It was a tremendous night to see the quality and the character of the local area. There were paintings and photography of local icons in towns like Laidley, Boonah and elsewhere on display. It was a credit to the Laidley Art Society and I am happy to have been associated with it. They have done a great job. I want to congratulate President Terry Merrick and Phillipa Van Glist. Phillipa describes herself as the ‘dog’s body’—she does just about everything for the society. I was pleased to be there and congratulate them and open the festival. You see a burgeoning number of people actively involved in the arts in places like the Somerset region. I was pleased to be at Lowood on 10 October at the opening of the Open Door Gallery at 45 Railway Street. Michelle Pakleppa and the President of the Lowood Lions, Keith Leese, were there along with the Mayor of the Somerset Regional Council, Graeme Lehmann, and the state member for Ipswich West, Wayne Wendt. I said at that opening that it was a demonstration of a community that clearly cared about each other and the arts. That gallery was initially started to help youth in the area but has been turned into a facility that everyone can use. It is a creative outlet for the area. We have already seen a lot of people visit that gallery. Michelle tells me that they have sold a number of pieces of artwork in that gallery and of course they will benefit. The people in those areas will benefit from the substantive legislation and the legislation that is before the chamber today. I want to talk about my hometown briefly and how it is going to benefit through this legislation. Ipswich—and I am proud to wear the Ipswich pride pin today—has the largest regional gallery in Queensland. It is the most visited regional art gallery in Australia. It runs a lively audience centred program in the visual arts. There are also a lot of social history exhibitions and ongoing collaboration with local artists, educators and historians. I could listen to Michael Beckmann, the Director of the Ipswich Art Gallery, for hours. My wife, Carolyn, and I were at the Ipswich Arts Foundation earlier this year for a fundraiser. Thousands and thousands of dollars were raised that evening for the Ipswich Art Gallery. Michael is an enthusiast. Where he gets the works from is extraordinary. He has been a wonderful advocate for the local community in Ipswich. The Ipswich Arts Foundation, which was established back in 1997, is ably led by Sandy Horneman-Wren, a barrister and a good friend of mine. The patrons are Sir Llew Edwards, the former member for Ipswich and former Deputy Premier of Queensland, and, of course, my good friend Paul Pisasale, the Mayor of the City of Ipswich The arts foundation does a wonderful job to promote local artists. I have been to many exhibitions, but one exhibition of very spectacular art by local artist Andrew Spark really captured my attention. Andrew is a mate of mine and he does a great job in promoting and helping business for the chamber of commerce but also in showing his very creative abstract form of art. People like Andrew will benefit from the legislation before the chamber today. We have seen arts blossom through the area, and I commend the Ipswich City Council for its support. My own local councillor is Charlie Pisasale. Charlie is the Chairperson of the Arts, Community and Cultural Services Committee—a very long title. Charlie has been actively involved in the Ipswich Arts Foundation and the Ipswich Arts Foundation Trust, which raised nearly $9 million through grants, subscriptions, philanthropy and sponsorship to benefit the Ipswich Art Gallery and the City of Ipswich collection since it was established in 1987. A budget through the Ipswich City Council in 2009-10 of $50,000 will support the foundation and the trust operations. All of these local groups, foundations and galleries will benefit from the legislation that is before the chamber. I strongly believe that the arts will continue to prosper in Ipswich and the rural West Moreton area. I want to finish by noting just how important this sort of thing is to the cultural history of my area and elsewhere, acknowledging the wonderful support of the University of Queensland Ipswich campus and showing how history, culture and the arts can link. The University of Queensland Ipswich campus supported the Peter Harley: an Ipswich woodcarver exhibition, which was displayed in February 2009 in the Ipswich Art Gallery. The University of Queensland Ipswich campus occupies the site of the Challinor Centre. Two pieces created by Mr Harley were on display. With the assistance of the university, Professor Alan Rix, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and the Ipswich Art Gallery over 60 pieces on loan were displayed. The amazing creativity of this man is interesting. He was in an asylum for much of his life. He was 35 years of age when he came to the attention of the Rockhampton police for being confused and unable to give a clear account of himself. He had no woodcarving tools in his possession when he was detained. It appears he took up woodcarving after he was institutionalised in the Challinor Centre in Ipswich. He was transferred to Ipswich in 1908 and spent the remaining years of his life there. If a man like Peter Harley can create works that today we still look at, cherish and value, imagine how what we are doing in this scheme will benefit artists now and in the future. This legislation is innovative and creative and, importantly, will help the financial security and the future prosperity of our arts. I commend the legislation before the House. 12328 11:13:00 Zappia, Tony, MP HWB Makin ALP 1 0 Mr ZAPPIA —I too rise to speak in support of the Tax Laws Amendment (Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists) Bill 2009. Before I get to the substance of my remarks, can I respond to some of the comments made by the member for Moncrieff earlier, when he accused the minister of not getting on with this bill and made comments about how long it has taken for the matter to come before the parliament. To state the facts and put everything into context, the question of resale royalty in fact dates right back to 1971, when the Berne convention was established. Australia acceded to and became a party to the Berne convention in 1977, and its formal entry to the convention was in 1978. It is interesting that since the convention some 54 countries of the 160 signatories to the convention have implemented a resale royalty scheme of one kind or another. Most of them are pretty similar in nature, but there are clearly some differences between them if you go through the list of each of the individual countries. What is perhaps more pertinent to the debate, however, is that in 2002 there was the Contemporary Visual Arts and Crafts Inquiry conducted by Mr Myer, which is often referred to by people as the Myer inquiry. The report of that inquiry under the previous Howard government recommended that a resale royalty scheme be put in place. In 2006 the Howard government of the day decided it would not adopt the recommendations of that report. A press release issued at the time by the then Attorney-General, the Hon. Philip Ruddock MP, and the then Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator the Hon. Rod Kemp, said: It would bring little advantage to the majority of Australian artists whose work rarely reaches the secondary art market and would also adversely affect commercial galleries, art dealers, auction houses and investors. The first point I make about that press release is: here is the member for Moncrieff criticising this government for getting on with introducing a resale royalty scheme when the previous government, of which he was a member, had received the Myer report that recommended that a resale royalty scheme be brought in yet it refused to do so. It refused to do so because it would: … adversely affect commercial galleries, art dealers, auction houses and investors. In other words, there was little regard for the artists, whom the member for Moncrieff comes into this chamber and pretends he stands for. They were only concerned about the auction houses, the investors, the art dealers and the galleries—the people who profit from the work of the artists, who this bill is trying to bring some fairness to. It is worse than that. In 2004 Senator Kate Lundy, a member of the current Rudd government, introduced a private member’s bill because the Howard government did not act on this matter. Did the coalition support that bill? No, they did not; they voted against it. They had an opportunity to introduce their own bill into parliament as a result of a recommendation of an inquiry which they instigated. They did not do that and they also refused to support the bill introduced by Kate Lundy. In other words, for 12 years in government they did nothing. The member for Moncrieff comes in and criticises the current minister, who once he was elected got on with drafting the necessary legislation and introducing it into parliament in the first year of this parliament. Yes, it has taken some time. It has taken some time for good reason. Part of that good reason is that, when the bill was drafted, it was clear that there was going to be an issue about whether the legislation could be retrospective or had to be prospective. In other words, would it commence after the legislation came into effect—when the first piece of artwork was acquired after the legislation came into effect—or would it come into effect as soon as the legislation passed, so any sale or acquisition from that point would attract a resale royalty? That was a contentious issue on which the government sought advice. The advice was that, in respect of section 51(xxxiii) of the Constitution, there was an argument that it might fall foul of the general legal opinion on acquisition of property on just terms. The minister was aware that there was some unhappiness with the legislation in its current form, so he, quite rightly, referred it to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts. It was referred to the standing committee on 28 November 2008 and the committee convened a public hearing on 6 February 2009. Bearing in mind that at the end of November parliament goes into recess, convening a meeting in February is about as quick as you can act to deal with the issue at hand. If I recall correctly, some 40 people came along and gave submissions. As a member of that committee, I attended the public hearings. We listened to the points of views expressed. Some 10 recommendations arose as a result of that public hearing. Of those 10 recommendations, most were not controversial and my recollection is that the minister has acceded to the implementation of most of them in some form or another. The critical one, in respect of section 51 of the Constitution and reflected in clause 11 of the bill, was not agreed to. Having gone through that process, all in the interests of the artists of this country so as to ensure that we can provide them with the best possible legislation, I think it is unjustified for the member for Moncrieff to suggest that the minister is not acting on this matter fast enough. He is acting on it as quickly as possible given the circumstances. Having completed that process, we now come to very heart of the bill: the taxation arrangements that apply to the collecting agency. Again, without this part of the bill in place, quite frankly, you cannot have the scheme—you must have the whole package. This is a separate part of the bill which, in effect, falls outside the minister’s jurisdiction because it is a Treasury matter dealing with taxation. Quite rightly, whilst this measure was part of the intent of the bill, it has to be drafted, brought to parliament and passed by parliament. Right now the original bill is before the Senate. It makes sense for this part of the bill to be debated in the Senate at the same time so that, when members debate the resale royalty legislation, they are debating the entire package. This part of it deals with the aspect of the bill which effectively says that the collecting agency should not be double-taxed—that is, the collecting agency is there to collect the funds and pass them on to the entitled artist or estate of the artist. It is not there as a profit-making body in the real sense and therefore, once the funds get to the collecting agency, they should not be taxed at that point. That is consistent with other royalty-collecting agencies here in Australia and, I would expect, across the world. The collecting agency will be appointed in accordance with the framework of the bill that we have before us. Once it is in place it will act, in a sense, as a clearing house for the royalty payments that are collected. Under the bill, royalty will apply to artworks that are sold for in excess of $1,000. It will be a flat five per cent royalty and it will apply for 70 years after the death of the artist. Those provisions—the five per cent, the 70 years and the $1,000 value—are again reasonably consistent with similar resale royalty schemes that are available all around the world and will go a long way towards providing rightful funds to the artist. What we have seen for probably the last 100 years in this country is artists who produce very fine artworks getting very little out of them and yet others in years to come profiting handsomely from the works of those artists. It is only reasonable and fair that the artist, if there is an increase in the value of their works, ought to at least share in that increase in value—because it is their work. There is another element to this and that is that, as we all know, many of the artworks that are sold in this country are sold to overseas buyers. If we do not have this scheme in place then neither will we have the reciprocal arrangements which allow Australian artists to benefit when their works are sold and onsold overseas. Other countries will not enter into reciprocal arrangements unless we have a scheme in place in Australia. So it is critical that we get on with doing this. Some work was carried out with respect to the value of resale royalties to Australian artists some years ago. If my memory serves me correctly, it has been suggested that something like $6.75 million of royalties per annum—at least, that was the figure almost a decade ago—would be paid to artists based on the current rate of sales. That is nearly $7 million worth of funds that would go back to the artists, many of whom are struggling to continue to be artists because the funds that they get from the sale of their artworks are simply not sufficient to enable them to focus and commit themselves to being full-time artists, yet these artists are producing some of the best works around the world. In particular, many of these artists are from the Indigenous community—again, people who are certainly very talented, but they are not businesspeople. They do not necessarily have the best understanding of how to secure the best income from their art. It is my view that, over the years, many of those artists have perhaps been the most affected because of the lack of a resale royalty scheme in this country. Once the scheme is in place, the converse will apply. In my view, many of our Indigenous artists will have much to gain from having a scheme in place. I said a moment ago that, in effect, this is simply the last aspect of trying to get this legislation through parliament. It is the missing link of the legislation and it is a taxation matter. The collecting agency will be appointed in due course. I understand that there are very clear guidelines with respect to how the collecting agency will operate. It will have to report on an annual basis the sales of artworks that it has registered with it. One of the good things about this is that once the collecting agency is appointed there will be a register, and everybody will be able to see and know exactly what works have been sold and for what value. One of the issues that does arise—and I understand that it was raised in one of the submissions—is: if an artwork is sold and the artist has since passed on and there is no estate to which the royalty payment is to be made, who keeps those funds? That also raises the question of what happens to funds where even those who have paid the royalty cannot be located. Those are interesting questions, and it will be interesting to see, once the scheme has been in place over several years, whether there has been an accumulation of royalty payments that, for very good reason, cannot be passed on to the rightful owners. But certainly it gives both the agency and the government an opportunity to see how that aspect of it works. If there have to be changes made to the legislation with respect to that matter, I am sure that they will be made by the government of the day. I have spoken on this bill on two other occasions, and I certainly do not want to go through the detail of the rest of it because I have done that on those occasions. I do say, in concluding my remarks, that this is a matter that has now been in discussion for some 30 years. It is time that we introduce a resale loyalty scheme. It was the Rudd Labor government that, on coming to office, immediately brought this legislation into the House. It is the Rudd Labor government that has been listening to the artists and taking their views on board both in the recommendations of the standing committee’s inquiry and in trying to resolve the differences on matters that the artists raised with the minister. Whilst that might have taken some time, at least the legislation is before us, thanks to the current minister. I commend the legislation to the House. 12331 11:28:00 Perrett, Graham, MP HVP Moreton ALP 1 0 Mr PERRETT —I am pleased to speak on the Tax Laws Amendment (Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists) Bill 2009. This bill implements in part our 2008 budget commitment to introduce a resale right scheme for visual artists. Resale rights are about ensuring that artists share in the appreciating value of their artwork and obviously have particular relevance to Indigenous artists. There is not a lot of money in being an artist. Like emerging authors of fiction and many others in the creative industries, they are often told, ‘Don’t give up your day job.’ Thankfully, many artists and writers do not listen to this advice. They persevere and stick with what they have a passion for. In their report Don’t give up your day job: an economic study of professional artists in Australia, the Australia Council for the Arts found that most artists earned less than $7,500 a year from their art despite the great contribution that they and their art makes to Australian society and culture. However, Indigenous art has enjoyed considerable growth in recent years, but unfortunately the Indigenous artists themselves have not shared in this growth. Back in 2002 cultural economist Hans Hoegh-Guldberg was commissioned to scope the value of Indigenous arts and crafts sales in Australia. He estimated that the total value of genuine Indigenous arts and craft sales at $100 million to $120 million a year, and half of these were in sales to overseas visitors. This is obviously good for our balance of trade and good for tourism as people go home with something they are happy with. Unfortunately, while the value of Indigenous art is improving rapidly, little of the value of the art sales worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some rare cases millions of dollars, is returned to the artist and the communities that created them in the first place. Often with Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, their stories and legends and images are collectively owned, but no benefit flows back to the Indigenous owner or the bigger mob that was responsible for the image. I am sure that for anyone with any common sense it does not seem right that a ritzy city auction house should continue to pocket a large cut of the value of Indigenous art for resales while the emerging artist is left with the distant memory in their pocket from the original sale. In some cases the disparity between the original price and the on-sale price just a few years later can be staggering. For example, in July 1997 a Clifford Possum Japaltjarri painting sold for just $1,200 to some lucky person. Ten years later it sold at auction for $2.4 million, but obviously the painter did not receive a red cent as a result of the appreciation in the value of the painting. If a resale rights scheme was in place it would have ensured that Clifford Possum Japaltjarri would have shared a small percentage of the increased value of the work. In government, the coalition commissioned the Myer inquiry into contemporary visual arts and crafts. The Myer report, which was released in June 2002, recommended the government introduce a resale rights for visual artists scheme but the Howard government failed to act on the recommendation. Maybe they were getting bad advice at the time, I am not sure. We do not know why, but they failed to act. The guts of the resale rights for visual artists scheme is contained in another bill before the House and will introduce a far more equitable system that will ensure financial rewards for artists— IYU Briggs, Jamie, MP Mr Briggs interjecting— HVP Perrett, Graham, MP Mr PERRETT —No, visual artists, not writers, member for Mayo—for any increase in value when their work is resold. This bill addresses the tax implications of resale royalties. It amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to regulate the tax treatment for payments made under the resale royalty right for visual artists scheme. It ensures that the resale royalty collecting society, which will be established by this scheme, will not be taxed for royalties it collects on behalf of the artist. Instead, the artist would include any royalty payment in their assessable tax income, thus making Mr Swan happy. This process mirrors the system in place for copyright payments. Without these amendments, payments handled by the resale royalty collecting society would be subject to complex trust taxation rules. However, this would impact artists as they would become liable for tax on their royalties in the income year they became entitled to them rather than when they actually received the payment. Obviously there can be some delay between those events. The bill also amends the wording of the provisions dealing with the treatment of copyright income to reduce the complexity of the tax law. So it is not legislation that will make the tax lawyers happy, but thankfully they are a small minority. The resale royalty right for visual artists scheme will ensure that money is directed back to the emerging artists, creating a new way for them to earn income and providing greater incentive for them to stick with their profession. Hopefully, it will mean that some of them will not have to give up their day job and that they will persevere and turn into great artists. Obviously, a lot of people out there in the suburbs are hoping to break into the art world, so hopefully this will give them a little income stream and make them persevere. This bill ensures that the scheme will be complemented by sensible and practical tax laws. I commend the minister for this legislation and I commend the bill to the House. 12333 11:35:00 Emerson, Craig, MP 83V Rankin ALP Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation and Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs 1 0 Dr EMERSON —I would like to thank those members who contributed to this debate on the Tax Laws Amendment (Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists) Bill 2009. In this debate we have heard from the member for Moncrieff, the member for Blair and the member for Makin. Also we have most recently heard from the member for Moreton, my friend, colleague, neighbour and touch footballing comrade. The bill amends the tax law to apply a streamlined tax treatment, to payments made in relation to the resale royalty right for visual artists, instead of the more complex trust taxation rules which would otherwise apply. This streamlined treatment replicates the way the tax law currently treats copyright payments handled by copyright-collecting societies. This bill ensures that a resale royalty collecting society is not taxed on amounts it collects on behalf of visual artists and holds pending distribution to them. When the artist or another resale royalty right holder, such as the artist’s heir, receives a payment from the collecting society, this amount is then included in the individual’s assessable income. Without these amendments the default tax treatment would be the application of the more complex trust taxation rules. Generally, this would mean that the artist would become liable for tax on his or her royalty amounts in the income year when they became presently entitled to them, rather than when they actually receive the payment. The bill also makes several minor technical amendments to the tax law. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment. 12334 Bills R4228 12334 Debate resumed from 21 October, on motion by Mr McClelland: That this bill be now read a second time. 12334 11:37:00 Ley, Sussan, MP 00AMN Farrer LP 0 0 Ms LEY —I am pleased to speak on the Personal Property Securities (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009. In talking about personal property securities reform, I make the comment that it seeks to address the complexity of the over 70 Commonwealth, state and territory laws, common-law rules and rules of equity that currently govern security interests in personal property. PPS reform will provide a modern and efficient personal property securities framework, which is essential for any modern financial system. This is a consequential amendments bill on personal property securities and it follows very much from the principal bill, the Personal Property Securities Bill 2009, which was introduced in parliament on 24 June 2009. I recall that it was a priority matter for the previous Attorney-General, the member for Berowra. By harmonising existing laws, the bill will reduce the complexity of the existing arrangements for secured lending using personal property as collateral. The bill will also increase consistency in the arrangements for creating, dealing with and enforcing security interests in personal property. Before going into this bill I will go back to the principal bill, which was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report after its introduction earlier this year. The committee’s report was published on 20 August 2009. The committee recommended that the principal bill be passed subject to a commitment from the government to, among other things: … include in a consequential amendments bill to be debated in the Senate cognately with this Bill— that is, the principal bill— and intended to take effect immediately after the commencement of the 2009 Bill all changes to the Bill identified as a result of concerns raised with this committee and subsequently directly with the department during the recommended further period of consultation until 30 September 2009. The government response to that recommendation is the bill that we are looking at here today, which contains in schedule 4 the changes to the principal bill which were identified by the committee. I want to draw the House’s attention to comments made by the Liberal senators on that committee, who recommended that the government ‘develop and implement a comprehensive education campaign for small to medium business and others prior to the start-up date for the new personal property securities system’. I am pleased to say that that recommendation was accepted by the government, which undertook to develop and implement an education campaign prior to the commencement of the new personal property securities system. Personal property is any form of property other than land or buildings. The PPS Bill will apply to transactions which have the effect of securing a payment or other obligation by taking an interest in personal property, regardless of the form of the transaction, the nature of the debtor or the jurisdiction in which the personal property or parties are located. This is known as the functional approach. The PPS consequential amendments bill represents the next stage in the government’s harmonisation of Australia’s law on secured financing using personal property. This consequential bill will amend 25 Commonwealth acts that deal with the creation, registration, priority, extinguishment or enforcement of interests in personal property. The amendments proposed by this bill will also clarify the operation of legislation that will operate concurrently with the PPS Bill. This will facilitate the establishment of a single national regime for personal property securities. As to the specifics of the consequential bill, it contains measures that are designed to: harmonise language and concepts with the PPS Bill where appropriate; support a seamless transition to the PPS register to be established by the PPS Bill, including removing provisions for the registration of security interests on a separate Commonwealth register; resolve conflicts between the PPS Bill and other Commonwealth legislation that provides for security interests or other interests in personal property; determine the priority between Commonwealth statutory interest in personal property other than security interests and security interests in the same property; clarify the rights of secured parties and other parties in particular situations, including statutory detention of personal property that may be the subject of a secured security interest; and ensure that the current rights are preserved on the implementation of the amendments. The consequential bill, we note, will not amend the Corporations Act 2001. That will be amended by a separate bill, following a separate public consultation process. The coalition supports the bill. 12335 11:43:00 Thomson, Craig, MP HVZ Dobell ALP 1 0 Mr CRAIG THOMSON —I rise to support the Personal Property Securities (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009. In keeping with the best reforming traditions of the Hawke and Keating Labor government, the Rudd government are pursuing the most ambitious program of reform in business regulation in the nation’s history. We are moving towards a seamless national economy. One of the concerns I hear about constantly from small business in my electorate of Dobell, on the New South Wales Central Coast, is the red-tape burden that has grown and grown over a long period of time. One of my constituents who owns a small business likened it to The Blob, the 1950s science fiction movie. He said to me that it keeps gobbling up investment, jobs and opportunities. It is because of this that the Rudd government are out there making reforms to our economy so that that burden of red tape is lifted from small business, medium business and large business. This is about moving towards a seamless national economy. The red-tape burden in Australia is stifling economic growth and productivity. We all know that today’s productivity growth is tomorrow’s prosperity. We all know that growth and increasing productivity mean more jobs for Australians. It is no secret to businesses on the Central Coast that red tape is strangling jobs in our region, as it is around the country. In 2009 Australia is an economy subject to no fewer than nine regulatory regimes which overlay these regulations, with eight states and territories each seeking to regulate in their own way. In some cases, this is duplicated another time by national regulation imposed at the Commonwealth level. In the 2006-07 financial year, more than 31,700 Australian businesses were operating in more than one state or territory. More than 4,300 operated in every state and territory, meaning they dealt with all nine different regulatory regimes. These statistics alone show how important it has been that, in the 18 months to two years since coming to office, this government has demonstrated its commitment to Australia having a seamless national economy. The Personal Property Securities Bill 2009, introduced into parliament on 24 June 2009 and passed by the House on 16 September 2009, is exactly what this government’s deregulation agenda is all about. This bill will supersede a tangled web of red tape involving over 70 Commonwealth, state and territory acts. The Personal Property Securities Bill will establish one national law governing the securing of finance using personal property. Personal property securities reform is an area that has long required change. Other countries, notably New Zealand, Canada and the United States, have all implemented reforms in this area. The Personal Property Securities Bill will establish a national personal property register on which security interests may be registered and searched; provide rules for the attachment of security interests to personal property; specify the circumstances where personal property free of a security interest would be required; include priority rules for governing priority between competing security interests; and provide a process for enforcement against secured personal property. The Personal Property Securities Bill is the result of extensive consultation. A first draft of the bill was released for consultation in May 2008. An amended version of the bill was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in November 2008. Amendments have been made to the bill in response to the committee’s recommendations. Personal property securities reform has been advanced in cooperation with the states and territories as part of COAG’s deregulation agenda. The bill was supported by a referral of legislative power from the states. An intergovernmental agreement on personal property securities reform was signed by COAG on 2 October 2008. New South Wales was the first state to refer its power, having passed its referral legislation in June 2009. Let us have a look in a little bit more detail at the Personal Property Securities (Consequential Amendments) Bill, what it will do and why it needs to be implemented. The bill represents the next stage in the government’s harmonisation of Australia’s laws on secured financing using personal property. The consequential bill will amend 25 Commonwealth acts that deal with the creation, registration, priority, extinguishment or enforcement of interests in personal property. The amendments proposed by this bill will clarify the operation of legislation which will operate concurrently with the PPS Bill. This will facilitate the establishment of a single national regime for personal property securities. The consequential bill contains measures designed to: harmonise language and concepts with the PPS Bill where appropriate; support a seamless transition to the PPS Register, including removing provisions providing for the registration of security interests on a separate Commonwealth register; resolve conflicts between the PPS Bill and other Commonwealth legislation that provides for security interests or other interests in personal property; determine the priority between Commonwealth statutory interests in personal property other than the security interests and security interests in the same property; clarify the rights of secured parties and other parties in particular situations including statutory detention of personal property that may be subject to a security interest; and ensure that current rights are preserved on implementation of the amendments. The consequential bill will not amend the Corporations Act 2001, which will be amended by a separate bill to be introduced later. After the PPS Bill was introduced in parliament on 24 June 2009, the Senate referred the provisions of the bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report. The committee presented its report on 20 August 2009 and recommended that the government consider stakeholder submissions on the PPS Bill until 30 September 2009. The government provided that opportunity to comment, and minor amendments that have arisen through this further consultation process and other minor technical amendments have been incorporated in the consequential bill. Personal property security reform is being advanced in cooperation with the states and territories as part of COAG’s deregulation agenda. As I said at the start of my contribution, this reform is in the best traditions of Labor governments during the 1980s and the 1990s. The Prime Minister recently said: The … social reforms of the Hawke and Keating era were critically important to sustaining public support for the difficult work of modernising our economy to make it more competitive in a rapidly globalising world. The greatest trait of Bob Hawke as Prime Minister was that he brought Australia together while we went through a period of massive economic upheaval. Whereas those overseas experienced extreme social division, Australia has had the leadership to bring about reform with public confidence. This is the type of leadership that the Prime Minister is providing and the type of leadership that the Leader of the Opposition simply cannot provide. Under the stewardship of the Rudd government, Australia is weathering the global recession better than most. This is due in large part to the stimulus program the government embarked on. The government acted early and decisively to support financial stability, nation building for recovery stimulus, jobs and training. Without the stimulus, Australia would have recorded three negative quarters, following other countries into recession. The Central Coast economy would have been devastated without the government’s stimulus package. The construction, tourism and retail sectors that my region relies on would have been hit in a major way. One and a half million people work in the retail industry in this country. I represent a large retail workforce on the Central Coast. There is no other section of our economy on the Central Coast that employs more people than retail. Without the stimulus package, thousands of people would have been out of work. Treasury estimates that without the stimulus unemployment would have reached 10 per cent, and I can assure you that it would have been much higher on the Central Coast, where we already have high unemployment and we always have had high unemployment. The Central Coast is a region that has suffered with unemployment for a long, long time. The absence of a stimulus package would set our region further back, more than most. Thankfully, the government did go down the stimulus path. As a result, we are the only advanced economy to have grown over the past year. Business confidence is at its highest level since October 2003. We have the second lowest unemployment of all the major economies, and we have the lowest debt and deficit of all the major economies. Australia is well placed to emerge from the global recession, but the road ahead will be long and tough. The Australian Labor Party is the political party of vision and reform. We are the only party with the ability to bring the nation forward through the stormy economic times. We are the only ones with the ability to make tough economic decisions as required while not forgetting Australia’s belief in social justice and the fair go. We need to build for the future agenda. We need a building decade for productivity. This is an important bill in terms of the reforming agenda, and that is one of the reasons why it is important that this bill be passed. We again look at the opposition in relation to their position on nation-building reforms. It was only two nights ago that, in the House, we saw the opposition vote against a national system of industrial relations. These are reforms that, in the previous government, they said they believed in, but we found through the debate two nights ago that they did not believe in the reforms that the country needed through having a single, national industrial relations system; what they did believe in was Work Choices. What they did believe in was the philosophy of the unfairness of a system that was tipped too far in one direction. We saw that the shadow minister in his contribution quite clearly articulated that the opposition did not like unfair dismissal laws and did not support them. He was followed by the member for O’Connor, who pointed out that he thinks we should have AWAs, and that is why he could not support the reforms in relation to workplace relations. He also said that there should not be penalty rates for people working on weekends. So what we see from the opposition in relation to economic reform is that they mask their extreme ideology where it suits them in terms of, ‘We need to reform the economy,’ but when they are really put to the test on these issues they fail that test. They are not an opposition, a party, that is about reforming this economy. They are not a party that is about making Australia more productive. They are a party about pursuing an ideological position come what may, and that is all we can expect from the opposition in relation to almost any piece of legislation we have to deal with. On this side of the House, what we are interested in and what we want to do is to make sure that we build for the future—that we continue to look at measures that can make sure that this next decade is a decade for building productivity. As I said, this bill is part of that reform agenda because it lessens the red tape burden that many businesses suffer. Currently there are over 70 Commonwealth, state and territory laws as well as the common law and rules of equity governing security interests and personal property. These different laws vary in their application according to the form of the transaction, the nature of the debtor or the jurisdiction in which the property is located. This adds significantly to the transaction costs. Personal property securities reform is an important part of COAG’s deregulation agenda. The fact that this government is actually able to sit down with the states and reach agreement on these national reforms again is in stark contrast to what we saw in the last 12 years of the Howard government where it was, ‘Do it our way; there is no other way.’ They were never prepared to sit down and work with the states in terms of reforming the economy. They had this ideological position and they were going to do it that way, and the states were, for them, only there to be part of the blame game, and that is entirely what the opposition sought to do. We, on this side of the House, think that it is important that we sit down with the state governments, because if you want to achieve real reform in any area, then you need to work with those governments to make sure those reforms not only are achieved but are lasting, and that is again what this legislation is about. By harmonising the current laws and creating a single national online register, the reform will have real impact on business and consumers. Transaction costs will be reduced and businesses will be able to use more types of personal property to secure lending, resulting in them being able to secure lower interest rates. The bill will amend 25 Commonwealth acts that deal with the creation, registration, priority, extinguishment or enforcement of interests in personal property. The amendments are necessary to facilitate the establishment of a single national legal regime for security interests in personal property. The amendments will clarify the operation of legislation that will operate concurrently with the Personal Property Securities Bill 2009 once enacted. The bill also makes minor amendments to the Personal Property Securities Bill, which was passed by the House on 16 September. The Personal Property Securities (Consequential Amendments) Bill contains measures designed to harmonise language and concepts with the Personal Property Securities Bill. The amendments will reduce complexity and increase consistency in the arrangements for creating, dealing with and enforcing security interests in personal property. Importantly, the amendments will support a seamless transition to a single national Personal Property Securities Register by amending provisions in Commonwealth legislation that provide for the registration of security interests on a separate Commonwealth register. For example, the Shipping Registration Act 1981 will be amended to change the current regime for creating and registering mortgages over ships. Existing mortgages over ships, currently registered on the Australian Register of Ships, will be migrated to the Personal Property Securities Register. The result will be that the Personal Property Securities Register will be the sole register for the registration of mortgages and other security interests in ships. Amendments will also be made to the Designs Act 2003, the Trade Marks Act 1995 and the Patents Act 1990. The registration of security interests on registers created by those acts made after the commencement of the PPS scheme will have no effect on the registered owner of the intellectual property interest. This will encourage registration of security interests in intellectual property on the PPS register and resolve any conflict between the PPS register and the intellectual property registers. The bill will also reinforce the privacy provisions applied to the PPS Register. The Privacy Act 1988 will be amended to confirm that unauthorised uses of register data are ‘interferences with privacy’ under the Privacy Act and are subject to the Privacy Commissioner’s powers of investigation. The amendments effected by the bill will resolve possible conflicts between the PPS Bill and Commonwealth legislation that provides for other interests in personal property. The bill will make it clear that the PPS scheme cannot be used to frustrate other legitimate interests in personal property. In relation to the Commonwealth’s maritime and fisheries legislation, for example, this bill ensures that enforcement action taken under such legislation will not be circumvented by a secured party attempting to enforce a security interest under the Personal Property Securities Bill. This bill will also ensure that current rights and interests are preserved after the new PPS scheme commences operation. In particular, where Commonwealth legislation has clearly provided for the priority of an interest in relation to a security interest in the same property, that priority will be preserved upon implementation of the Personal Property Securities Bill. An example is the priority of statutory liens held by Airservices Australia under the Air Services Act 1995. Some additional amendments to Commonwealth legislation will be needed before the PPS scheme commences. The Corporations Act 2001 will need to be amended as part of personal property securities reform. Prior to the introduction of those amendments, the government will conduct a consultation process on the proposed amendments in accordance with the intergovernmental Corporations Agreement. That consultation process will begin shortly. I would like to sum up what this consequential bill will do. It will facilitate the establishment of a single national regime for secured lending over personal property. By harmonising legislation across the Commonwealth statute book, the bill will provide greater consistency and support a seamless transition to the new national personal property securities regime. A recent World Economic Forum survey ranked Australia second among global financial centres. Making Australia’s secured transactions law more certain and consistent and less complex and costly will facilitate international investment in Australian businesses. This will further strengthen Australia’s position as a leading global financial centre. I commend the bill to the House. 12340 12:02:00 McClelland, Robert, MP JK6 Barton ALP Attorney-General 1 0 Mr McCLELLAND —in reply—In responding to the debate, I would like to thank members for their contributions. This bill is an important part of personal property securities reform. It will make certain the operation of existing Commonwealth laws following the reform. PPS reform will harmonise Australia’s secured financing laws and will further strengthen Australia’s position as a leading global financial centre. PPS reform is an important part of the Council of Australian Governments deregulation agenda. There are currently over 70 Commonwealth, state and territory laws, common law and rules of equity governing security interests in personal property. There are around 40 different registers on which security interests in personal property might be registered. These arrangements are unnecessarily complex and result in high transaction costs. This reform will harmonise and rationalise the law to establish a single national regime for secured lending over personal property, relieving business and consumers of a significant red-tape and cost burden. The PPS regime will establish a single national online register to record security interests in personal property. As members have acknowledged, the Personal Property Securities (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 will amend the Commonwealth acts that deal with the creation, priority, extinguishment or enforcement of interests in personal property. These amendments clarify the operation of legislation that will operate concurrently with the Personal Property Securities Bill 2009. This will assist in adding certainty to, and reducing the complexity of, this area of the law. The bill also amends legislation to remove requirements to register security interests on the Australian shipping register and Commonwealth fishing registers. Those interests will instead be registered on the PPS Register. A single register will mean that businesses only need to search and register on one register, regardless of the type of personal property or the location of the debtor. Both lenders and borrowers will benefit from this new, streamlined approach. Consumers will also benefit from being able to make any necessary pre-purchase inquiries in one place. PPS reform will also facilitate the use of different types of personal property as collateral in accessing secured lending. This is likely to be of particular benefit to small businesses. Australia’s secured transactions law will become more closely aligned with legislation in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. This is an important initiative in the context of our current economic climate. This regime will open up new opportunities for Australian businesses to access more competitive domestic and international financing. The bill also seeks to address concerns raised by stakeholders through the recent Senate committee inquiry into the provisions of the PPS Bill. I thank the inquiry and senators for their contribution. Some minor technical amendments to the PPS Bill have been incorporated in the bill. The amendments have been included in the bill rather than moved as government amendments to the PPS Bill in order to avoid the need for a further referral of power from the states. I should acknowledge that this bill was prepared with the assistance of my ministerial colleagues and I thank them for their commitment to reform of this area. In conclusion, by harmonising the law and creating a streamlined approach to secured lending, PPS reform will generate real benefits for all parties involved in secured finance. Bill read a second time. Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment. 12341 Bills R4202 12341 Debate resumed from 16 September, on motion by Ms Macklin: That this bill be now read a second time. 12341 12:07:00 Hall, Jill, MP 83N Shortland ALP 1 0 Ms HALL —I rise to  speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Participation Requirement) Bill 2009. From 1 January 2010, this bill introduces a participation requirement for a family tax benefit part A: children aged 16 to 20. Under this requirement, family tax benefit A will only be paid to children aged 16 to 20 if they have completed their final year of secondary school or equivalent level of education, or are working towards achieving this through full-time study. I need to place on record my disappointment that no-one from the opposition will be speaking on this legislation. The shadow minister has withdrawn from speaking on it. We are dealing with legislation that refers to young people and young people’s opportunities in life and it really worries me that the opposition cannot make the commitment towards young people. This legislation not only places a compliance requirement on young people to undertake study but also creates an opportunity. It creates the opportunity for young people to earn or learn. This legislation reinforces the compact that was announced previously. This legislation also provides that once a child has satisfied the test, which is to undertake learning, the family tax benefit A continues to be paid subject to other existing rules relating to age and income et cetera. A very important part of the legislation is that there will be capacity to exempt a young person from the family tax benefit activity test in certain circumstances. These are very reasonable circumstances that I deem to be essential enough for me to stand up here and support the legislation wholeheartedly today. The first circumstance is that if there is no locally accessible, approved course of educational study, including any such course available by distance education, for a young person, they will be exempt. This is a very important requirement. The second circumstance is where there is such a course but with no places available. We all know that in some areas young people try to enrol in courses but there are no places available. Even in my own area, where we have access to quality education through our TAFE colleges and schools, sometimes it is not possible for a young person to obtain a place. The third circumstance is when a person is not qualified to undertake the course or the person lacks the capacity to undertake the course due to physical, psychiatric, intellectual or learning disability. Learning disability was one of the areas that I felt was very important for us to provide an exemption on. The fourth circumstance is where, in the secretary’s opinion, special circumstances make it unreasonable for that person to undertake a course. The new rules will start on 1 January 2010. However, they will be applied and implemented progressively. New claimants from January 2010, including those receiving the end-of-year lump sum past period payment, will be subject to the new activity test. I believe this is good legislation. I support it. I see it as legislation that is creating an opportunity for young people to learn. It shows that the Rudd government is committed to seeing that every young person either earns or learns. The government is committed to putting incentives in place for this to happen while recognising that there are special circumstances where it is not appropriate. I note that the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs has entered the chamber. Before concluding my contribution to this debate, I would like to put on record the fine work that she has done not only in this area but across the board and, in particular, the enormous contribution that she has made this week during the apology to the forgotten people. The minister has gone above and beyond what should be expected. She is an ideal minister to be working in this portfolio. She is concerned and has compassion, but at the same time she brings a knowledge base to her portfolio. So I would like to place on record my congratulations to her not only for the legislation that she has drafted and that we are debating here in the chamber but also for the fine work that she has done in relation to the apology. 12342 12:13:00 Briggs, Jamie, MP IYU Mayo LP 0 0 Mr BRIGGS —I will be very brief. I know the minister has a busy schedule. I just wanted to address a comment made by the member for Shortland. The shadow minister, who of course has supported the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Participation Requirement) Bill 2009, is in Sydney for a function today. That is why he is unable to speak on the bill. I just wanted to put that on the record to correct a piece of information that was being perpetrated by the member for Shortland on the other side. The Liberal Party have a very proud record of standing up for young people and creating opportunities for the future. We did that for 11½ years by creating a record number of jobs and real wage increases and so forth. With those brief remarks, I will conclude. Thank you. 12342 12:15:00 Macklin, Jenny, MP PG6 Jagajaga ALP Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs 1 0 Ms MACKLIN —in reply—I thank the member for Shortland for her comments, personal remarks and support. I appreciate that very much. And I appreciate the opposition’s support for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Participation Requirement) Bill 2009. In summing up, I think it is important to just go back a few months and recognise that in April this year the government, through the Council of Australian Governments, agreed on a very significant plan to increase young people’s participation in education and training. I think everybody in the parliament understands the value of completing secondary school and the impact that early school leaving has on a young person’s lifelong employment outcomes. We have been determined through this Compact with Young Australians to make sure that we do everything possible to provide an education or training place for young people under the age of 25. The legislation in front of us today is in support of the initiatives in the compact. This legislation will make secondary education a requirement for payment of family tax benefits for young people aged over 16. It is a very significant piece of legislation. From next year, a child aged 16 to 20 will have to be studying towards year 12 or an equivalent qualification, or have completed such a course, to be eligible for family tax benefit part A. This requirement will of course be subject to certain exemptions to take into account a young person’s capacity to actually complete a program of study. They may have problems of a physical, psychiatric, intellectual or learning disability nature. There will be exemptions where there is no locally accessible approved course of education or study and no such course is available by distance education. There will also be exemptions where there are special circumstances that make it unreasonable for the young person to undertake the course. The provisions will also provide some flexibility in relation to the young person’s study load where a different load is appropriate to the young person’s circumstances—due to illness, for example. The new participation requirement introduced by this bill will apply from 1 January 2010 for new claimants and end-of-year lump sum claimants. Families who have already claimed payments by instalment for a period before 1 January 2010 will have the new rules applied from 1 May 2010. This later starting date for existing customers will give Centrelink adequate time to make necessary IT system changes. As I said before, these are very significant changes. They are a clear statement by the government that family payments are provided for a purpose. They should be directed in the best interests of children. I think we all understand that education is a key driver of future success for children; our family payments system will support this policy goal. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment. 12343 Adjournment Mr MELHAM (Banks) 12:19:00 —I move: That the Main Committee do now adjourn. 12343 12343 12:19:00 Briggs, Jamie, MP IYU Mayo LP 0 0 Mr BRIGGS —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on what is International Men’s Day, a very important initiative. I rise to speak today in this adjournment debate about a very important issue to my local electorate, which is that of the Woodside Army base and the plans of the Rudd Labor government in relation to Army bases, particularly smaller Army bases. My concern is for the Woodside Army base located in the Adelaide Hills in my electorate of Mayo. The Woodside Army base has a long and prestigious history in the Adelaide Hills. It has a very close link with the Woodside community and is very much loved as part of that community. The former member for Mayo, to give him due credit, played a significant role in ensuring that the air defence regiment remained located at Woodside during his 23 years as the federal member for Mayo, and I intend to walk in the same footsteps. The Woodside Army base is a very important aspect of the community of the Adelaide Hills. As I said, it is tied very closely to the community. Many people who are located there of course have children who go to local primary schools and high schools, and those people are part of the fabric of the community. The Woodside pageant, which is coming up as Christmas approaches, traditionally has a celebration of the Woodside Army Barracks’ commitment to, and celebrated history in, that community. It is very important that following the review by George Pappas, some of which was released yesterday, we get a commitment from the Minister for Defence to retain the Army base at Woodside as an operational Army base. I understand there is a push to create superbases around the country. It is not for me to comment on the overall policy implications of those decisions; I will leave that to the appropriate shadow minister. However, in some respects and in some cases it makes good sense to do those types of things. However, in the Woodside case, there are a couple of very pertinent reasons why it does not make sense to move the regiment out of that base. If you were to create these superbases I imagine there would be two reasons for it. One would be strategic, and those are important considerations as far as our defence goes; the other would be economic, for savings in the defence department, which of course is a big-spending department. How to ensure that spending is kept in check and spent appropriately is a matter of constant discussion in this place. On the economic side of this debate, closing Woodside would actually have very little benefit, because the land in Woodside is in the watershed of the Mount Lofty Ranges, which is very important for Adelaide’s water supplies. It is very much part of the catchment and therefore is not able to be sold off as other land bases around the country would be for development. The government of South Australia is unfortunately pursuing very proactive development policies in the Adelaide Hills, which of course is very much against community wishes in a lot of respects. We would not want to see the federal government move the regiment out of Woodside to create a situation where a state Labor government saw some dollar signs pop up with a potential sale and benefited from it. That would be the first and important reason in that respect. So the economic reason of selling the land is therefore not there. It makes good sense to leave what is a very popular and accepted part of the community in Woodside, and of course people from the base live in the surrounding towns as well. In Mount Barker a member of the Woodside regiment lives across the road from us. As I say, it is an important part of the community. These people work in the RSLs and assist with community development. This defence minister, in fairness to him, wrote back to me very promptly when I wrote to him on this matter. There was not much in his letter, but he did write back very promptly and I appreciate that. But I now want, very importantly, a commitment that Woodside will remain open, active and part of the Adelaide Hills community. It is a very important part of the Adelaide Hills community and I hope to get that assurance very soon. 12344 12344 12:24:00 Danby, Michael, MP WF6 Melbourne Ports ALP 1 0 Mr DANBY —Next Wednesday, 25 November, is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is then timely to raise the example of the extreme and wide-scale violence that has received too little media coverage; violence against women that is continuing to take place as part of a state policy in Darfur. The Washington Post had an articled that was republished in Monday’s Australian which said, ‘Darfur is no longer a trendy global cause.’ That does not mean that the suffering of civilians, particularly women, has ceased. A horrific example of that sort of violence taking place in Darfur, as mentioned in the Australian, was near the al-Hamadiya camp in Zalingei where a woman was collecting firewood on 15 May this year. Three armed men in khaki uniforms raped her, stabbed her in the leg and left her bleeding. She spent 45 days in hospital. In 2003, the same woman had been raped and shot while fleeing her village. Rape is prevalent throughout the crisis in Darfur. Doctors Without Borders reported treating nearly 500 rape survivors from October 2004 to February 2005. In late 2006 the International Rescue Committee recorded that there had been more than 200 sexual assaults within a five-week period around one IDP camp. Rebecca Hamilton, an Open Society Fellow, said that the international community did, to some extent, respond to this particular facet of the Darfur crises. She said in the New Republic: A decentralized and largely informal network of GBV— gender based violence— support services grew painstakingly over five years, and it included some of the world’s most well-respected aid organizations. The U.N. relied on the network’s agencies to share information so that referral pathways could be developed to meet GBV survivors’ needs. As a result, women who braved the social stigma associated with reporting rape in Darfur’s Muslim society could receive medical care—from life-saving emergency assistance for injuries sustained during brutal attacks (often involving multiple assailants) to HIV/AIDS prophylactic treatment to psychological support. However, even these support services, as fragile as they were, have been swept away. This occurred in March this year when the Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. His response to the indictment was to eject 13 international aid agencies from Darfur and to disband three other domestic relief groups. Khartoum claims that the organisations were sharing information with the International Criminal Court, which both the groups and the court deny. The void left, however, by the ousted organisations means that the emergency measures to help provide food, water and vital aid for the rape survivors is virtually decimated. As Ms Hamilton explained: After the expulsions, the message was clear—work on GBV, and you’ll be kicked out— by the government of Sudan. In dealing with this particularly despotic regime in Khartoum the international community is often faced with such dilemmas. Actions intended to affect the rulers often impact on the vulnerable as well. While Al Bashir is most definitely deserving of prosecution, clearly international policy needs to be modified to take in the plight of many Darfuri women not addressed by the expulsion issue. I must say that to me it is extraordinary that the international community does not pay more attention to this crisis in Darfur. Since the beginning of 2000 we have seen more than 300,000 people killed, massive camps being set up in Chad and ongoing support of the Sudanese government for the Janjaweed militia, including their ability to hang around the camps set up by the United Nations to continue to perpetrate the gender based violence against the women of Darfur. These crimes are described by many of the victims as being not just sexually but racially motivated, and they have a particularly odious aspect to them if those two things are mixed together. On Wednesday next week, when 300,000 white ribbons will be distributed in Australia for International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, I will be wearing one with special thoughts for the women of Darfur. 12346 12346 12:29:00 Stone, Dr Sharman, MP EM6 Murray LP 0 0 Dr STONE —I rise to talk about a very serious problem concerning this and future generations of country students. These are year 12 graduates who seek to have a university education. At the commencement of my remarks I would like to present two petitions with over 850 signatories. The petition read as follows— To the honourable The Speaker and members of the House of Representatives This petition of certain citizens of Australia, draws the attention of the house to their opposition to the proposed changes to Youth Allowance criteria announced in the 2009 Federal Budget. These changes will mean country students cannot afford to live away from home to access Higher Education. Students with no prior experience or qualifications will be forced into a difficult job market and many will simply not find work for a minimum 30 hours per week for at least I months in a two year period as proposed. Most universities only allow students to defer for 12 months. Rural students needing youth allowance support through university, may be forced to reapply for their positions all over again as a mature age student. Universities only offer limited mature age places. There are limited mid year intakes. We therefore ask the House to review the proposed changes so that country students can access university. from 719 citizens Petition received. The petition read as follows— To the honourable The Speaker and members of the House of Representatives This petition of certain citizens of Australia, draws the attention of the house its opposition to the current changes in Youth Allowance criteria, which will severely disadvantage country students living away from home to study in the following ways. Country students can not live at home while they gain qualifications- footing the cost of $15,000 to $20,000 to be at university Students with no prior experience or qualifications are forced into difficult job market and many will simply not find near full time work for the time and amount required. Most universities only allow students to defer for 12 months. Rural students needing youth allowance support through university, may be forced to reapply for their positions all over again as a mature age student. Universities only offer limited mature age places. There are limited mid year intake. We therefore ask the House to review the proposed changes so that country students have the ability to attend university. from 131 citizens Petition received. EM6 Stone, Dr Sharman, MP Dr STONE —These are signatures gathered from my area of northern Victoria. The signatories are attesting to the fact that: Country students can not live at home while they gain qualifications- footing the cost of $15,000 to $20,000 to be at university Students with no prior experience or qualifications are forced into difficult job market and many will simply not find near full time work for the time and amount required. Most universities only allow students to defer for 12 months. Rural students needing youth allowance support through university, may be forced to reapply for their positions all over again as a mature age student. Universities only offer limited mature age places. There are limited mid year intake. I want to back up those petitioners, men, women, grandparents, gap-year students, year 12 leavers and teachers themselves, with the actual data, which I hope this government will pay attention to, in relation to what is happening in regional Australia, particularly my area, about students’ aspirations for a university education. I am using data which has been generated by the state government, the Office of Planning, Strategy and Coordination and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. These are the reasons for not studying after completion of year 12 given by students in the Goulburn-Murray area of Victoria. In the Goulburn-Murray area 47.8 per cent were not going on to study because they needed to qualify for youth allowance. That is 47 per cent compared to only 24 per cent in the state. Financial pressure on their families was a reason why 43 per cent were not going on. That compares to only 26.4 per cent statewide. The costs of study were stopping 45.9 per cent of the students going on, compared to only 31 per cent in Victoria as a whole. The cost of travel affected 26.8 per cent compared to only 20.9 per cent across the whole of the state. Too much travel—this was what was stopping students going to university—was cited by 23.9 per cent compared to only 22 per cent in the state. ‘They would have to leave home,’ 34.9 per cent compared to only 18 per cent for the state. ‘The course is not offered locally,’ was 45.7 per cent compared to only half that number across the state—22 per cent across the state. The reasons students cited for leaving before year 12 in the Goulburn-Murray area were: ‘Financial pressure on the family,’ 40 per cent compared to only 21 per cent across the state—so double the number left school early because of financial pressures; ‘The cost of study,’ 30 per cent—30 per cent of students left school early because of the cost of study; and ‘The course is not offered locally,’ 33 per cent compared to only 12 per cent across the state. Those statistics are bald. They are absolutely, obviously the reasons why we are so desperate as a coalition to have the independent youth allowance measures overturned—the measures that this government is trying to introduce, which will spell the end for even more country students who aspire to a university education. It is shameful that the government do not genuinely believe in social inclusion, in equal opportunity, in access to education for all. Just the other day the University of Melbourne chose to close down its agriculture course at Dookie, a regional college that has been operating in my electorate for over a hundred years. That is the sort of thing that is going on. So in the future agricultural students will have to go to Parkville, Melbourne, to study. They will not be able to afford to under this government’s new regime. Shame on this government. Look at those statistics. We desperately need support for rural students who have the cost of education and living away from home. Why should Australians who pay their taxes in rural and regional Australia be denied an education? It will mean that future professionals, born and bred in the country, will be fewer on the ground. There will be even greater skills shortages amongst the health service professionals, teachers and surveyors. Country professionals will not be there in the future because they have not been born and bred beyond the tram tracks. They will be city based because that is where they did their studies and where they grew up. I say again: shame on the government. I would have thought they would have had a greater sense of social inclusion. Quite clearly, they have not. (Time expired) 12348 12348 12:34:00 Sullivan, Jon, MP HVS Longman ALP 1 0 Mr SULLIVAN —The federal government has announced intention to develop a national strategy for young people and to include young people in the development of that strategy. This is happening principally through the Australian Youth Forum, and it is the Australian Youth Forum which recently held its National Conversation. We want Australians to grow up healthy, safe, happy and resilient and to have the opportunities and skills they need to learn, work and engage in community life and influence decisions that affect them. The ability of young people to have an influence on decisions that affect them is important and earlier this month, on 9 November, I hosted a forum of local young students in order for them to be able to contribute to the National Conversation. For the forum we brought together young people from high schools across my electorate. It was facilitated by an experienced but young facilitator and she was assisted by other young people. The schools that were represented were Bribie Island State High School, Caboolture State High School, St Columban’s College, Tullawong State High School, Morayfield State High School, Deception Bay State High School, North Lakes State College and Northpine Christian College. In all, 36 students attended on the day. It was a great opportunity for them to get together and have a say on issues that they feel strongly about and have an input into the national strategy. Most of these people had never met before. For those not familiar with the Longman electorate, it is a combination of a number of separate communities that are gradually being subsumed into the broader area of outer Brisbane. I was greatly impressed by the thoughtful and articulate way in which the students discussed the issues and put forward their ideas, which I believe bodes well for our future. Much of the discussion focused on obstacles which prevent young people from being active in their community. The delegates identified practical ways by which young people can engage with the community and ways the broader community can engage with our young people. Some of the obstacles they identified were negative stereotyping of young people and lack of support for young people to create their own opportunities. The delegates prepared a communique for the National Conversation, which I would now like to read on their behalf. It says: Local young people need support from the community We need financial support to mount our own projects and activities locally We need to be encouraged and mentored by adults and the community generally We want to be acknowledged for our value We are seeking advice and support on life skills and direction We are seeking guidance As young people we need to participate in and generate more community events that celebrate young people, youth culture and help foster acknowledgement of the positive contribution young people make to the community We are seeking more support to help young people achieve their goals through our own actions and events Young people should have a say on subjects that affect young people and we need to be active in pursuing opportunities to do this. Outcomes We propose a continuing local youth forum or youth council supported by existing institutions like local government. The council would be made up of young people and provide: Youth planning space for young people to meet, network and create change Allow young people to have a say on subjects affecting young people A youth focused magazine or publication that provides a voice for young people as well as providing positive views on young people I am very much looking forward to continuing to work with these young people to help them achieve these goals. In fact, I have had some preliminary conversations with the Deputy Mayor of the Moreton Bay Regional Council, which is quite a large council area. Between us we have decided that the best option for our council area is to have not one but three such youth councils, which would take in many of the young people from the electorates of Petrie and Dickson, which adjoin us to the south. It is important to note that young people are very much conscious of the negative stereotyping that they get in the newspapers and I would like to conclude this contribution with a few lines from a poem by Denis Kevans, who spoke of this problem as an ex-teacher—and newspaper writers should take note. The poem goes: If you could look into their eyes, as I do every day You wouldn’t write the things you write or say the things you say You wouldn’t put these children down and bruise their tender pride And hustle little bits of kids on the paths to suicide. 12349 12349 12:40:00 Ramsey, Rowan, MP HWS Grey LP 0 0 Mr RAMSEY —It is appropriate, as this government passes its second birthday, that we should measure its rhetoric against its performance. Unfortunately, we are likely to find some large gaps. In the short time I have available to me, I will focus on just one commitment—and what a good one it was. In this time when the government is bursting to lead the world in the reduction of greenhouse gases and to promote the Australian government as the greenest on earth, it should come as no surprise when it announces investment in environmentally friendly projects—projects which, it assures us on a regular basis, will save the Great Barrier Reef. On 19 February 2008, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, jointly with the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, took no less an opportunity than the 3rd International Solar Cities Congress, in Adelaide, to announce the building of a $7.1 million solar power station for Coober Pedy, in the north of my electorate. Certainly both ministers have some talent, and in the area of hyperbole they excel. I quote Minister Garrett: “This is a groundbreaking solar project – a spectacular example of the Rudd Labor Government’s commitment to a clean energy future,” Peter Garrett said.  “There will be 26 dishes, each one 14 metres high and tracking the arc of the sun – an Australian design, delivering the nation’s most efficient solar power station. “When it’s completed at the end of 2009, it will generate about 1860 megawatt hours a year – 13 per cent of Coober Pedy’s total electricity requirements. … Not bad, is it? You can imagine how excited the locals were. And it all made sense, because if solar power makes sense anywhere it would be in the middle of the desert, where the locally generated power costs 80c a kilowatt hour. Really, if this plant does not make economic sense in Coober Pedy, it probably would not work anywhere. With less than six weeks to go to the end of the year, am I here to tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I went to the opening of this magnificent plant? No. I am sorry to report that nothing, not one thing, has happened. The power plant is due to be up and running in six weeks at the latest, and it has not even started. In fact, I believe it will never be completed. Certainly the locals have lost faith. You would think that, after such a high-profile announcement, if the government were not going to build the solar power station then they would at least make some kind of public announcement. But no. All we have is silence. I placed a question on notice with the minister on 11 August seeking information about the construction of the solar power station. I have not yet received an answer. On 26 October I raised the matter with the Speaker in the House, and he committed to writing to the minister and requesting that he reply to my question. Still I have no reply. It seems the spin cycle is malfunctioning. When will the minister and the government be honest with my electorate and have the intestinal fortitude to publicly admit to this overblown and exaggerated spin? Quite frankly, this is a disgrace. The minister’s treatment of the Coober Pedy community in the Grey electorate is both arrogant and appalling. I say to the minister just this: answer my question: is the project dead or not? There are unfortunately too many other examples where the government has failed to meet its high-flying rhetoric. National broadband was to be well into construction by now and to cost the taxpayer just $4.5 billion. In reality it has not even started. The government has committed $43 billion and it does not even have a plan, except for the compulsory takeover of Telstra. The Prime Minister promised that, if the hospitals were not fixed by now, they would be subject to a Commonwealth takeover. Well, they clearly are not fixed, and the government is sitting on its hands. Mr Deputy Speaker, you can expect the opposition over the next few weeks to be raising the overpromising and underdelivery of this government, as part of its second anniversary present. 12350 12350 12:44:00 Sidebottom, Sid, MP 849 Braddon ALP 1 0 Mr SIDEBOTTOM —There are three things I would like to raise today. The first is that I would like to pay my respects, sympathies and condolences to the family of Rene Levi, a 15-year-old boy at Latrobe High School who unfortunately lost his life a couple of days ago in a tragic drowning accident at Latrobe in the eastern end of my electorate. This tragedy has had a dramatic effect on the school and the local community and I want to pass on my sympathies not just to his family—I know they would be grieving greatly—but also to the school community, Phil McKenzie, the staff and students, and the Latrobe community itself. It is a great tragedy and I am very, very sorry for the family and for all those involved. On a more positive note I would like to thank Telstra and their new CEO, David Thodey, for doing something which I hoped for but did not believe would happen. They have rescinded what I thought was a terrible decision, particularly in terms of customer relations, charging a $2.20 fee for people who paid their bills across the counter and also increasing charges for people who used a credit card to pay their bill. Mr Thodey, on the very day that we announced the proposed restructuring of Telstra, rang me that night—and I thanked him very much for taking the time out on what was a perplexing day for him to say the least—and discussed with me this very charge, because I had written to him, left messages and started a community campaign with other members on both sides of the House. I said to Mr Thodey that I could not believe how this policy that Telstra introduced got under his radar and that this was the policy of the last regime, of Sol Trujillo and co., but not his because his was a customer-orientated, customer-agent, customer-directed new Telstra. I said to him, ‘Why don’t you go to your next annual general meeting and stand up and say, “This is not the Telstra I want to lead. We rescind this.” ‘ That was my wildest hope and in actual fact that is exactly what happened. They have rescinded the policy. They are going to repay everybody who paid that $2.20 and they have also said that it is not the way of the future, that it is not the way to treat their customers. Really it was just an underhanded way to try and herd people onto the internet, people who were not ready for that, who do not like doing that and who are paying legal tender. Anyway to cut a long story short, thank you to David Thodey, thank you to Telstra for listening to their customers. I think it was a really good example of what is starting to happen in corporate Australia, because I noticed the CEO of Westpac made an extraordinary statement the other day: they are going back to introducing branches for person-to-person contact with the bank. Jack Hill the blind miner could see, when they started to pull branches and force people into the electronic means of banking, that there were a lot of people who like a sense of community and the personal, one-to-one transaction, and they are starting to move back. You will see this starting to happen in corporate Australia: giving people choice again about how they go about their business, so that is really good. Well done, David Thodey; well done to Telstra; well done to everybody who was part of the community campaign to rescind this. I would also like to congratulate the Tasmanian government on taking up a situation which was pretty complex, one which was born in politics and I thought would die in politics—that is, the apparent demise of the Australian Technical College Northern Tasmania. Our commitments were fulfilled until the end of this financial year. There was a strong community campaign by the college, the students and parents and the community that benefit from it, and the state government is now going to incorporate the Australian Technical College but retain an alternative complementary entity that can work in with the Tasmania Tomorrow reforms for education. I do thank the state government for that. It is going to give some certitude and continuity to those students, their parents and employers into the future, so well done to all involved in that campaign as well. Question agreed to. 12351 12:49:00 Main Committee adjourned at 12.49 pm 12352 Questions in Writing 1 1 887 1 Hawker, David, MP 8H4 Wannon LP 0 Mr Hawker asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, in writing, on 11 August 2009: In respect of accredited insulation installers and the Economic Stimulus Plan for household ceiling insulation— As at 11 August 2009 and by State and Territory, how many accredited insulation installers are there. How does an insulation installer become accredited. What public liability cover is an insulation installer required to carry. What safeguards do householders have against poor workmanship of ceiling insulation. What insulation accreditation compliance checks will the Government undertake. How much of the insulation used under the program is (a) manufactured in Australia, and (b) imported, and how do these figures compare with those from before the commencement of the program. As at 11 August 2009 and by State and Territory, how many households have applied for the ceiling insulation subsidy. 1 Garrett, Peter, MP HV4 Kingsford Smith ALP Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts 1 Mr Garrett —The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: State/Territory Number of registered installers at 11 August 2009 NSW 3,217 VIC 1,058 QLD 1,731 SA 270 WA 456 TAS 254 NT 42 ACT 30 TOTAL 7,058   Installers are not accredited as such and the Government does not endorse any supplier on the Installer Provider Register. To be listed on the register, an installer is required to: meet minimum competency requirements hold an Australian Business Number and specified insurance and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Registration. Installers also need to ensure that they meet any relevant state or territory licensing requirements before undertaking any installation. The process of registration requires the installer to input information through a website.  Detailed information about the registration process is available at the website www.environment.gov.au/energyefficiency. (3)   Installers must maintain, for the period they remain on the register, public liability insurance with a limit of liability per ‘occurrence’ or ‘event’ of not less than $10 million, and property damage insurance with a limit of liability per ‘occurrence’ or ‘event’ of not less than $10 million.  In addition, installers must carry workers’ compensation insurance as required by the law in the jurisdiction(s) in which the installation work is being performed. (4)   Insulation materials are required to be installed in accordance with Australian Standard 3999-1992 ‘Thermal insulation of dwellings – bulk installations – installation requirements’ and specified sections of the Building Code of Australia.  Installers must also comply with specific safety requirements, as well as the relevant skills, experience and training competencies specified for the program. (5)   In processing registrations, Australian Business Numbers, insurance certificates of currency and proof of the competency standards are checked.  The Australian Government has a compliance and audit strategy in place for the Program which includes both targeted and random audit activities, for example: Inspections of installation work done Direct contact with Householders Auditing of Installers’ records relating to the Program Address and dwelling size confirmation Verification of claims information with Householders and Installers Assessment of installer alignment with the Pricing Table Verification of Installer compliance with the Terms and Conditions of registration, and Verification of Householder and Installer compliance with the Program guidelines. The Government takes a dim view of anyone seeking to exploit the Program and any non-compliance will be assessed and investigated as appropriate and may result in recovery of money, prosecution and/or installers being removed from the Installer Provider Register. (6)   The majority of insulation material is manufactured in Australia.  This assessment is supported by insulation peak industry bodies, the Insulation Council of Australia and New Zealand (ICANZ), the Australian Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers' Association, the Aluminium Foil Insulation Association and the Polyester Insulation Manufacturers' Association, who advise that Australian production has increased in response to demand.  Where imported materials are needed to supplement local supply only those materials which met Australian Standard AS/NZ4859.1:2001 are allowable under the program. (7)     *As at 11 August 2009, this is the number of homes insulated for which claims for payment or reimbursement have been lodged.  The actual number of homes insulated is higher. 12354 12354 925 12354 Southcott, Dr Andrew, MP TK6 Boothby LP 0 Dr Southcott asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, in writing, on 12 August 2009: In respect of the employment impacts of the Energy Efficient Homes Package— How many jobs are estimated to be (a) created, and (b) supported, by the $4 billion Package in the (i) 2008-09, (ii) 2009-10, (iii) 2010-11, and (iv) 2011-12 financial years. How many jobs in total are estimated to be (a) created, and (b) supported, by the ceiling insulation component of the $4 billion Package. What is the cost per job (a) created, and (b) supported, by the (i) $4 billion package, and (ii) ceiling insulation component of the $4 billion Package. 12354 Garrett, Peter, MP HV4 Kingsford Smith ALP Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts 1 Mr Garrett —The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: Treasury does not separately model the employment impacts of the individual measures. This would require complex modelling of all of the sectoral linkages. Spending in one sector does not affect that sector in isolation; it ripples through the economy through a complex set of micro relationships that makes it difficult to reliably estimate the employment effects of any specific measure. Treasury have indicated in the 2009/10 budget papers that the $42 billion stimulus package is expected to support up to 210,000 jobs. 12354 12354 1042 12354 Haase, Barry, MP 84T Kalgoorlie LP 0 Mr Haase asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, in writing, on 19 October 2009: In respect of item numbers 50124 and 50125 on the Medicare Benefits Schedule: is it fact that she plans to remove them; if so, did she consult with stakeholders, including Arthritis Australia, before making this decision; is there an alternative, comparable, safe and effective treatment available; what is her plan to help pensioners and healthcare cardholders unable to afford the treatment without the Medicare rebate; and will clinics who bulk-bill still be able to afford to provide these treatments; and do providers of these treatments have associated out-of–pocket expenses. 12354 Roxon, Nicola, MP 83K Gellibrand ALP Minister for Health and Ageing 1 Ms Roxon —The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: Yes. As part of the 2009-10 Budget, it was announced that minor procedural items 50124 and 50125, which provide for joint injections, would be removed from the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) effective from 1 November 2009. The removal of the items reflects the Government’s commitment to simplifying and enhancing Medicare billing practices, and promoting appropriate clinical practice. The removal of items 50124 and 50125 were announced in the 2009-10 Federal Budget. Such measures are regarded as ‘Budget-In-Confidence’ during development and until announced. Any practitioner that is currently administering joint injections may continue to perform the service under the relevant MBS attendance item for their particular medical specialty. There are many services carried out during an attendance with a doctor that do not attract a separately identified benefit. The joint injections will be performed as part of the standard consultation which will be eligible for a Medicare rebate. For example, General Practitioners (GPs) when performing the procedure would bill under a Level B consultation (item 23, schedule fee of $34.30) or a Level C consultation (item 36, schedule fee of $65.20). In addition, GPs are currently eligible for additional payments when they bulk bill Commonwealth concession card holders and children under 16 years of age. These payments are currently $5.70 in metropolitan areas and $8.55 in rural areas, Tasmania, and eligible metropolitan areas. A specialist or consultant physician would claim under the relevant attendance items, items 104/105 (schedule fee of $80.85/$40.60) or items 110/116 (schedule fee of $142.65/$71.35). In addition to the Medicare rebate for the consultation, all Australians including pensioners and health care cardholders will continue to have access to the extended Medicare safety net and the medical expenses tax offset. I do not have information on the affordability of bulk billing clinics providing these treatments. I do not have information about the out-of-pocket expenses of providers.