Mr TRUSS (Wide Bay—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (09:01): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Act 1961 established an agreement to allow the Commonwealth to provide a long-term loan to Western Australia to undertake construction of a standard-gauge railway, primarily from Kalgoorlie to Perth.

The purpose of the Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Amendment Bill 2014 is to amend the Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Act 1961 to allow Western Australia to pay the outstanding balance of the loan from the Commonwealth, some $1.6 million, should they choose to do so. The bill also provides for the repeal of the act 28 days after the repayment is made.

This government is committed to reducing red tape through its deregulation agenda.

The government is working with state and territory governments to deliver on reducing the regulatory burden to grow Australia's productivity.

The bill enables the early repayment of the loan to the Western Australian government for standardisation of the railway from Kalgoorlie to Perth.

This change is necessary as the act currently does not allow for early repayment of the loan, with the final payment scheduled for 2041. Once the loan is repaid there will be some minor administrative efficiencies from the cessation of the administration of the act.

There are no outstanding claims under the act and consequently it should be repealed.

The amendments to the act do not have any regulatory or financial impacts on businesses and the not-for-profit sector.

The amendments in this bill will help to streamline early repayment from Western Australia to the Commonwealth for loans that date back to the 1960s. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (09:04): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

We all want a strong and prosperous agriculture sector in Australia.

We want an agriculture sector that lasts, a sector that grows and delivers great returns for our nation.

Australian farmers are world leaders in producing efficient, sustainable and high-quality produce to meet demand both here and abroad.

The export of these products plays a major role in the future of Australian agriculture, and indeed the future of Australian farmers.

We export around 65 per cent of our farm products, 75 per cent of our fish products and 60 per cent of our forest products, worth more than $41 billion in 2012-13. (Confirmed by ABARES, 3 March 2013)

The export of these products helps support the estimated 134,000 farm businesses across the country—most of which are family owned and run—and a great many more jobs for hardworking Australians in our primary industries.

This government is working to boost the competitiveness and productivity of the Australian agriculture sector.

Creating new market opportunities and maintaining existing export arrangements supports the government's trade objectives while assisting those at the farm gate, which is vitally important for agriculture in this country.

Underpinning it all is the export legislation which safeguards Australia's international reputation and position as an agricultural exporter, providing confidence that Australian agricultural exports meet the requirements of importing countries.

One of our greatest advantages is our 'clean' label, as a country whose product is phytosanitarily looked after and correct, which gives people a great sense of security when they consume it. People who have had experience around the irrigation areas of St George would acknowledge what a clean, green place our irrigation country is.

Export legislation provides the Department of Agriculture with the authority to grant certification services to exporters and—consistent with the Australian cost recovery guidelines—to recover the costs of providing these services.

The Export Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 amends four acts administered by the department.

Amendments to the Export Control Act 1982 and the Export Inspection and Meat Charges Collection Act 1985 will remedy technical defects in these acts and allow for consistent and equitable cost recovery from export activities.

Currently, inconsistent definitions mean that the department has been unable to recover establishment registration and quantity charges for the exportation of certain products.

Put simply, exporters of some plant products like nuts and seeds, for example, are not paying establishment registration and quantity charges which are being paid by exporters of other plant products like grain.

This is not fair, when all exporters have access to the services that they need to export their products. We must get a fair and equitable coverage of costs across industries.

These amendments will address this inequity and provide a more level playing field by aligning the definitions in the Export Inspection and Meat Charges Collection Act 1985 and the Export Control Act 1982.

Removing the definitional inconsistencies between the two acts will allow for consistent and equitable cost recovery for services provided by the department to exporters.

The bill will also amend the Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act 1997 (AMLI Act) to enable the department to recover costs relating to services, such as issuing quota certificates for quotas that are administered by other countries.

The costs of granting quota certificates for quota administered by Australia are already recovered from the users of the services. Amendments to the AMLI Act will enable the department to recover costs when it is not responsible for allocating the quota but, nonetheless, is required to issue quota certificates.

No fees are being proposed by this act—and any cost recovery for quotas will be determined through a cost recovery impact statement in consultation with the industry.

The proposed amendments will enable the department to recover the estimated $1.9 million per annum for providing export services for commodities which are currently excluded from cost recovery.

These amendments are largely supported by industry—who like me—believes that costs for export services carried out by the department should be appropriately and consistently recovered.

The Export Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 will also correct a referencing anomaly in the Export Control Act 1982, which will enable departmental officers to request search warrants by telephone or other electronic means. This will enable enforcement operations to be conducted in an appropriate time frame.

From time to time, authorised officers are required to access registered premises—being ships, planes, vehicles or premises—where officers believe that there may be evidential material relating to breaches of this act. Correction of this incorrect referencing will expedite the execution of warrants.

The Export Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 and the associated bills which I will also introduce to make the relevant consequential amendments, are important pieces of legislation that will not only provide a fairer and more consistent approach to cost recovery for services provided to exporters, but will also provide departmental officers greater access to important documents and information in a timely manner, making it easier for them to perform the important role of protecting the integrity of Australia's export commodities.

Madam Speaker, I apologise for my over-reference to phytosanitary correctness, but it is the Gut Foundation day and we want everyone to have their proper bowel screening.

Debate adjourned.

Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (09:11): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Export Inspection (Quantity Charge) Amendment Bill 2014 is the second of four bills being introduced to form this legislative package that will remedy technical defects and allow for more consistent and equitable cost recovery for services provided to exporters by the Department of Agriculture.

The Export Inspection (Quantity Charge) Act 1985 enables the collection of charges for export related services carried out under the Export Control Act 1982.

As the Quantity Charge Act is incorporated and reads as one with the Export Inspection and Meat Charges Collection Act 1985 (collection act), consequential amendments are required for consistency with amendments being proposed to the collection act (which are being made by the Export Legislation Amendment Bill 2014).

The bill itself does not impose any extra charges.

Debate adjourned.

Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (09:13): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Export Inspection (Service Charge) Amendment Bill 2014 is the third of four bills being introduced to form this legislative package that will remedy technical defects and allow for more consistent and equitable cost recovery for services provided to exporters by the Department of Agriculture.

The Export Inspection (Service Charge) Act 1985 enables the collection of charges for export related services carried out under the Export Control Act 1982.

As the Service Charge Act is incorporated and reads as one with the Export Inspection and Meat Charges Collection Act 1985 (collection act), consequential amendments are required for consistency with amendments being proposed to the collection act (which are being made by the Export Legislation Amendment Bill 2014).

The bill itself does not impose any extra charges.

Debate adjourned.

Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (09:14): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Export Inspection (Establishment Registration Charges) Amendment Bill 2014 is the final bill being introduced to form this legislative package that will remedy technical defects and allow for more consistent and equitable cost recovery for services provided to exporters by the Department of Agriculture.

The Export Inspection (Establishment Registration Charges) Act 1985 enables the collection of charges for export related services carried out under the Export Control Act 1982.

As the establishment registration charges act is incorporated and reads as one with the Export Inspection and Meat Charges Collection Act 1985 (the collection act), consequential amendments are required for consistency with amendments being proposed to the collection act (which are being made by the Export Legislation Amendment Bill 2014).

The bill itself does not impose any extra charges; however, the department would have the ability to recover establishment registration charges for exporting certain plant products like cut flowers, dried fruits, nursery stock, nuts, seed, timber products and tissue culture, allowing for more consistent and equitable cost recovery for services provided to exporters by the department.

Debate adjourned.

Ms LEY (Farrer—Assistant Minister for Education) (09:16): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Introduction

Australia's continued prosperity depends in large part on the skills and knowledge of our people.

This will especially be the case as we move to reposition Australian industry to take advantage of the many opportunities and face the competitive challenges of the 21st century.

The government is committed to ensuring that the vocational education and training sector is ready to meet the skills and training needs of the nation and it is in this context that the Student Identifiers Bill is presented to the House.

Currently, information about vocational education enrolments, participation and completion is fragmented and inaccurate. Many vocational education students use more than one training provider.

This leads to wasteful and confusing duplication in the creation of student identities, which in turn makes it difficult to understand pathways and patterns of enrolment and completion and to develop evidence-based and cost-efficient programs that effectively target skill shortages and the skills needs of industry.

Through the introduction of a national lifelong unique student identifier for students who undertake nationally recognised training, the bill will generate savings for individuals and businesses by enabling the streamlining of data collection and other processes in the vocational education and training sector.

The unique identifier will assist industry in making better informed decisions about the skill levels and training needs of their workforces and effectiveness of training undertaken.

In addition, individuals will have easy, reliable, lifelong online access to a record of their training history from a single authoritative source.

Governments will have access to more accurate and complete data on training completions and pathways that will greatly improve the monitoring of the efficiency, responsiveness and effectiveness of the training system.

This will inform the development of a contestable training market and enable governments to target assistance to training providers, students and employers more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

Specifics of the b ill

The Student Identifiers Bill 2014 provides for the introduction of the scheme for students undertaking nationally recognised training in the VET sector.

It provides for the assignment of student identifiers and for their collection, use and disclosure.

While student identifiers will be mandatory for students undertaking VET courses once the scheme commences, there will be provision for the Commonwealth minister to make exemptions under the scheme by legislative instrument with the agreement of the states and territories.

A key principle underpinning the scheme is that individuals will have control over their student identifier and can determine who can have access to their personal and educational records associated with it.

The privacy framework for the scheme is intended to complement and work in conjunction with existing Commonwealth, state and territory privacy provisions which will continue to operate in relation to personal information as they do now.

The bill establishes a new Commonwealth statutory office holder, the Student Identifiers Registrar, to ensure the protection and appropriate use of information.

The registrar will be responsible for assigning student identifiers to individuals who apply for one and for providing authenticated VET transcripts upon request.

The bill also requires the registrar to submit an annual report to the Commonwealth minister for presentation to the parliament and to provide a copy to the ministerial council.

The functions of the registrar will be funded from existing funding for the support of the national training system with the amount of the allocation to be agreed by the state, territory and Commonwealth training ministers in accordance with the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development between the Commonwealth, states and territories as is in force from time to time.

The introduction of the student identifier will be supported by the inclusion of additional requirements to the standards for registered training organisations under the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 and mirrored in the Australian Quality Training Framework.

The introduction of the student identifier will enhance the efficiency, transparency and responsiveness of the VET sector.

The Australian government is committed to strengthening the training sector by providing a clearer picture of our skills base, confirming that future training can be targeted to meet the needs of industry and the economy.

Debate adjourned.

Mr ANDREWS (Menzies—Minister for Social Services) (09:21): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill will implement the government's election commitment to index income thresholds for the Commonwealth seniors health card.

The seniors health card is available to people who are of age pension age but who do not qualify for the age pension—typically, self-funded retirees.

Qualification for the seniors health card depends partly on a person satisfying the seniors health card taxable income test. Under that test, the person's adjusted taxable income must not exceed the taxable income limit that applies to the person's family situation.

These income limits are currently set at $50,000 for singles and $80,000 for couples.

The taxable income limits are not currently indexed and have not increased since 2001.

Introducing indexation means more people will satisfy the seniors health card taxable income test and therefore qualify for the seniors health card.

The government recognises that self-funded retirees, after a lifetime of hard work, have made a significant contribution to our nation's success. They are entitled to a safe and secure retirement.

We also recognise that, by looking after their own retirement needs, self-funded retirees save the Commonwealth budget considerable pension costs.

However, we know that many self-funded retirees are not wealthy and face financial pressures. Those who meet the current income test and therefore hold a seniors health card are rightly concerned about modest changes in retirement income potentially causing them to lose their entitlement to the card.

Unexpected medical bills can be a significant worry for many seniors in that position.

Indexing the current income thresholds so they do not erode in real terms will allow more self-funded retirees to qualify for a seniors health card—or to keep their card despite small increases in their income beyond the current limits.

This means more seniors will be able to access the concessions that come with the card—including medicines listed in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme at the concessional rate.

Indexation of the income thresholds will occur annually, starting on 20 September 2014, and will be based on movements in the consumer price index.

This measure applies to the seniors health card under either the Social Security Act 1991 or the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986.

The bill will also make minor and technical amendments to portfolio acts, including reflecting changed Public Service administrative arrangements.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (09:24): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 amends the Migration Act 1958(the act) and the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (the citizenship act) to:

ensure that sections 48, 48A and 501E of the act can be correctly applied according to policy intention;

ensure that a bridging visa application is not an impediment to the exercise of the removal of the person under subsection 198(5) of the act;

apply the debt liability provisions of the act to all convicted people smugglers and illegal foreign fishers;

clarify the obligations of the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal to give documents to an authorised recipient;

clarify the role of the authorised recipient, and the extent of the obligation to notify an authorised recipient of direct communications made with the person who appointed them;

provide access to, and use of, material and information obtained under a search warrant issued under the Crimes Act 1914 for certain purposes of the act and the citizenship act;

ensure that the procedural fairness requirements prescribed in the act will apply universally to all visa applications and provide for greater consistency in decision making; and

repeal provisions in the act which contain references to section 14 of the Electronic Transactions Act 1999.

The first schedule to the bill will ensure that sections 48, 48A and 501E of the act can be correctly applied according to policy intention.

Sections 48, 48A and 501E of the act limit or prohibit the making of valid visa applications by persons who have been refused a visa or who have held a visa that was cancelled.

Currently, section 48 limits further visa applications by a person in the migration zone who held a visa that was cancelled. This means a person whose visa has been cancelled at any time in the past will not be able to make a further visa application while they are in Australia. This is not consistent with the policy intention, which is to limit further visa applications if the person has held a visa that was cancelled only since last entering Australia.

In addition, the amendment will clarify that sections 48, 48A and 501E also apply to limit or prohibit the making of a further visa application by persons who were refused a visa for which a valid application was made on the person's behalf. This is irrespective of whether the person knew about, or understood the nature of, the application because the person lacked capacity due to a mental impairment, or because the person was a minor at the time of that application.

The amendment will ensure that, consistently with the policy intention, the application of sections 48, 48A and 501E will not be determined by reference to a retrospective and subjective assessment of the person's knowledge or understanding of the visa application made on their behalf. Instead, the application of these provisions can be determined by reference to the objective criterion of whether or not the person has been refused a visa since they last entered Australia as a matter of fact.

The amendment will protect the integrity of Australia's visa systems by ensuring that minors or mentally impaired persons who have been refused a visa and who do not otherwise have a lawful basis for remaining in Australia, cannot make or have made on their behalf, unmeritorious visa applications in order to prolong their stay in Australia. It also ensures that different members of the same family unit, some of whom may be minors or mentally impaired, who applied for visas together will receive consistent immigration outcomes and be bound by the same consequences.

Schedule 2— r emoval of unlawful noncitizens

The second schedule to the bill will clarify the interaction between section 195 and subsection 198(5) of the act. This is to ensure that a bridging visa application is not an impediment to the removal of a person under subsection 198(5) of the act.

Currently, subsection 198(5) of the act does not explicitly cover situations where a detainee has applied only for a bridging visa, which has resulted in a small cohort of detainees being unable to be removed from Australia. This amendment now clarifies the wording of subsection 198(5), to ensure the correct operation of removals policy intent.

In addition, these amendments put beyond doubt that a person cannot be removed if they have applied for a protection visa and the grant of the visa has not yet been refused or the application has not yet been finally determined. This puts beyond doubt that subsection 198(5) of the act does not apply to an unlawful noncitizen who has made a valid application for a protection visa.

These measures will apply to the removal of a detainee on or after the commencement of this schedule, including if the detainee was detained before that day.

Schedule 3—r ecovery of costs from certain persons

The third schedule to the bill will apply the debt liability provisions of the act to all convicted people smugglers and illegal foreign fishers.

On 9 November 2009, the relevant operative provisions of the Migration Amendment (Abolishing Detention Debt) Act 2009 commenced. These amendments removed liability for certain persons and liable third parties to the Commonwealth for the cost of keeping, maintaining, and transporting them while they were in immigration detention.

Under existing legislative arrangements, convicted people smugglers and illegal foreign fishers who are detained because of section 250 of the act, remain liable to the Commonwealth for their detention and removal costs. The act also contains a number of provisions that facilitate the recovery of these debts. However, under current provisions of the act, a person is not liable for costs arising from their immigration detention and removal if they were not initially detained because of section 250, or because they were not in immigration detention at the time of their conviction, or because they have since been granted a visa (for example, a criminal justice stay visa while in prison). Accordingly, the debt liability provisions cannot be applied to all people smugglers and illegal foreign fishers, regardless of how or if they were detained and whether they have been granted a visa.

This inability to apply the debt liability provisions of the act consistently to all convicted people smugglers and illegal foreign fishers, negates any financial disincentive to these persons to participate in people smuggling or illegal foreign fishing.

Changes to the act will make it clear that these provisions will apply either at the time of conviction or after the convicted people smuggler or illegal foreign fisher has completed serving the whole or part of their criminal sentence. These amendments will also clarify that detention transportation and removal costs are recoverable from a convicted people smuggler or illegal foreign fisher regardless of their current status or whether or not they were believed to be a people smuggler or illegal foreign fisher at the time of their immigration detention.

Schedule 4—a uthorised recipients

The fourth schedule to the bill will clarify the obligation of the Migration Review Tribunal (MRT) and the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) to give documents to an authorised recipient. The amendments also clarify the role of an authorised recipient and remove the requirement to notify an authorised recipient of direct oral communications made with the person who authorised them.

The first amendment addresses the full Federal Court's decision in SZJDS v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2012] FCAFC 27, in which the full Federal Court found that the MRT or the RRT's obligation to give documents to an authorised recipient does not extend to review applications which have not been properly made. The amendment will put it beyond doubt that where an authorised recipient has been authorised by a review applicant to receive documents on their behalf, the MRT or the RRT must, consistent with the review applicant's wish, give documents relating to the review to the authorised recipient, even if the review application itself was not properly made.

The second amendment is to clarify the intended operation of the provisions relating to authorised recipients. Currently, the act provides that an authorised recipient can do things on behalf of an applicant or a person that consist of, or include, receiving documents in connection with the application or matters arising under the act or the Migration Regulations 1994. This is broader than the policy intention for the role of an authorised recipient, which is only to receive documents and not do anything else on behalf of the applicant or person, and has led to comments by the full Federal Court in MZZDJ v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2013] FCAFC 156 that the relevant provision means that an authorised recipient is 'constituted effectively as the agent of the visa applicant'.

The amendment therefore clarifies that an authorised recipient is authorised to only receive documents and to update their own address for the purpose of receiving documents. If an applicant or person has an intention to allow another person to do additional things on their behalf, evidence must be provided to the department or the tribunal separately to the authorisation of that person as an authorised recipient.

Finally, the amendments remove the current requirement to notify an authorised recipient of direct oral communications made with the applicant or person. This is a consequential amendment to the clarification of the role of an authorised recipient. If an authorised recipient is only authorised to receive documents, then there is no longer a reason or a need to inform the authorised recipient of communications made directly with the applicant or person. However, this would not prevent the department or the tribunal, under policy, from informing the authorised recipient of relevant and important direct communications made with the applicant or person, in circumstances where the authorised recipient has also been given separate authority to act for the applicant or person, other than to receive documents.

Schedule 5—Crimes Act w arrants

The fifth schedule to the bill will provide access to, and use of, material and information obtained under a search warrant issued under the Crimes Act 1914 for certain purposes of the act and Citizenship Act.

These amendments overcome the limitation on receiving and using information obtained under a search warrant issued under division 2 of part 1AA of the Crimes Act 1914 for the purposes of making certain administrative decision under the act or Citizenship Act.

The purposes for which the material and information can be received and used in the context of the act are:

making a decision, or assisting in making a decision, to grant or refuse to grant a visa;

making a decision, or assisting in making a decision, to cancel a visa;

making a decision, or assisting in making a decision, to revoke a cancellation of a visa; and

making a decision in relation to the detention, removal, or deportation of a noncitizen from Australia.

The purposes for which the material and information can be received and used in the context of the citizenship act are:

making a decision, or assisting in making a decision, to approve or refuse to approve a person becoming an Australian citizen;

making a decision, or assisting in making a decision, to revoke a person's Australian citizenship;

making a decision, or assisting in making a decision, to cancel an approval given to a person under section 24 of the Citizenship Act.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has a critical role to play in ensuring fair and reasonable decisions are made regarding people entering or the detention, removal or deportation of a person from Australia to ensure compliance with immigration laws. It is in the public interest that, where available, immigration decision makers are able to use and share information that help inform lawful decisions.

Immigration criminal investigators have at their disposal legitimately obtained material that could be made available to administrative decision makers if supported through appropriate legislation. The bill seeks to facilitate the use and sharing of material or information obtained under a section 3E Crimes Act 1914 search warrant.

The amendment proposes to use material already in the possession of the department, as well as enabling other agencies to provide material obtained under a warrant, for certain visa and citizenship decisions. The amendment would not further extend coercive powers or administrative responsibilities, simply provide further information to administrative officers for more effective decision making.

Schedule 6 —p rocedural fairness requirements and removing redundant references

Part 1 of the sixth schedule to the bill will remove the current distinction between applications for visas that can be granted when the applicant is in the migration zone and which are subject to merits review by the MRT or the RRT, for which the act requires an opportunity to be given to the visa applicant to comment on certain adverse information before a decision to refuse can be made, and applications for other types of visas.

The amendment addresses the finding of the High Court in the case of Saeed v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2010] HCA 23 (Saeed) that although the act does not require an opportunity to comment to be given to applicants for visas not subject to MRT or RRT review, nevertheless there is a requirement under the common law to provide the visa applicant with an opportunity to comment before a decision can be made on the visa application. The Saeed decision means that procedural fairness must be given to all visa applicants. The only difference is whether the statutory or the common law procedural fairness requirements apply, depending on the visa applied for.

The amendment therefore removes the current distinction between applications for visas. In other words, the amendment will ensure that the procedural fairness requirements prescribed in the act will apply universally to all visa applications and provide for greater consistency in decision making.

Part 2 of the sixth schedule to the bill will repeal provisions in the act which contain references to section 14 of the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (the ET Act). These provisions have become redundant following the amendment to the ET Act in 2011 which restructured and renumbered provisions in the ET Act, and the subsequent amendment made in 2013 to the Electronic Transactions Regulations 2000.

I commend the bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.

Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (09:39): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to repeal the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Act 2013 (ORA Act).

The ORA Act seeks to regulate the employment of noncitizens working in the offshore resources industry by way of a visa arrangement, regardless of whether they are actually working on a resource installation or not. The amendments were introduced by the previous government in response to a Federal Court decision in May 2012 in a case that became known as the Allseas case.

The Allseas case involved two vessels attaching gas pipelines to the seabed within Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone and the waters of the continental shelf. In its judgement the Federal Court ruled that noncitizens aboard the two vessels were not within the migration zone, and therefore not required to hold work visas.

This was due to the fact that, as the offshore resources industry had maintained, both vessels fell within an exemption in the migration act that specifically provides that a vessel that is used or is to be used wholly or principally in manoeuvring a resources installation, or in operations relating to the attachment of a resources installation to the Australian seabed, is not a resources installation, and therefore not part of the migration zone.

The offshore resources industry is vital to the Australian economy. Australia is the world's ninth largest energy producer, and the oil and gas industry accounts for 21/2per cent of our GDP, generating $28 billion in revenue, and contributing $9 billion in direct tax payments. The development of Australia's offshore resources contributes significantly to the Australian economy and employs thousands of Australians. It is also critical for our future energy security, accounting for 58 per cent of Australia's primary energy needs.

The offshore resources industry is a global industry, and competes for a limited pool of skilled labour. It employs a highly mobile workforce, and relies on the capacity to be able to transfer workers with specialist skills from project to project, and from one country to another country.

If we are to continue to derive the substantial economic benefits that this industry provides, it must be allowed to remain internationally competitive and able to operate in line with international best practice. The industry should not be expected to operate under an increased regulatory burden, or additional cost pressures that would put the viability of current and future projects at risk. However, the ORA Act will do exactly that.

This means that our migration arrangements must be relatively flexible, and not impose an undue administrative burden on industry, or create unnecessary barriers for overseas workers when they are genuinely needed, especially when their skills are unavailable in Australia.

The issue of Australia's offshore maritime zones is highly complex. In addition to international conventions, the offshore resources industry is subject to complex and overlapping regulatory frameworks imposed by Commonwealth, state and territory legislation. We therefore need to consider any regulatory changes in this context very carefully, and to pursue considered and measured policies.

A leading offshore resource industry group has said that:

Australian jobs and our overall economic success relies on a confident, growing offshore oil and gas industry able to do business consistent with international laws and practices … With this much at stake, it is vital that sectional interests do not come before the national interest and that parliament delivers sustainable, proportionate and balanced regulation affecting offshore operations.

The government could not agree more.

Repealing this legislation does not mean that the industry is, or will be, in any way 'unregulated'. For example, noncitizens working on resource installations will still be required to hold valid visas. They will also still be required to hold the appropriate visa if they wish to come to the Australian mainland. Hence, if a particular employer wants to transfer their overseas workers to a project on the mainland, they must hold a visa with an appropriate work condition, such as the 457 visa.

The ORA Act also fails to take into account the fact that many persons engaged on resource installations and vessels use fly-in fly-out arrangements, and frequently transit through an Australian airport, which requires them to hold a valid visa to be immigration cleared. Hence many of those persons who are not currently required to hold visas for the work they are doing on a vessel are still subject to immigration controls when they enter or leave Australia.

To the extent that persons working in Australia's offshore maritime zones are subject to Australian domestic laws, these laws will still be policed and enforced by the appropriate authorities. Terms and conditions of employment, for example, will continue to be protected under domestic law, and where appropriate under international law through the Maritime Labour Convention. The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority will continue to ensure the safety of those persons working on board resource installations and vessels operating in Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone and the waters of the continental shelf.

It is also worth drawing attention to the actual number of workers who are the focus of the ORA Act. The previous government stated at the time the legislation was introduced that it had an 'incomplete picture' of the number of noncitizens working on board vessels who did not hold visas.

While it is true that determining a precise number is difficult, consultation with the industry, the migration advice profession, and across government indicates that the number is actually relatively small. One estimate has put the total at no more than 2,000 persons per year, while others have put the number at considerably fewer than this. Fly-in fly-out arrangements mean that workers generally remain in Australia for relatively short periods of time, meaning that only a proportion of this 2,000 or so will actually be in Australia at any given time.

When we compare this with the 68,000 overseas workers who were granted 457 visas during the last financial year, let alone with the number who are granted permanent visas each year under the Migration Programme, it becomes even clearer just how small the number really is.

The government is committed to promoting the development of Australia's offshore resources, to adhering to Australia's international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to maintaining the integrity of Australia's borders. Repealing the ORA Act would remove an unnecessary and disproportionate legislative burden on an industry that is critical to Australia's future economic growth and the wellbeing of all Australians. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.

Mr ROBERT (Fadden—Assistant Minister for Defence) (09:47): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today I present legislation to the House that will improve access to mental health services for current and former members of the ADF and their families. This bill will enhance the operation of the Veterans' Review Board and make other improvements to veterans' affairs services and administration.

The bill reflects this government's commitment to recognising the unique nature of military service. Tackling mental health challenges for veterans and their families is one of the four pillars of our plan for veterans and their families.

Two of the measures in the bill will strengthen mental health services through increased access to nonliability health care and the expansion of access to the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service, the VVCS.

The government currently spends around $166 million a year on mental health services for veterans, members and their dependants. This expenditure is not capped; it is demand driven.

It includes funding for online mental health information and support, GP services, psychologist and social work services, specialist psychiatric services, pharmaceuticals, PTSD programs and in-patient and outpatient hospital treatment.

The mental health measures in this bill will help build on existing support already available for veterans, members and their dependants.

From 1 July 2014, access to treatment under nonliability healthcare arrangements will be expanded to include diagnosed conditions of alcohol use disorder and substance use disorder, regardless of whether the condition is service related.

From 1 July 2014, eligibility for treatment under nonliability healthcare arrangements for members of the Defence Force with peacetime service only will be expanded by removing the current cut-off date of 7 April 1994.

This means that all those with at least three years continuous full-time peacetime service will now also be eligible for non-liability health care for PTSD, anxiety and depressive disorders and alcohol and substance use disorders.

Members who discharge before completing their three years continuous full-time service may also be eligible, where discharge is on the grounds of invalidity or physical or mental incapacity to perform duties.

Veterans and members who have been unsuccessful in previous liability claims may be able to access mental health treatment under the expanded nonliability healthcare initiative.

This means that treatment for the mental health conditions of PTSD, anxiety and depressive disorders and alcohol and substance use disorders will be available without the need for the condition to be accepted as related to the member's service.

Mental health services for veterans, members and their families will be further improved through the expansion of the client groups eligible for counselling through the VVCS.

From 1 July 2014, current and serving members with certain peacetime service will be eligible for counselling through the specialised services of the VVCS. This includes border protection service, service in a disaster zone, either in Australia or overseas, service as a submariner and personnel involved in training accidents and members medically discharged.

Access to counselling services from VVCS will also be extended to partners and their dependent children, up to the age of 26, of these newly eligible groups and to the partners, dependent children aged up to 26, and parents of members killed in service related incidents.

It is recognised that military peacetime service has its own risks for exposure to traumatic events and impact on mental health.

It is understood that early access to treatment can result in better outcomes for clients.

Another significant measure in the bill will enhance the operation of the Veterans' Review Board, the VRB.

The VRB provides merit reviews of decisions relating to disability and war widower pension, compensation and other entitlements under the Veterans' Entitlements Act and the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act.

The bill will introduce a legislative framework for alternative dispute resolution processes including conferencing and mediation.

Additional improvements relating to case management, and the administrative and procedural practices of the board are expected to enable more effective management of the functions of the board.

The 2011 Review of Military Compensation Arrangements recommended refining the appeal process under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act to the board and then to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal as a means to a more timely, less complex, less costly review process.

There is widespread support amongst the ex-service organisations for this change.

The Department of Veterans' Affairs is working through the implementation implications for a single pathway in order to provide advice to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission and the government.

The changes proposed in this bill to prepare the way for a possible future single appeal process through the board.

Some might view the changes in this bill as 'legalising' the board or turning the board into a replica of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

I want to reassure the veteran community that that is not the case.

These changes are designed to give the board more modern and efficient processes.

They will enable the board to apply alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to resolve matters more quickly and satisfactorily so as to prevent the need for hearings in many cases.

Alternative dispute resolution processes encourage early identification and clarification of the issues and for the gathering and consideration of the necessary evidence aimed at resolving the appeal at the earliest possible stage.

It is important to stress that the commission delegate who made the primary decision will not be involved in alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

Where a matter goes to a hearing, the same informal and non-legalistic approach to hearings will continue, which I know is appreciated by many in the veteran community.

There was extensive consultation with ex-service organisations in 2013 on these matters, and I am pleased that there is broad support for these reforms.

There will be further ongoing discussions with the ex-service organisations on the implementation of these changes.

Amendments to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act will expand the circumstances under which an eligible young person is taken to be wholly dependent on a member.

The expansion will include an eligible young person for whom the member is liable to pay child support.

These eligible young persons will have the same wholly dependent status as an eligible young person who lives with a member.

It should be noted that these situations are not exhaustive and other circumstances that meet wholly dependent status for an eligible young person will continue to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

The bill will also act on the advice of the Department of Defence and make a technical amendment to an end date for a period of service in an operational area in schedule 2 of the Veterans' Entitlements Act.

The amendment will not disadvantage any veteran as the change to the date will align the period of service for that operational area with the dates of the instruments of allotment for that operational area which are dictated by the Department of Defence.

Further amendments to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act will enable the chief executive of Comcare to be nominated for appointment to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission.

This measure rectifies the inadvertent disqualification in 2012 of the chief executive of Comcare from nomination for appointment to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission.

The amendments reinstate the original intention of the MRCA, that the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission be able to benefit from the expertise of a member with whole-of-government knowledge on workers compensation issues.

Amendments relating to the Commonwealth seniors health card and seniors supplement will reduce the administrative burden on clients who travel overseas for more than six weeks.

Currently, one of the eligibility requirements for seniors supplement requires the person to be the holder of a Commonwealth seniors health card. If that person travels overseas for more than six weeks, to regain eligibility for seniors supplement the person must reclaim the Commonwealth seniors health card, which requires a written claim and proof of the person's income details.

The amendments will mean that card holders will be eligible for the seniors supplement on their return from overseas without needing to reclaim the Commonwealth seniors health card.

This government is committed to reducing red tape and this measure will assist older Australians to access benefits from the Australian government.

The measures in the bill will benefit veterans, members of our defence forces and the families of our military personnel.

This is achieved by providing additional treatment and services for mental health conditions and support for mental wellbeing. Improvements to the operations of the Veterans' Review Board, including introducing a legislative framework for proven alternative dispute resolution processes and providing easier access to seniors supplement for Commonwealth seniors health card holders who travel overseas for more than six weeks will also be beneficial to the veteran community.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (09:57): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends various taxation laws to implement a range of improvements to Australia's tax laws.

Schedule 1 will improve the Farm Management Deposit scheme by amending the Banking Act 1959 and Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.

Farm management deposits allow farmers to save some of their income in good years without it being taxed, and then withdraw it in leaner years and pay tax on it when their marginal tax rate is lower. They are a financial risk management tool to help farmers protect themselves against the large income fluctuations that are often typical of primary production.

This legislation will make several improvements to the scheme to make it easier for farmers to use farm management deposits.

First, farmers will be able to earn more income from non-primary production sources before they are prevented from creating new farm management deposits. The non-primary production income ceiling will be raised from $65,000 to $100,000.

Second, individuals will be able to consolidate farm management deposits across financial institutions without adverse tax consequences. If a farmer chooses to combine multiple farm management deposits that they have held for at least 12 months into a single account, the amounts will not be included in their assessable income for that year, or affect their entitlement to make new farm management deposits in that year.

Finally, farm management deposits will be excluded from the unclaimed money provisions in the Banking Act 1959, to ensure that these accounts, which are intended to facilitate long-term savings, are not inadvertently paid to the Commonwealth as a result of a period of inactivity.

Schedule 2 to this bill amends the GST law to allow taxpayers to determine whether they are entitled to a refund by reference to objective conditions, rather than having to rely on the commissioner to exercise the discretion to refund an excess amount of GST.

The measure provides additional clarity for entities which may have overpaid GST and are seeking to claim refunds. The measure also aims to prevent taxpayers from receiving a windfall gain of overpaid GST and encourages suppliers to refund their customers any overpaid GST.

Schedule 2 also addresses a gap in the existing law relating to refunds associated with miscalculations of GST payable on a supply. Recently the Federal Court found that the restriction on paying a refund does not apply where GST is overpaid because of a miscalculation. The amendments provide that the refund provisions apply to overpayments of GST, irrespective of whether the overpayment arises as a result of a mischaracterisation or miscalculation of the GST payable.

The amendments apply only on a prospective basis from the date of commencement in order to minimise the uncertainty and compliance costs involved in the application of the amendments on a retrospective basis.

Schedule 2 also amends the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to give taxpayers review rights, both in relation to the commissioner's discretion to refund in exceptional circumstances, as well as to restore these rights under the existing refund provisions as a consequence of a recent decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Full details of these measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (10:00): I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Construction of a new Australian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya.

As an important overseas mission in Africa, the Nairobi High Commission is significant in representation terms, as well as acting as a hub for Australia's interest in East, West and North Africa. In 2004-05 a global review of physical security at Australia's overseas missions was undertaken, which identified a number of high-risk chanceries, including the current mission in Nairobi.

As well as providing appropriate physical security, this project will deliver a modern, functional chancery building to accommodate tenant agencies, as well as providing guardhouse, service building and recreational facilities all within a secure compound. The proposed new construction will ensure updated security measures and compliance with Australian standards, and work, health and safety requirements. The estimated cost of the proposal is $57.6 million and includes all construction costs, site preparation, infrastructure, management design fees, contingencies and escalation.

The Public Works Committee has reported back to the House and the Senate on this project and recommends that these works proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction of the major works package is forecast to commence in early 2016, with practical completion and occupancy in late 2018. I commend the motion to the House.

Question agreed to.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (10:03): I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: CSIRO Australian Capital Territory Consolidation Project, Australian Capital Territory.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation proposes to consolidate its property holdings in the Australian Capital Territory by relocating staff from leased premises in Campbell, Yarralumla and Acton to the CSIRO site at Black Mountain. The Black Mountain site has an area of 37.3 hectares. The current dispersed layout reflects a legacy of earlier autonomous divisional structures, which are spread across a number of different buildings with replicated activity clusters.

The intent of the proposed consolidation project is to consolidate science, research and support facilities on the Black Mountain site. These new buildings will accommodate staff and functions which currently occupy buildings which have passed their effective design life and which do not meet current standards for health and safety. The buildings which are unsuitable for continued use will be demolished. The estimated cost of the project is $195.6 million plus GST, with the works to occur in two phases.

In its report, the Public Works Committee has recommended that these works proceed, subject to the recommendation that CSIRO continue to consult with its staff with a view to implementing measures to address staff concerns where this is warranted and feasible. I am advised that CSIRO accepts and will implement that recommendation. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to commence in July 2014, with completion scheduled for March 2019. I commend the motion to the House.

Question agreed to.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (10:05): I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: CSIRO Clayton property strategy, Clayton, Victoria.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation proposes to relocate its staff and research from Highett, Melbourne to its Clayton site adjacent to Monash University. CSIRO requires property to enable its specialised science capabilities. As such, CSIRO needs to ensure that all of its facilities are fit for purpose, support science, and provide facilities which attract leading researchers and scientists to CSIRO. This proposal includes the provision of a new building at North Clayton for science education and the Factories of the Future Innovation Centre. In addition, the new buildings will house the CSIRO science education centres currently located at Highett. The estimated cost of the proposal is $32 million plus GST and includes escalation costs, contingencies, all professional fees and authority charges.

The Public Works Committee has reviewed the project and reported back to the House and Senate recommending that these works proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is scheduled to commence in June 2014 and to be completed by December 2015. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee, under the leadership of Mrs Karen Andrews, the member for McPherson, for considering this project in such a timely manner and for its support for this project. With that, I commend the motion to the House.

Question agreed to.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (10:07): I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Reserve Bank of Australia, National Banknote Site, Craigieburn, Victoria.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is the sole issuing authority for Australian banknotes. The key objective of the Reserve Bank in meeting this responsibility is to maintain public confidence in Australia's banknotes. The Reserve Bank has embarked on a program to upgrade the security of Australia's banknotes. The Next Generation Banknote project will progressively replace currently circulating banknotes over the next decade.

The current storage, distribution and processing capacity of the Reserve Bank Sydney, Melbourne and Craigieburn sites is insufficient to enable the bank to store and issue the new series of banknotes and to accommodate banknote growth in the medium term. The Reserve Bank proposes to build a national banknote site on vacant land owned by the bank at Craigieburn in Victoria. The estimated cost of the proposal is $72 million, plus GST, and includes all construction costs, site preparation, infrastructure, management design fees, contingencies and escalation.

The Public Works Committee has reviewed the project and reported back to the House and the Senate. In its report, the Public Works Committee has recommended that these projects proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, work is proposed to commence in early 2015 and to be fully operational in early 2017 to enable a transition to the Next Generation Banknote series and meet the banknote storage, distribution and processing operations for at least the next 25 years. With that, I commend the motion to the House.

Question agreed to.

Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (10:09): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue, I present the committee's report entitled:2013 annual report of the Australian Taxation Office:first report, together with the minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Mr ALEXANDER: by leave—I am delighted to table the first report of the Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue. The committee has hit the ground running with this report into tax administration. Firstly, I wish to note the achievements of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit in its previous inquiries into tax administration between 2007 and 2013. Simply put, we are building on the work of the Public Accounts Committee. We will have regular hearings with the Tax Office and other bodies such as its scrutineers. We will also work through issues with the Tax Office over a series of meetings to follow them through and ensure action is taken.

This inquiry has come at an opportune time for the committee and for the tax office. The tax office has undergone significant change in senior management over the last two years. New leadership has brought new goals to the organisation. Commissioner Chris Jordan's aim of transforming the tax office into a contemporary service organisation is admirable and should be supported. I am optimistic about what can be achieved in simplifying the tax system through innovations such as pre-filing and streamlining the online process for those with uncomplicated affairs.

It is pleasing to see the tax office looking overseas to countries like Norway and Denmark for examples of best practice and ways to improve the Australian system. Streamlining tax administration and how taxpayers engage with the system should be seen as a priority. It will be a focus of mine as chair of this committee. One of the areas we scrutinised was how the tax office estimates the tax gap—that is, the difference between what is actually collected and what should be collected. The tax office is consulting and conducting research to develop a position later in the year. I look forward to the tax office providing further information to the committee on this issue in the near future. One of the benefits of estimating the tax gap is that the tax office has a starting point for reducing it. Collecting more revenue more efficiently would be of benefit to all Australians.

Separately, budget pressures appear to be the challenge to the commissioner's attempt to modernise the tax office. Budget reductions can deliver savings in the short term; however, this needs to be balanced against retaining the capacity necessary to achieve larger long-term benefits. Realising benefits in the future may require continued investment in the short term. The tax office's determination to prioritise revenue collection in the face of staff reductions should be commended. It should remain the priority of the tax office to collect revenues due within the absolute principle of fair treatment and respect to taxpayers.

We covered many other topics in the hearing and the report. These include the recent capability review by the Public Service Commission, the internal review of disputes with the tax office and services for small businesses. I look forward to returning to these issues at our next hearing in August. Finally, I thank all witnesses, committee members and the secretariat for their help in the public hearing and preparing the report. I commend the report to the House.

Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (10:14): I seek leave of the House to make a short statement as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on the committee's inquiry into the 2013 federal election and to present a copy of that statement.

Leave granted.

Mr TONY SMITH: In February I informed the House on behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters that it was the committee's intention to report early—ahead of its full report—on the specific issues relating to the voting system used to elect senators. It is my intention to table out of session a report prior to the resumption of the 2014 budget sittings. The committee has conducted a number of public hearings and still has some more evidence to hear in coming weeks. Suggestions for reform have included changes to the Senate voting system as well as broader changes to party registration. Many of these issues have received widespread coverage since the September 2013 federal election.

One issue that has come to greater public prominence since the election, particularly in recent days, is the fact that there are currently no requirements under the electoral act for candidates to be a resident of the state for which they are seeking election. For example, at the last federal election, Sex Party candidate Robbie Swan, a resident of the ACT, narrowly missed election for the Senate in Tasmania. Some reports state that in the Western Australian Senate election now being conducted 10 of the 77 candidates live in other states. Given that the Senate is a state's House, it is not surprising that most people would find this situation bizarre. The absence of a requirement to live in the state for which you are seeking to become a senator has not been an issue of note in the past, because political parties have had no difficulty finding members within each state to nominate and genuine independents have wanted to seek election in the state in which they live.

While the committee has more work to do on a range of related matters before it is in a position to report back to the House, I do confirm that this matter will be dealt with in our early report on Senate voting. On this matter, as with some other features of our electoral system, status quo is not an option. I present a copy of my statement to the House.

Mr BUTLER (Port Adelaide) (11:33): We now have 27 minutes available to debate the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2]—a very important bill which was not able to be debated last time the package of changes to the clean energy system were before this House, because it was part of a cognate debate concerning 11 bills. This really does fly in the face all of this government's protestations of being an open and transparent government. After meandering through the address-in-reply debate for who knows how long, we now have 27 minutes for a full parliamentary debate on a very important piece of legislation.

This is a critically important part of the former government's clean energy package to deal with the challenge of climate change. Had we had more time to debate this important piece of legislation there would have been an opportunity, I suspect, for a number of members of this place to make some contributions about developments in climate change policy since that policy area was last debated by the House of Representatives, before Christmas. The developments have been significant: more and more scientific reports confirm the need for strong and sensible action, and there have been important developments in the relationship between the United States and China, seeking to drive global momentum for an ambitious global compact in Paris next year. All of this goes very squarely to the question of whether the Clean Energy Finance Corporation should be maintained in place.

Yesterday the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications delivered a report on their inquiry into the government's alternative policy proposition, known as Direct Action, which confirmed the consensus that had emerged from the four years of the life of Direct Action—that it is a policy hopelessly inadequate to achieve even the commitment to carbon pollution reduction that Australia has signed up to and that it is based on contested methodologies, particularly soil carbon, which does have significant potential in the future but which the CSIRO again confirmed, in the context of this Senate inquiry, is still unable to deliver anywhere near the abatement that the minister and its supporters have argued for so long.

The Senate inquiry heard much evidence that confirms very serious doubts about whether Direct Action can avoid taxpayer dollars being handed over to support things that were going to happen anyway. The question of additionality has still not been addressed at all adequately by the new government, and we heard only last week from two very esteemed economists, Ross Garnaut and former Treasury secretary, Dr Ken Henry, that there is no way that this policy will come anywhere near the minimum commitment Australia has made to reduce carbon pollution at anywhere near the budget that has been allocated. Instead, it would likely involve the transfer of $4 billion to $5 billion of taxpayers' money to the large polluters every single year of the life of Direct Action policy.

There was consensus before the release of Direct Action, but there is an even stronger consensus now emerging that the best response to climate change rests on two pillars. Firstly, the pillar of an emissions trading scheme—which the government and the Greens party combined to defeat in the Senate last week—which puts in place a legal limit on carbon pollution, which reduces over time but lets business work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate within that limit. Secondly, a renewable energy target to drive the transition of our electricity sector particularly, from one that relied very heavily on methods that produced significant quantities of carbon pollution to cleaner methods and cleaner technologies. This is accepted around the world as the best approach to dealing with climate change—an emissions trading scheme and a renewable energy target. Ken Henry, in that same interview on 7.30 last week where he backed in Ross Garnaut's estimate that Direct Action will cost taxpayers $4 billion to $5 billion each and every year of its life, also said, 'Reducing Australia's carbon emissions through any mechanism other than an emissions trading scheme will necessarily be more damaging to the Australian economy.'

As I said, the renewable energy target's job is to transform Australia's electricity sector. That is the job the renewable energy target in dozens and dozens of other countries—developed and developing—has around the world. The electricity sector, power generation in particular, is the largest contributor to carbon pollution in Australia by a fair distance. About 33 per cent—so about a third—of all Australia's carbon pollution is produced by electricity generation. Another 17 per cent of Australia's carbon pollution is produced by stationary energy produced generally at manufacturing plants, so about half of Australia's carbon pollution comes from the production of energy. As everyone in this place and beyond knows, Australia has traditionally relied very heavily on fossil fuels—particularly on coal—for the generation of its power, which is why Australia has traditionally had a much higher level of carbon pollution from the electricity sector than many other nations.

The renewable energy target has been a bipartisan policy area for well over a decade. After all, it was the Howard government, to their credit, who introduced the first mandatory renewable energy target in 2001, and the architecture of that scheme—modest as it was in terms of its quantum—is still in place and was built on by the former government. The architecture involves a target that builds on existing renewable energy that existed before the introduction of the target in 2001. Renewable energy that existed as at 1997, which was largely hydro-electricity from the Snowy Mountains Scheme and also down in Tasmania, was about 15,000 gigawatt hours, or 15 terawatt hours. The target introduced by the Howard government in 2001 involved an additional 9,500 gigawatt hours being added to Australia's renewable electricity capacity by 2010. Importantly, that target was not expressed as a percentage of the overall electricity generation from year to year; it was expressed as an actual generation figure—9,500 gigawatt hours.

In 2003, the former conservative senator from the Northern Territory Grant Tambling conducted a review of the renewable energy target called the Tambling Review, which dealt with this question among many others. On the question of whether the target should be expressed as a percentage of electricity generation or as an actual generation figure, the review said:

The Review Panel considers that a fixed target is more compatible with market certainty, rather than a percentage of a fluctuating electricity market over which the industry has no control.

As people who follow this debate would know, it is obviously something that is very much in the mix as the government considers whether or not to jettison its very clear election commitments around the renewable energy target and take a position that is more in keeping with the target's opponents.

Needless to say, the MRET—the mandatory renewable energy target—of the Howard government was successful. By 2007, three years before its target date, the 9,500 additional gigawatt hours from renewable sources had been achieved. After the Labor Party came to government in 2007, we set about putting in place a system that would allow us to deliver our election commitment that at least 20 per cent of Australia's electricity generation would come from renewable sources by 2020. In 2009, the renewable energy target was expanded from 9,500 gigawatt hours, on top of the capacity that existed in 1997, to 45,000 gigawatt hours, almost quintupling the target that had been put in place by the Howard government. So 45 terawatt hours became the renewable energy target by 2020.

In 2011, for a range of reasons I will not go into here for the sake of time, that target was split into two different targets: the large-scale target—big wind farms, big solar farms and the like—which had a target of 41 terawatt hours, or 41,000 gigawatt hours; and the small-scale target of 4 terawatt hours, which is essentially driven by solar water heaters and PV solar panels being put on people's household roofs. In addition to that very significant quantum change by our government, a number of other changes were also made. Firstly, some exemptions were put in place that did not exist under the Howard scheme for emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries. About two-thirds of those exemptions go to the aluminium industry—which, as people would know, is a very significant consumer of electricity—ensuring that the renewable energy target that was put in place would transform our electricity sector in a way that would not place sectors like the aluminium sector at a competitive disadvantage.

The second change we made to the system was to introduce some support agencies, in particular the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, or ARENA, which is tasked with supporting emerging technologies like geothermal energy, hot rock technology or utility-scale solar thermal technology—which, I think all would agree, has still not got off the ground. The second agency we introduced was the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and I will come to that in due course.

On any measure from 2001, but particularly following the acceleration put in place in 2009, Australia's renewable energy policy has been a resounding success. During our term in government, wind power generation in Australia tripled in six short years. When we came to government about 7,400 households in Australia had PV solar panels on their roofs; when we left government that figure was closer to 1.1 million—delivering cleaner energy to Australian communities and also, importantly, delivering vastly lower power bills to those households. And households in their thousands every fortnight continue to put PV solar panels on their roofs. Australia started to move into the position of a world leader in renewable technology. A country that had relied so heavily in its past on fossil fuel electricity generation started to move into that refined group of world leaders in renewable technology.

Last year I had the pleasure of participating in the launch of the largest wind farm project in the Southern Hemisphere—the Macarthur wind farm, supported by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Also last year Australia launched the largest PV solar farm in the Southern Hemisphere—as a clear world leader in this area. This drove very significant investment. It is estimated that about $18½ billion in investment has taken place since the Howard government introduced the MRET in 2001. About $10 billion of that has gone into the large-scale sector, and about $8 billion of investment has gone into PV solar panels and solar water heaters on the roofs of Australian households—hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Australian households. And it is forecast that if the existing policy parameters are kept in place, including agencies like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA, then another $18.7 billion of investment will take place between now and 2020.

All this is, of course, now on hold—partly because of the decision by this government to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the decision of this government to strip about $434 million in funding from ARENA, despite having indicated, before the election, a bipartisan support for the work of that agency and, perhaps most importantly, because of all the speculation encouraged by unnamed conservative or Liberal and National Party MPs. They have been going to the newspaper saying that the review that was put in place in place, in contravention of the provisions of the Climate Change Authority legislation, is all a precursor to killing the Renewable Energy Target—to use the phraseology of some Liberal Party MPs, who of course do not put their name to these articles in the newspapers but speak on background. All of this investment is now on hold.

Every three months Ernst & Young publishes a renewable energy country attractiveness index—a worldwide index that tracks investment in renewable or clean energy all around the world. It is a very highly regarded document that comes out every quarter and was released only a few weeks ago, in February 2014. This document demonstrates how seriously this is viewed by investors around the world. By mid-2013, because of the suite of policies I have talked about, Australia moved into fourth place on that index—fourth place around the world as an attractive place to make renewable energy investment, after the United States, China and Germany, which are universally regarded as the world leaders in clean energy or renewable energy. By November, after the election of this government, we had slipped to sixth, and by February we slipped to eighth place. In the February document—a substantial document in terms of its length—we appeared under the heading, 'What's bad about investment in renewable energy around the world'. That document, on page 5, says:

Australia also continues its fall from grace, dropping two places to eighth position. Government measures to scrap carbon pricing and clean energy funding are derailing progress towards an economically viable renewables market.

The investment I have talked about has brought thousands and thousands of jobs. We talk a lot in this place about jobs, for very good reason: they are central to our prosperity and to our opportunity in the future. It is estimated that over our term of government—six years—the number of jobs in the renewable energy sector tripled to more than 24,000 by the end of 2012. Most of those were involved in the rooftop PV solar part of the industry, but we also have seen jobs in manufacturing—for example, in manufacturing wind towers from BlueScope Steel that have been put in place in many different regional communities across Australia. And it would be no surprise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent, that as a result of the investment uncertainty created by this government there are very significant forecasts of job losses in this sector if the speculation around this government's renewable energy policies ends up being true.

Importantly, though, the other success from the suite of renewable energy policies, of which the Clean Energy Finance Corporation policy is just one, has been that they have driven down carbon pollution from the largest source of carbon pollution in Australia, namely electricity generation. Over the last five or six years we have seen, for the first time in any of our lifetimes—for the first time since World War II—that electricity output, or electricity demand, has started to reduce. It does require some attention to work out what part of the reduction in carbon pollution is due to the fact that Australia is just generally using less electricity and what part is due to the fact that our electricity mix is becoming cleaner.

Electricity generation in Australia peaked in around 2008, and in the national electricity market—which covers the eastern states and South Australia and Tasmania—the electricity market's peaking in 2008 has reduced its output by about seven per cent in the five years since. But the carbon pollution—the emissions produced from the electricity market—have reduced by 16 per cent, and demand is down by seven per cent. That difference was even starker in the first year of the carbon price mechanism—2012-13. In that 12-month period the carbon pollution produced by the national electricity market reduced by about seven per cent. A third of that was due to a drop in demand, but fully two-thirds was due to a shift from polluting sources of electricity generation, particularly black and brown coal, to cleaner energy sources. In that 12 month period the renewable energy sector increased its share of the National Electricity Market by a full 25 per cent. In states like South Australia that shift has been even faster. In those five years carbon pollution in South Australia that is produced by electricity has reduced by 25 per cent as wind power in particular has substituted for coal powered electricity generation.

All of this makes the attacks—many of them from unnamed sources in newspapers—on the renewable energy policies of Australia, which have had been bipartisan for four previous elections, so mind-boggling. A very clear bipartisan commitment was given by the relevant parliamentary secretary, Senator Birmingham, only a week or two before the election in September 2013. They said they would not only respect the broad policy—the 20 per cent by 2020 aspiration—but that an Abbott government would also abide by the 41,000 gigawatt-hour target that is set out in the renewable energy legislation. It was a clear commitment, not just to the broad idea of a 20 per cent target, but it was a clear commitment to that quantum figure that Grant Tambling said was so important for market certainty.

We have since seen the unnamed backgrounding from Liberal Party MPs that they are going to kill the Renewable Energy Target. We have also seen, in a number of interviews with Alan Jones, the Prime Minister start to crab walk away from the commitment that was so clearly and definitively given by Senator Birmingham only a couple of weeks before the election. The Prime Minister, in a tried and true method, has started to try to create a scare campaign around power prices. The Prime Minister said to Alan Jones that the Renewable Energy Target is:

… significantly driving up power prices right now.

That just flies in the face of any of the evidence from all of the state regulatory agencies that set the allowable power prices by generators and retailers. It also flies in the face of all of the reports from the Australian Electricity Market Commission, an independent agency.

For example, in South Australia it is quite clear from the regulatory reports that the Renewable Energy Target, the large scale one, counts for about 1.4 per cent of the average power bill, and it is dropping. So it is about 40 cents per week, and it is dropping. In New South Wales it accounts for about 1.9 per cent of the average household bill, or 80 cents a week, and that is dropping as well. The point has been made that this determination by IPART in New South Wales was based on a certificate price, an LGC price, of $51 per megawatt hour. It is quite clear that those certificates are being trades for far less than $51 per megawatt hour. Generally it is around $40, and most recently—particularly because of the policy uncertainty in this area—less than $30. So even that small impost is a result of the regulatory agency overstating the price that retailers would have to pay for these Renewable Energy Certificates. In Queensland the QCA, the Queensland Competition Authority, which sets prices in that jurisdiction, has found that the large scale Renewable Energy Target accounts for about 40 cents per week, and is also dropping. This flies in the face of the Prime Minister's attempt to launch yet another scare campaign against households and their power prices.

The CEFC plays a very important role her. In the words of its mandate they help with:

… mobilising investment in renewable energy, low-emissions and energy efficiency projects and technologies.

The question is often asked of me, and I am sure of other members in this place, why it is that we need a government backed investment or financing vehicle? Why can the private banks not finance these projects, if they are worthy? I encourage members of the House—and members of the community who have a deep interest in this area—to have a look at some of the evidence on this point. Have a look at some of the evidence to the Senate inquiry, whose report was released last night.

For example, Mr Buckley, from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the committee, as stated on page 60 of the report:

… the CEFC is meant to lead the way, to pave the way for new technologies for deployment in the Australian market to show that they are financially viable. In a regulatory framework that works, that makes entire sense. The domestic institutions will learn by that process and then follow. They will probably invest in deal 3, 4, 5 or 6 and then fund 100 per cent of those thereafter. You need the CEFC to pave the way to show that this can be done economically and viably with the right policy.

Gillian Broadbent, the Chair of the CEFC, an esteemed businesswoman in the community, a former board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia, has made very similar comments to that Senate inquiry.

To date, after only starting co-investing from 1 July 2013, the portfolio of the CEFC has invested sums amounting to about $590 million—leveraging $1.8 billion in investment. So they are supporting projects financed to the tune of almost $2.5 billion. The average yield, and this is an important point, from those investments is seven per cent. So it is about 3.5 per cent more than the cost of funds to government.

Mr Craig Kelly: Madam Speaker, I seek to intervene on a point of order. I would ask the member a question. If he thinks it is such a great return, will he be investing his own money in it? If not, why would he invest taxpayers money?

The SPEAKER: I put the question to the member for Port Adelaide: is he prepared to take the intervention?

Mr BUTLER: If we had more than 26 minutes for the whole chamber to debate this bill, maybe I would. Given that this bill has been gagged for 26—

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr BUTLER: No, it was debated cognately with 11 other bills. It is a very interesting question, and maybe the member and I can have a talk about it after.

From 2015 the CEFC starts returning money to the budget. The cost of abatement is actually a negative cost. It is a negative cost of about $2.40 per tonne of carbon pollution. I am sure the point will be made by members opposite that this is somehow a bizarre and unique experiment on the part of the former Australian government. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, the United Kingdom has the Green Investment Bank that is ramping up to invest for a commercial return—in the same way that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is doing—the equivalent of more than $A6 billion to start to drive technologies in that country. The United Kingdom has just overtaken Australia in the Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness index. Germany is doing the same with over 100 billion euro being deployed from government through the commercial finance sector.

We will oppose this bill. It was a bad bill when it was first introduced and it remains a bad bill.

The SPEAKER: It being 12 o'clock, the member is interrupted in accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier today.

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (12:01): Firstly, I would like to thank all members who have contributed to the debate. This bill abolishes the Clean Energy Finance Corporation by repealing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act 2012. This bill also transfers the CEFC's existing assets and liabilities, including the CEFC's investments, to the Commonwealth. These assets and liabilities will be managed by the Treasury. Funding to manage the CEFC's existing assets and liabilities and to meet contractually committed payments on investments will be met from the CEFC's existing funding, which will be transferred to a new CEFC transitional special account.

Future moneys that were due to be appropriated to the CEFC annually until 2017 will be returned to consolidated revenue. The bill also provides for excess funding to be returned to consolidated revenue at any stage if it is no longer needed for managing the CEFC's assets and liabilities. I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Mr BUTLER (Port Adelaide) (12:02): This is a wonderful opportunity to expand on the comments I did not have time to make because this bill has been so outrageously gagged by a government that seems far more interested in extending and meandering through the address-in-reply process than allowing a focused debate on such an important area of policy. It is clearly the case that this bill was cognately debated as one of 11 bills proposed by the government to dismantle the clean energy package introduced by the former government. As a result of that, there was no opportunity at all to allow members of this place to talk about the merits of the suite of renewable energy policies that had been put in place by the former government.

These policies expanded on a bipartisan commitment initiated—to their credit—by the Howard government in 2001 with the introduction of the mandatory renewable energy target. So with all of the froth and the bubble around the so-called carbon tax over the last three years, there was never a peep from the then opposition—now the government—that the bipartisan commitment between the major parties, which had endured over four elections, to start to drive a transformation in our electricity sector would no longer be abided by by the new government.

As I said earlier, the then shadow parliamentary secretary for the environment, Senator Birmingham, made a very clear statement to the clean energy conference only a week or two before the election that the Abbott opposition, now the Abbott government, remained committed not only to the aspiration of a 20 per cent renewable energy contribution to electricity by 2020 but to the precise generation figure of 41,850 gigawatt hours by 2020. It is clear from all of the advice that we received when in in government, and all the advice that anyone can receive if they talk to this sector or to an authority like the Climate Change Authority, that with the existing suite of policies remaining in place—with the work that ARENA does with its $3 billion budget to support emerging technologies like solar thermal and geothermal, which previously had bipartisan support from the two major parties; and with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in place—Australia would comfortably reach the target of 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 and reach the broader aspiration known as 20 per cent by 2020.

There was never any indication from the Abbott opposition that they were going to move away from a policy area initiated by John Howard—not initiated by us, but by John Howard—but I must say that it was very much built on by us. Again, this is something which starts to move Australia away from the global mainstream. We are seeing it broadly in climate change policy. The Abbott government is trying to take Australia backwards while the rest of the world is moving forwards. They are stuck in the atmospherics of the Copenhagen conference in 2009, when it was quite clear that there was not any global consensus to start to move forward. The world has moved on since 2009; the world has significantly moved on.

The United States and China concluded a memorandum of understanding only in the last couple of weeks committing them to drive momentum towards a global agreement in Paris next year. We have had the, frankly, quite embarrassing situation of the US quite publicly trying to prod this government into taking seriously the statements that the Prime Minister and the minister made that the G20 would be a forum in which they could encourage constructive debate around climate change, yet there is no commitment by this government as chair of the G20 this year to include climate change as a topic of discussion in the pre-eminent economic forum of the world's leading economies.

This bill is but one detail of a broader problem that this government presents to the country. The country has an opportunity to move to a clean energy future and to finally be a part of some global momentum for an agreement next year that will start to deal with the very serious threat of climate change to Australia and every other nation. Instead, the government is playing politics; it is stuck in the atmospherics of 2009. For that reason, we will be opposing this bill.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Ryan, I will ask the Clerk to formally read the second reading title. I think that there was general shock that there was no vote on the second reading but there was only one voice in the chamber, so we will now move on to the member for Ryan.

Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (12:07): I rise today to speak on this Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2] yet again because of the inability of those opposite to listen to the Australian people and respect the decision they made at the last election. This bill repeals the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act 2012, thereby abolishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, as the coalition promised to do prior to the 2013 federal election as part of the carbon tax repeal. It is unfortunate that while in government those opposite refused to follow through on their 2010 election promise, and that now even from opposition they are standing in the way of the coalition government fulfilling ours. One must ask if those opposite purposefully enjoy misleading the Australian people. This bill will see the Clean Energy Finance Corporation's assets and liabilities transferred to the Commonwealth by statutory novation and managed by the Treasury. Abolishing the CEFC will save more than $6 billion in borrowed money to the end of the forward estimates, to 30 June 2017, and $350 million in interest costs alone.

I have spoken in this place many times before on the fact that a whole-of-economy tax and risky financial expenditure will not reduce our carbon emissions, nor will they have a positive impact on our environment. The effect of the carbon tax on everyday Australians can be felt everywhere in our community. It is everyday Australians who are footing the bill for the carbon tax, not the so-called 'big polluters'.

The Labor Party told Australians at the 2010 election, once again, that there would be no carbon tax under a government led by whomever the Labor Party and the caucus happen to like on that day. But just last week, after telling Western Australians yet again that they oppose the carbon tax and on the very day they told the public that they oppose the carbon tax, they voted our bill down in the Senate. The hypocrisy of those opposite to mislead the Australian people's on their stance on the carbon tax time and time again, election after election, is a blight on our nation's history. They are a disgrace. Those opposite are in this place supposedly to represent the Australian public, yet when Australians speak clearly and loudly against the carbon tax those opposite refuse to listen and refuse to represent their constituents. Every day that the Labor and the Greens toxic alliance in the Senate continues to oppose the repeal of the carbon tax is another day Australian people pay more for their electricity prices, more for their gas prices, more to run their businesses and more at the supermarket for food for their families. Labor introduced a whole-of-economy tax on the Australian people. They even acknowledge that it was the wrong thing to do—apparent by the continued false statements and promises at each election to repeal the tax. When it comes to walking the talk, though, Labor votes to keep this toxic tax.

Today marks yet another day that the coalition government is delivering on our election promises. Within the first 100 days of government we introduced the carbon tax repeal bills, and today, after they were voted down by the Senate, we are trying yet again. The coalition promised we would repeal the carbon tax and we are following through on that election commitment. It is clear that the only side of the chamber Australians can trust to tell the truth and to follow through on the promises taken to the election is the coalition. I am proud to stand on this side of the chamber and I commend this bill to the House.

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (12:11): This Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2] abolishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is bad public policy at its best. This is public policy well and truly stuck in the 1970s and, after the announcement of the return of dames and knights, it is evident that this is a government that is well and truly stuck in the 1970s.

The abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation will stifle research and development into clean energy in our country. It will put a hold on commercial investment in clean energy projects in Australia. Most importantly, it will guarantee that we leave our kids an economy and an environment that is worse off because of the decision that the parliament will make if we abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

The CEFC was established to provide sustainable clean energy finance into the future, investment in clean energy in Australia on a commercial basis. The process of the CEFC was to also leverage private sector investment to overcome barriers to investment in renewable energy in our economy and it was to do that on a commercial basis. The research and the evidence from the CEFC's activities so far demonstrate that that is exactly what is occurring. It is leveraging finance on a commercial basis and returning, and will return, dividends to Australians in the short term.

So far the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been able to catalyse over $1.55 billion in non-CEFC private capital investment in projects and programs while it has only committed $536 million. These projects that the CEFC has commercialised will account for a reduction of 3.9 million tonnes of carbon in Australia. So a very small investment by the CEFC is leveraging a greater commercial investment from the private sector in clean energy and will return a dividend to the Australian people, in particular the next generation of Australians. And yet it is a project that the government is comfortable knocking off today. It is knocking over a vehicle for investment in clean energy throughout Australia. If this goes through, that is something our nation will pay for for many, many years.

And what are they going to replace it with? They intend to replace it with a scheme of government grants—government handouts—to all and sundry on a whim and with the hope that they will invest in projects that are commercially viable and will result in carbon reductions in our economy. One would think that we are living in a parallel universe. I was always under the impression that the Liberal Party of Australia were all about the market and market-based mechanisms providing the best outcomes in our country. And here we have the Liberal Party knocking off a market-based mechanism for investment in clean energy in Australia and replacing it with what? A scheme of government grants—going completely against their own ideology and philosophy, simply because they are opposed to a Labor initiative that is good public policy.

What are some of the projects that a program like the CEFC will commercialise? I am fortunate that in my community we have the University of New South Wales, which has done outstanding work in research and development of photovoltaic cells. Just two months ago the university's ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence took out the AF Harvey engineering research prize for the Institution of Engineering and Technology for the team's discovery of a mechanism to control the charged state of hydrogen atoms to correct the deficiencies in silicon—the most costly part of solar cell technology. That will revolutionise photovoltaic solar cell development, and that is the sort of project that will get commercial backing under the CEFC. But it is being knocked off by those opposite for short-term political gain, and our kids will pay.

Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) (12:16): I am very pleased to rise to speak in the consideration in detail stage of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013. There is a very clear question before the chamber contained in the terms of the bill we are debating this afternoon: whether the Clean Energy Finance Corporation should be maintained or whether it should be abolished, as schedule 1 to the bill would have the legal effect of doing.

It is the policy of the Abbott government that it should be abolished. The first reason why the parliament should support this bill is that we were very plain, we were very clear, we were very explicit when in opposition that we did not think the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was a good idea. We said very clearly that we intended to abolish it. We took that to an election, and we were resoundingly supported. Let there be no doubt in this House: we have a very clear mandate to give effect to the policy that we took to the 2013 election, which was that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation should be abolished.

Why did we take that policy to the election? If you listen to the previous speakers opposite, you would think that what we were proposing to do was to strangle a marvellous vehicle that was going to produce an endless stream of commercially viable, profitable and wonderfully environmentally supportive ventures, and that we are turning our back on this economic and environmental nirvana that the previous Greens-Labor coalition had invented. We are very sceptical that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation would work as it was intended to, and we have expressed clearly our scepticism from the outset.

Let us consider what the fundamental business model of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is. If I quote from a press release issued by the then Treasurer on 12 October 2011, the mission is to:

… act as a catalyst to private investment which is currently not available—

and apparently was going to:

… overcome capital market barriers that hinder the financing, commercialisation and deployment of renewable energy, energy efficiency and low emissions technologies.

The business model of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is for the taxpayer to be the mug who comes along and invests in projects that the private sector has passed on investing in. The business model here is that when the private sector has examined the opportunity for investment and has determined, on the basis of that examination, 'We do not intend to put money in here because it is too risky and we are not going to get a return,' then apparently the taxpayer should come along and invest money to do that. And by the way, where was the taxpayer going to get that money from? Where was the government of Australia going to get that money from? Of course, it was going to borrow that money because of the chaotic state in which the public finances of this nation have been left by the Rudd Gillard Rudd governments.

This was a proposal from the previous government, this was a measure from the previous government that was predicated on a deeply unwise assumption that a government-owned corporation would do a better job of investing in risky ventures than the private sector would. It was predicated on the deeply unrealistic assumption that you could establish this venture and that it could invest in a way that was not subject to any kind of political pressures, that did not expose it to any kind of expectation on the part of Labor and the Greens who set it up that money would flow to all kinds of projects that they thought were virtuous. It is a venture that has been set up in ignorance—in clear and studied ignorance—of the tragic track record of these kinds of investments and ventures around the world.

In the brief time I have available, let me mention Solyndra, which was the US example of a new photovoltaic solar panel manufacturing facility, a $US535 million loan guarantee given by the Obama government. And guess what? Within just a few months the expansion was postponed; three-quarters of that guarantee was called on. The taxpayer there was left as the mug, and under this venture the taxpayer would always have been the mug. That is why we have opposed this ill-judged venture from the outset.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (12:21): The Abbott government are not just living in another century, they are living on another planet. They are living on a planet where, apparently, global warming does not exist. They are living on a planet where you can ignore what every scientist in the Climate Commission and elsewhere around this country is telling us, which is that if we are to protect the Australian way of life from the impacts of global warming, which will include more severe and more frequent droughts and bushfires, then we have got one or two decades at most to get this country to be a zero-pollution country—and that means running on renewable energy. That is a big task. It is a huge task to do in a short period of time, but it is a task that we have to do if we are to protect Australia and its way of life.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is one of the best initiatives of the last parliament. It was never on the table in any of the schemes that had been put forward to deal with global warming under previous parliaments, but it happened in the last parliament because we had a parliament where Greens, Labor, city Independents and country Independents were able to come together and ask: 'What can we do to advance Australian industry in the clean and renewable energy sector?' And the answer, in large part, was the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

The idea that this is some unstudied, back-of-envelope development bears no examination because what I can tell the House is that when we developed the Clean Energy Finance Corporation we looked around the world at what else was going on and we took our lead from the Conservative government in the United Kingdom. The Conservative government in the United Kingdom has a Prime Minister who is not like our Prime Minister; he is a Prime Minister who says: 'When I see science I believe it, I don't say it's crap. I believe it when I see the science.' In the United Kingdom they had said, 'What can we do to support our local manufacturers and to ensure that we have world-leading renewable and clean technology?' and they set up the United Kingdom Green Investment Bank. It is successful. And that model, together with the rest of the world's best practice, is now operating here in Australia.

What we have in Australia is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that has spent only $500 million-odd of its own money and, from that, has leveraged over $2 billion worth of investment in clean and renewable energy around this country—and that is happening now. That means that this bill from the Abbott government is an anti-Western Australian bill and an anti-jobs bill, because right now in Western Australia the CEFC has proposals for projects with a total project investment value of more than $1 billion, with only $400 million of investment from the CEFC. There are projects in solar photovoltaics and in wind. Twenty-one per cent of that investment is happening in the agricultural, forestry and fishing sector, with the rest of it in solar, wind and across the board in areas such as biofuels. This is happening right around the country. There are success stories of wind farms in Victoria and solar plants in New South Wales that are actually happening now, that are being built or in the pipeline to be built, because this corporation is using money wisely to leverage private sector investment.

It was because this piece of ideology from a government trapped in another century and on another planet is so wrong-headed that it was rejected by the Senate. It was not just Labor and the Greens saying that this was an important thing we achieved in the last parliament. There are actually conservative independents and people from across the political spectrum saying, 'Hang on, this Clean Energy Finance Corporation is actually working.'

Every speaker from the other side who has got up so far—and I bet there are going to be more—to talk about the carbon tax should be struck out of this debate because this bill is not about the carbon tax. This bill is about the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Whatever you think about putting a price on pollution, you have to look at the evidence and you have to say that putting money to supporting private sector investment in clean and renewable energy is a very good thing for this parliament to be doing. (Time expired)

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (12:26): I take great pleasure to rise in this consideration in detail stage of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013, take 2. It is take 2 because this bill has already been to this House. It was debated in this House and it was passed on 21 November last year, and we did so to meet one of our election commitments. The coalition went to the last election with a very clear policy that we would abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. We did so on the clear basis that we do not support taking $10 billion of taxpayers' money, actually borrowing $10 billion of taxpayers' money, putting the government further and further in debt, to spend on projects that the private sector has deemed too risky.

We heard the opposition leader in this chamber this morning whingeing about the government keeping our promises. But he, with his senators hand in hand with the Greens, has prevented the coalition government from keeping our promises. We know that the previous Labor government broke promise after promise. We know what they did on the carbon tax. In 2010 they went to the election with the then Prime Minister promising there would be no carbon tax under the government she led. Of course, they broke that promise. Then in 2013, only last year, they went to that election making out to the Australian public that they had abolished, terminated, the carbon tax. And now they come in here and whinge about the government not keeping our promises when we are keeping our promises in this House, the bill goes over to the Senate and they reject it. That is why we are here today.

I have heard many of the speakers on the other side and I see the good member for Rankin and the good member for Scullin over there ready to speak on this consideration in detail. I am sure one of the points they might raise is how wonderful this Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been and how it is actually making money for the government.

Dr Chalmers: Good point!

Mr CRAIG KELLY: Well, if it is making that money for the government, why aren't you investing your own money in it? If you think this is so good, how much of your own money are you putting in it? Why are you prepared to put taxpayers' money at risk when you won't put your own money in it? That is the ultimate question. That is the ultimate question, because they know as well that this scheme will waste and lose taxpayers' money. That is the reason they wouldn't put one cent of their own in it. They want the Australian taxpayer to wear a risk that they are not prepared to take.

We have seen an example of why the taxpayer is not needed with Mr Flannery's Climate Commission, which this government also abolished to the great howls and cries of members of the opposition. But what then happened? They then went and said: 'Look, this is terrible. This evil government has closed us down.' They were then able to receive donations from the public. So we in government today are able to receive the benefit of the wise, insightful opinions of Mr Flannery and listen to his predictions without it costing the taxpayer one cent, because it is funded privately!

Mr Fletcher: It's a win-win.

Mr CRAIG KELLY: It is a win-win situation, as the parliamentary secretary says. Any speaker that stands up and says how wonderful this scheme is and how it is returning a great return to the taxpayer should also state why they are not prepared to invest their own money in it.

We have seen examples overseas of the dangers and the risks to taxpayers. We have seen in the USA the massive $700 million failure of the Solyndra project—US taxpayers' money flushed down the toilet and wasted. That is what we should be learning from. We have also seen it here. Many people may remember the Bligh Labor government in Queensland's ZeroGen project in which they invested $100 million of taxpayers' money. They said how wonderful this was, how it was going to create all this renewable energy and why the taxpayer should put their money in—and anyone who objected to it was said to be on drugs. We know what happened. That project failed and $100 million of taxpayers' money was wasted. We are in such a dire financial situation that we cannot afford to put any more taxpayers' money at risk. (Time expired)

Mr CONROY (Charlton) (12:31): I rise to oppose the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation because it is a vital piece in this nation's armoury to combat climate change. I am going to go back to some facts that seem to have passed the previous speaker by. The consensus in science now is that man-made climate change is as certain as the fact that tobacco causes cancer. They are that certain now, but that fact is rejected by those on the other side. Another fact is international action. Over a billion people now live in nations or provinces where there is a carbon price of some form. By 2016 there will be three billion people. Those on the other side are condemning us to trade retaliation if we do not put an effective carbon price on to combat climate change. The third fact is that every decent economist—none on that side—has concluded that a market based system, principally either an emissions trading scheme or a fixed price, is the most effective way of combating climate change—a market price complemented by adequate industry and innovation policy measures to support this transition. If we go back to the basis of all this, we are living in a carbon-constrained world. The nations that succeed in the future will be the ones that decarbonise their economies—countries like China, where 200 million people now already live in provinces where there is an emissions trading scheme. By 2016 the entire nation is to have an emissions trading scheme driving their economy.

Economic history shows that the countries that take advantage and move first are the ones that benefit from industrial revolutions, whether it was the English during the first industrial revolution based on steam and textiles; the second industrial revolution based on chemicals and electricity, being the United States and Germany; or the third industrial revolution based on electronics and the transistor in particular, driven by Japan and the United States. The next one will be about decarbonising our economy. I want my daughter to grow up in an economy where we have invested to make that transition so that our industries have a chance to compete globally, our industries are not horse and cart industries in the era of the automotive car.

This is a great debate to have because it shows how the other side just don't get it. We had a previous speaker, someone on the front bench, talk about risk. They wilfully misunderstood the innovation cycle—that the first-of-type projects often do not get a full commercial rate of return. They can still get a decent rate of return, but they do not often overcome the barriers to reach the 10 or 15 per cent that the private sector demands to take a risk. It is entirely appropriate that the Commonwealth support innovation and industry policy, support the first-of-type projects, for example large-scale solar thermal, very revolutionary energy efficiency projects. Not only are they important for being the first-mover types that demonstrate to the private sector that they can take action; they also can have a rate of return.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has already invested in $2.2 billion worth of projects, where the average yield is projected to be 7.33 per cent on average. That is well above the long-term bond rate. Yes, it is below the internal rate of return that some in the private sector demand, but it is return which is well and truly paying back the debt that is being taken on to fund these important projects. This covers 39 projects already in play. A further 170 proposals with a cumulative investment of $15 billion are approaching the Clean Energy Finance Corporation for investment.

I return to the substance of this, which is: how best do we combat climate change? We have the command and control over there by Comrade Abbott, a return to central planning that Lenin and Stalin would be proud of. This is what the Liberal Party has degenerated into: state directed investment of the worst sort that we have not seen since the 1930s in Russia. This is versus a market based system that every economist worth their salt—Ross Garnaut, Lord Stern, people supported by both sides of politics—supports. The member for Wentworth supported it in a previous life. Market based systems are the most efficient way of tackling climate change—backed up by sound industry policy that makes the Commonwealth money and that has first-of-type demonstration effects for the rest of the economy. This is the sensible way. This is what those on the other side are voting against, because they are economic philistines. As former Treasurer Peter Costello said of Tony Abbott, 'He just doesn't get economics.' He just doesn't get economics and with his knighthoods he just wants to return to the past, condemning our future. (Time expired)

Mr IRONS (Swan) (12:37): I rise to speak on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2] consideration in detail stage. The government is reintroducing this legislation in an identical form to the bill that was first introduced to the House of Representatives on 13 November 2013 and rejected by the Senate on 10 December 2013. The bill repeals the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act 2012, the CEFC Act, thereby abolishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the CEFC, and it makes a number of consequential amendments. The CEFC's assets and liabilities will be transferred to the Commonwealth by statutory novation and will be managed by the Treasury.

It should not be the job of the government to operate banking services for industries which are already supported through commercial banking services. It is very unusual for a government to be operating banking services for industries, but this is what has been occurring since the CEFC was established on 3 August 2012 under the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act 2012. In the few cases where the government does operate such investment services, these are limited and targeted. Examples include the Indigenous Land Corporation and Screen Australia. But the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is certainly a different case, not least because it is providing assistance to projects that would already be going ahead in order to meet the renewable energy target. The coalition predicted this would be the case when the CEFC was introduced by the previous Labor-Greens government, and it has been proven correct, with the CEFC board choosing to lend to large-scale commercial wind farms.

This potential duplication also calls into question the claims by the CEFC that the existing projects they have financed have resulted in 3.88 million tonnes of emissions reductions each year. Two-thirds of the claimed abatement comes from the Taralga, Portland and Macarthur wind farms, which are already supported through the renewable energy target, so these emissions reductions would have happened without the CEFC and indeed will continue without the CEFC, at no cost to Australian taxpayers.

This, of course, is not the only example of the Labor government being only too keen to throw money at any sector in the hope it solves the problem without doing the research to see if it is truly needed. Too often the Labor Party instinctively reach for the chequebook without seeing if the money is really needed. For them it is all about the headline in the paper the next day and not about sound treatment of taxpayers' money.

Mr Bandt: Cadbury!

Mr IRONS: I hear the interjection from the Greens member for Melbourne, who says that this bill is a threat to the way of life. The Greens would have us go back to horse and cart and burning wood, destroying the livelihoods and lives of Australians purely through their own ideology.

Mr Husic: 'What about Cadbury?' is what he said.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Order! The member for Swan has the call and will be heard in silence.

Mr Bandt: You'll fund chocolate but not solar power.

Mr IRONS: Yeah, righto. Anyway, to talk again of the Rudd government, in the 42nd Parliament Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of the time, introduced funding for solar projects and asked for submissions from all around Australia. I know there were some very good submissions put in from Western Australia that were actually commercially viable. But guess what: the five projects that were awarded funds were all in Queensland. And guess where the Prime Minister's seat was: in Queensland. So none of them went to Western Australia at all. This is another example of the Labor-Greens alliance working against the Western Australian economy, including by keeping this carbon tax. You said I would bring it up and I did; I have brought the carbon tax up. So this is another perfect example of how the Greens-Labor alliance works against Western Australia.

In 2011 I went on the ASEAN delegation, and in that time we went to Singapore. We had the previous member for Braddon there. We also had the previous member for beef stroganoff—sorry, the previous member for Reid. We met with the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, and these two members spoke to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and said, 'What do you think about investing in renewable energy programs and things like that?' The Singaporean government official just said, 'We will not invest in non-sustainable projects, so we have not invested in any renewable energy targets at all.' So there is a perfect example of a sensible government leaving it to industry to drive that part of the sector.

Of course, this bill was part of the carbon tax repeal bills, and I mention that just for the member for Melbourne. This bill sits within that context. I support the bill. However, in one moment the Labor Party chose to make the parliament's focus the introduction of a carbon tax without any mandate—in fact, with a mandate not to introduce a carbon tax—and with it other possibilities were extinguished.

Mr GILES (Scullin) (12:42): I rise in opposition to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2], and I want to speak on some concerns of process as well as some matters of substance. On the process, it is extraordinary that, in a week when we have heard so much cant about freedom, again we see a major debate in this place gagged. Going to that point, I should congratulate the member for Swan, because he did in fact talk about the legislation that is before the parliament, unlike the member for Hughes. He talked about Labor rushing to get the chequebook. I think what we are doing here is rushing through this legislative process when there is some significant evidence we should be considering, not least the rationale adopted by the Senate in rejecting this legislation late last year and the important work done by the Senate committee, which I will turn to briefly.

It is telling that the broad attitude of the coalition can be summed up by two things here: (1) a failure to engage with the fundamental challenge that is combating climate change; and (2) utter lack of interest in the substance of the bill that is before us. It is quite extraordinary that the member for Hughes spent most of his time talking about the investment decisions the member for Rankin and I can make. He obviously has great confidence in our financial capacity to make these investments—misplaced confidence—but he has nothing to say about the legislation that is before us.

Mr Ciobo: Hear, hear! It is misplaced confidence. I've got no confidence, for what it's worth, especially in Rankin. You make a compelling point. You've almost got me convinced.

Mr GILES: Well, listen a bit longer. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation facilitates comprehensive commercial loans for both renewable energy and cleaner energy technology investments and is set to fund emissions reductions at a negative cost to government—to turn a profit. This government's alternative plan for an Emissions Reduction Fund—I do not think that was very well understood by the member for Hughes, but I am sure the parliamentary secretary can take him through it—will consume billions from consolidated revenue. It is simply bizarre that a government supposedly obsessed with reducing debt and deficit would oppose a market-orientated scheme that turns a profit. Clearly the motive here is purely ideological and not for financial, much less environmental, reasons.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been a success and will return real dividends. In its first months of operation it has been strikingly successful in providing loans to organisations. Over time we see the capacity to make investments that would account for 50 per cent of the five per cent emissions reduction target by 2020, at a profit to the taxpayer of $2.40 a tonne. In 12 months we have seen great success, but, despite these successful operations, through this bill the government is seeking to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. This government has been unable to see past its ideological blinkers and appreciate the role the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been playing in facilitating investment in renewable energy that would otherwise be missed by normal commercial banks.

I touched earlier on the Senate inquiry. Many stakeholders gave evidence to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee regarding the work to date and argued strongly and persuasively that the CEFC should be retained. The CEO of the Investor Group on Climate Change, Mr Nathan Fabian, summarised the need for the CEFC in evidence to the committee:

The CEFC is one example of what are now 14—

I emphasise 14—

co-financing institutions around the world. These organisations are needed for five reasons. Firstly, governments cannot sufficiently finance low-carbon alternatives to meet a two-degree outcome and private capital is needed. Secondly, the low-carbon investment market is relatively young and so deal flow needs to be supported. Thirdly, capacity in the finance sector must be increased through the experience of financing investments. Fourthly, financial participants welcome investment opportunities presented in a new market by an objective third party, even more than by investment banks. Lastly, co-financing organisations can actually earn financial returns for governments, delivering abatement at negative costs—and we think this is appealing and makes sense to all parties. Given the government's infrastructure agenda, we think that dismissing co-financing as a useful policy instrument may be premature.

Those are five very strong arguments that should not fall on deaf ears but seemingly will.

In the northern suburbs of Melbourne, energy efficiency gains are already being realised at the Labelmakers printing services store. The CEFC has helped finance three new energy-efficient presses that operate at twice the speed, using half the energy, of the old presses, while allowing a broader range of higher quality printed materials to be manufactured. It has supported jobs in the communities I represent, as well as environmental outcomes. This is just one of many projects the CEFC has helped bring to fruition. It makes a mockery of the Treasurer's claim in his second reading speech that investments were made in high-risk ventures. The second reading speech, as ever, was strong on rhetoric, low on detail and utterly unpersuasive.

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (12:47): If you listened to the Labor and Greens contributors to this debate, you would be scratching your head and wondering how on earth the world ever reached the stage that it has reached. If it were not for these grandiose schemes funded by taxpayers, there would be no innovation. We would still be living back in the dark ages. I wonder how the first aircraft became airborne, how the first ship or the first submarine sailed, or indeed how any of the advancements that have been made with respect to medical technology, computing, IT and communications were made. The government must have been at the epicentre of every single one of these innovations! If it were not for the government, how on earth would the private sector have ever innovated in any particular way? For goodness sake. I have got to say I am not surprised, because that lot over there have always been exceedingly generous with other people's money. There has never been a time when the Labor Party have said, 'No, we don't want to invest taxpayers' funds in that.' There has never been a deal that has been put to the Labor Party, or to the Greens, that they have not wanted to sign up to with taxpayers' money.

But the unfortunate thing about all of this debate is this. The Greens and the Labor Party wring their hands and stand over there with their faux concern about the next generation of Australians and they say, 'Why won't the Liberals and the Nationals do something to ensure the safety of the next generation of Australians?' If only they had 10 per cent of that concern for how the next generation of Australians are going to pay back all the debt that Labor and the Greens left. If only they had the smallest bit of concern for the fact that it will be our children that will be paying back Labor's debt for the next 20 years. If only they had the smallest bit of concern for the fact that, in five years, they managed to indebt the next generation of Australians for decades. Then maybe we on this side of the chamber would take them a little bit more seriously. Maybe they should have considered and recognised the fact that they have effectively put a ball and chain around the ankle of every Australian for the next 20 or 30 years, instead of just focusing on the fact that Australia does contribute about 1½ to two per cent of global CO2 emissions and saying, 'If only we had renewable energy and if only we had mass-scale investment then we could probably shave off about 0.001 per cent,' or 0.0012 per cent or 0.015 per cent or whatever the number is. For goodness sake; it is no wonder the Australian people woke up to the Australian Labor Party.

Mr Dreyfus: You want to do nothing!

Mr CIOBO: Now we have got the member opposite saying we should do nothing. Well, I have got a newsflash for you, buddy: it is called the Direct Action Plan. Under the Direct Action Plan, the coalition will deliver five per cent reductions on CO2emissions, which, incidentally, is more than Labor was going to do. Under Labor modelling, CO2 emissions were going to go up. The only way they were going to actually achieve a reduction was by buying permits.

Mr Dreyfus: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Mr CIOBO: You do not want to hear the truth, do you? They do not like it when the facts stand in the way of—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Order! The parliamentary secretary will resume his seat. The member for Isaacs on a point of order.

Mr Dreyfus: The member opposite should pay some attention to the subject matter of the bill that is before the parliament. He is making no attempt to be relevant and should return to the subject matter of the bill.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The parliamentary secretary has the call.

Mr CIOBO: I think the fact that the shadow Attorney-General had been in the chamber for about a minute before he jumped up in many respects reflects the baseless nature of that point of order.

Mr Dreyfus: I rise on a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. He should withdraw. I have been here for the entire debate, and the member, who has not been here, should not be making reflections of that nature.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will ask the parliamentary secretary to withdraw.

Mr CIOBO: I am actually not prepared to withdraw that, because the reality is that that is simply untrue. I have been here for the entirety of the debate. The shadow Attorney-General comes wandering in and then he makes an allegation. It is simply unsubstantiated. I seek your direction, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The parliamentary secretary has the call.

Mr CIOBO: Australians see straight through the Australian Labor Party and straight through the Greens. That is the reason why they said, 'After six years of reckless spending, after six years of fiscal abuse, after six years of having all the wrong priorities, we think it's time for a change.' We are working to implement our policies. This was one of our pre-election announcements, and once again you are stopping us delivering our policies. (Time expired)

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (12:52): Can I go straight to a couple of the remarks that were just made by the member for Moncrieff. He said that the opposition is exceedingly generous with other people's money. Perhaps he should look very carefully at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the returns that it will provide to the Australian public. It is very clear that this is not being exceedingly generous with other people's money but rather providing a return to the Australian taxpayers on the money that is going to be expended—a return in the order of some seven per cent, or $200 million a year, over the next few years.

I want to go to another point that he made which, I think, is even more critical. He made the point that we are going to burden future generations with this so-called debt. I ask the member for Moncrieff: what kind of burden would he have us leave future generations if we, as a society, do nothing about the impacts of climate change? These are impacts which, I might say, have been confirmed time and time again by the scientific community of the world. The most recent reports, including reports from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology here in Australia, confirm the predictions made years ago that our climate is changing, it is changing in a very severe way and the impacts of that change are going to be very severe for future generations, who will have to wear those costs. In fact, in the last summer alone, my recollection is that there were 156 records broken in terms of the climate of this country.

Also, on the subject of his government's direct action policy, I quote to him a comment from the member for Wentworth, who said:

… the farce that the coalition's policy, of lack of policy, on climate change has descended into … You cannot cut emissions without a cost … Somebody has to pay.

Those are comments from one of their own members, not from people on this side of the House but from someone who at least has the decency to acknowledge that that science in respect of climate change is right. But I will go further. Lord Deben, a former Tory minister and now the head of the UK's independent Committee on Climate Change, described the Abbott government's approach to climate change as being:

… so unintellectual as to be unacceptable; I mean, it is just amazing.

This legislation that the government seeks to repeal was put in place as part of a total package to manage the concerns that society has about climate change. Part of that strategy is, in fact, not only to have a mechanism by which polluters will reduce the amount of pollution that they create but also to encourage investment in innovation in areas where we will reduce the amount of carbon that is emitted into the atmosphere. You can only do that if you invest in new technology. Members opposite say, 'Are you prepared to invest your own money into the new technology?' I say to them: how can you expect anyone to invest their money in new technology when they have no certainty of policy because members of the government on that side said that, if they got elected, they would change the policy as they are doing right now? You cannot get certainty of investment if you are going to change your policies from one election to another. If they were prepared to be honest about this whole issue and at least agree to stick to the commitments around the renewable energy targets and the targets to reduce emissions by five per cent by 2020, at least that would provide some level of certainty to those people who are prepared to invest in new technologies because they know that, ultimately, we have to do so.

The Abbott government is clearly showing that it is prepared to turn its back on the science of climate change, and, in doing so, is turning its back on future generations, who will, indeed, have to pay dearly because of the inaction of this government. We are not only seeing it through this legislation; we are seeing it across the board. In fact, yesterday in question time the Minister for the Environment could barely utter the words 'climate change'. I think he did it once in response to a question about the very subject. That is how committed the government is to climate change. We saw it also with respect to the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill—again, deletion of all reference to climate change. They want to hide it away and bury it away because, that way, they can pretend it does not exist. Well, the truth is: it does exist. If this government is prepared to turn its back on this kind of initiative, then what it is really saying is that it does not care about future generations. It is prepared to capitalise on profiting today so that others pay dearly in the future. (Time expired)

Mr IRONS (Swan) (12:57): I see the member for Melbourne rose. I am sorry to take from you this opportunity to speak, but I just thought that I would like to continue with my comments. One of the things that the member for Makin—and it is good to see him quoting Tory politicians—talked about was changes of promises. If we go back to pre-2010, we can remember the changes of promises that every Australian remembers. The Greens and Labor broke the promise not to introduce a carbon tax. The people in Western Australia will remember that next Saturday when it comes to the election. The Greens-Labor alliance lied to the Australian people about the carbon tax that they said they would never introduce under their government.

Of course, this bill was part of the carbon tax repeal bills. This bill sits within that context. The coalition went to the election with the clearest possible position on the subject of the carbon tax. We announced a policy many months—if not years—out from the election. The policy was communicated in budget reply speeches, in press releases, in debates during the campaign and in the election material of every single Liberal and National candidate across the country. The leader of the coalition at the time, Tony Abbott, was bold enough to declare that the 2013 federal election would be a referendum on the carbon tax. This was an accurate description of what the election turned out to be. But the people on that side of the chamber want to ignore the will of the Australian people.

Mr Bandt: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. This bill is not about the carbon tax. This bill is about the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): There is no point of order.

Mr IRONS: As I said, the leader of the coalition, Tony Abbott, was bold enough to declare that the 2013 federal election would be a referendum on the carbon tax, and this was an accurate description of what the election turned out to be. Again, as I said, people on that side of the chamber just seem to have totally ignored what the will of the Australian people indicated on 7 September 2013.

Kevin Rudd recognised that it was a referendum on the carbon tax, because, during the campaign, he said he had terminated the carbon tax. What a misrepresentation that turned out to be! And now we see the WA Senate candidates in Western Australia saying that they are going to terminate the carbon tax. They are not. They have been here and they have voted against terminating it. The Western Australian people need to know that when they go to the polls next Saturday.

Most members in this place would agree that, for better or for worse, the carbon tax became the key issue of the 43rd Parliament. It was the major issue, because the Labor Party made it a major issue. It became so the moment the Labor Party decided to break the infamous promise that there would be no carbon tax under a Gillard government. The 43rd Parliament did not have to be about the carbon tax. If Labor had showed some spine and not been jelly-backed and had stood up to the Greens and said, 'No, we will honour our commitments,' the last parliament could have been about better things. It could have been about the welfare of the Australian people. It could have been about delivering the infrastructure of the 21st century. It could have been about rebuilding our national finances, about stopping the boats, about delivering on broadband for the Australian people or even paying for a national disability insurance scheme.

We heard the member for Charlton say that he wants Australian companies to be able to compete internationally. But, if we talk to most manufacturers in Western Australia—particularly in the concrete sector—the carbon tax and the mining tax are the things that are stopping them being competitive internationally. We are seeing concrete products being imported into Australia and into Western Australia because of the deficiencies of the carbon tax and the negative aspect it has on business for people in Western Australia.

We also heard comment about providing a return on investment from the CEFC, but what about the NBN? The Labor Party also said that the NBN would provide a return. Well, we know that is not true. What about the $64 billion black hole that the Labor Party have left with the Australian to pay off? They have taken a disgraceful attitude towards this bill. It is the second time that we have presented it. They need to tell their people in the other chamber to get onboard and vote for the repeal of this bill.

The SPEAKER: Order! It now being two minutes past one, the hour set aside for this section has concluded. In accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier, the time allocated for the consideration in detail stage has concluded. I now put the question that the bill be agreed to.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business has informed me that he is prepared to call this division off on the basis that they will vote against the third reading rather than this motion now. So I declare that the bill is agreed to.

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (13:04): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

The SPEAKER: The question is that this bill be now read a third time.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) (13:13): It is with great pleasure that I join the debate in relation to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I congratulate the Minister for the Environment for the work he has already done in consulting, particularly with coalition members, on a whole range of programs throughout Australia, especially in regional Australia.

When this election commitment was made by the coalition, it was very warmly received across the electorate of Gippsland. I encourage people in my community, particularly groups involved with Landcare, Coastwatch and other organisations with a focus on practical environmental measures—those groups welcomed the announcement because it gave them the opportunity to put forward programs and projects within the electorate, which would have a real practical benefit in terms of environmental management. In bringing this bill to the House today, the coalition is delivering on an important election commitment. There is one very significant difference between this coalition government and the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government, and that is we take our election commitments seriously. When we make promises to the Australian people we intend to deliver them. Our election commitment was to build a 15,000-strong Green Army across our nation. I am very proud of the role that members on this side of the House have played today in delivering on the Green Army promise.

When the policy was first announced it was very warmly received across the Gippsland electorate because it gave Landcare, Coastcare and other organisations the opportunity to put forward projects to be considered by the Minister for the Environment and Minister Hartsuyker, who has a role in delivering the program. I have been impressed by the quality of the projects that have been put forward by community groups, individuals and councils across the entire Gippsland electorate.

What I like about the Green Army Program is that it draws very much on the inspiration of the previous Howard government's Green Corps program, which was implemented almost 20 years ago. In my previous roles as a local newspaper journalist and an advocate for community issues I had the opportunity to work with the former member for Gippsland Peter McGauran on the implementation of several Green Corps projects in the Gippsland region. Without exception, they were well received because they provided opportunities for young people with a particular passion for environmental projects to develop new skills and make a real difference in their communities in terms of restoring our natural and cultural environments. I refer specifically to the cultural environment because in Gippsland with previous programs under these types of initiatives we had the opportunity to involve the Indigenous community directly in projects which they were passionate about in the Gippsland region.

This program will provided some extraordinary opportunities for hands-on, practical, grassroots environmental action. Not the type of environmental action we see from the Greens political party, which likes to indulge in grand rhetoric but never gets its hands dirty. The people of Gippsland and the people involved with Landcare, Coastcare and other organisations want to do practical work and actually make a real change within the environment on either a local scale, such as a small gullying project or reducing pest plants and animals, or a more broader landscape scale, such as improving the quality of the water coming into streams, fencing off parts of the riversides to prevent stock access and doing more broader land management action.

I am very pleased to see that the focus of both ministers involved in this project is on making sure that the young people who get involved in this program have the opportunity to develop real skills. It is an opportunity for them to develop skills and job training in areas like land management, park management, landscaping and horticulture. They can pick up important skills that will assist them to obtain full-time employment in the future. I would hate to see a program like this become just a make-work scheme. I want it to be a pathway towards gainful and sustainable employment for the people who participate. I will be working very closely with my electorate, the community groups and the local councils to make sure the projects we put forward under this program allow young people to have a pathway from unemployment into the Green Army, where they will learn practical skills and make a real difference in their community, and then hopefully to full-time and sustainable employment within my region.

The work that the Green Army will be undertaking across Australia will be vital to the regeneration and the preservation of vital areas of our natural environment. I understand that already the minister has indicated to many members in this place the projects that have been successful and will be funded under the initial rounds. These include the propagation and planting of native seedlings across the nation, weed control initiatives, the revegetation and regeneration of local parks, habitat protection and restoration, improving water quality by cleaning up waterways, the revegetation of sand dunes and mangroves, creek bank regeneration, foreshore and beach restoration, the construction of boardwalks and walking tracks to protect local wildlife, and cultural heritage conservation.

In relation to the control of pest plants and pest animals, in particular I want to mention an announcement this week that I was particularly heartened by—the agreement between the Victorian government and the new federal government that aerial baiting of wild dogs will now be allowed in Victoria. Again, you can see a clear difference between this government and the previous government on issues relating to the management of the environment. It appalled me that the previous government refused to allow the Victorian state government to aerial bait wild dogs in Victoria when across the border in New South Wales aerial baiting had been allowed. It was a bizarre circumstance. The excuses and the obfuscation that went on by the previous minister in relation to this issue were quite ridiculous. So it is very pleasing that as of this week an agreement has been reached between the Commonwealth and the state government to allow for the aerial baiting of wild dogs in Victoria. I encourage Victorian minister Peter Walsh in his efforts to control wild dogs in Victoria. We know and we accept that you will never eradicate the problem of wild dogs, but you can certainly do a lot more than the previous Commonwealth government was prepared to do to assist in that regard.

In Victoria the impact of wild dogs on our environment is significant. It is often referred to as a farmers' issue because of the stock losses that are associated with it. It is very much an issue for people who make a living from the land, but it is also an environmental concern. The fact that we had wild dogs feasting on our native fauna on a daily basis while very little effort was being made by the Commonwealth to control them, I think was a condemnation of the previous federal government in that regard.

I am very pleased that this week the Victorian state government and the new Abbott-Truss coalition government have been able to reach an agreement that will allow aerial baiting to be introduced in Victoria in the future. It will be a combined measure. There will be ongoing measures of ground baiting and shooting, but aerial baiting will give the government the opportunity to reach areas which are very inaccessible. In the aftermath of the bushfires we had in Victoria, there is no doubt that predation by wild dogs will be an issue for us as they are forced out of the bush and onto farmland. Our landholders are going to need every bit of support they can get in terms of reducing the impact of these wild dogs.

It is just another example of how this new government is prepared to work in a practical way with measures to improve the natural environment and work with local communities to make sure we can deliver sustainable results and assist people as they undertake practical environmental works across our community.

In closing, I would simply say that I am a very strong supporter of the Green Army Program. I look forward to working with the relevant ministers and working with my community to help make a real difference to improving the environment in our communities. We have done some great work in Gippsland over the past 20 or 30 years with Landcare organisations and other organisations which have been instrumental in making very significant improvements to our region.

I refer to the work that has been done, in particular, with the management of the catchment of the Gippsland Lakes. One of the great icons of Australia is the Gippsland Lakes network. It is the largest network of lakes in the southern hemisphere. It is fed by six major rivers, and there has been a lot of work undertaken by both the Labor and the coalition governments in partnership with local communities to improve the water quality entering the Gippsland Lakes and to reduce the impact of things like algal blooms, which are obviously a major concern for the tourism industry and also for the enjoyment of the lake system by local residents.

It is very important that the government—in this case the coalition government at federal level—works with the state government, works with the local government and works with local communities to make sure that we can deliver programs on the ground which actually make a real difference to the environment. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (13:24): I support the amendments moved by the opposition in respect to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014.

This legislation supposedly forms the centrepiece of the Abbott government's direct action policy response to climate change—a response, as we saw earlier today, that does not take climate change seriously. This legislation is further confirmation that the Abbott government does not take climate change seriously, does not believe in the science being presented by the scientists around the world and is prepared to turn its back on future generations by leaving them with the burden that climate change adaption, which should be taken now, will be left for them if it is not taken now.

What is even more concerning, with respect to this proposition—and as good as it might be for the environment—is that the legislation is clearly not satisfactory, or adequate, to respond to the needs that arise as a result of climate change. There is no credible commentator that I can find who supports the direct action policy of the Abbott government—with the Green Army or the Green Corps as the centrepiece—as being a responsible response to what we should be doing in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. In fact, I want to quote from an assessment of this program that was done by Tim Lubcke from Flinders University in South Australia only a year ago. He says that the analysis concluded that to achieve the required target of 85 million tonnes of CO2 abatement:

… this amounts to between 2.2 and 2.57 million hectares of annual wood production land.

The fact is that this proposal will not achieve that. But it is even more concerning because, quite frankly, it is a proposal that has been criticised and not supported by anyone with any credibility. That brings me to the real point with respect to this legislation, and that is: why is the government introducing this proposal in the way that it is as a pretentious response to climate change when in fact it knows that it is not?

This is a proposal that simply re-badges similar propositions or proposals that were already in place—put in place right back in 1992 by the Keating government, at the time known as the Landcare and Environmental Action Plan, the LEAP program. Subsequently, it was supported by government after government in one form or another. There is nothing new in this proposal. What really concerns me is that the government will seek to re-badge or relaunch programs that are currently in existence and which form part of our analysis and measurement CO2 abatement measures that are already in place so that the net effect will be even worse than what the government pretends. If it were a brand-new proposal, then you could at least have some confidence that the figures that the Abbott government is using in terms of CO2 abatement might be true. But my concern is that it is not a new proposal. It is a re-badged proposal of what is already taking place.

Communities around Australia are already engaged in tree-planting programs. In fact, in the council area where I was mayor for 10 years we literally planted tens of thousands of trees every year—it was nothing new. The South Australian Labor government, on coming to office in 2002, committed to a program of planting two million trees around the metropolitan area and those programs carried on and were in fact delivered. So there is nothing new in a program that seeks to say, 'We are going to plant trees, planting trees is good for the environment'—we accept that—but then it also ought to say, 'And it will mitigate the effects of climate change being caused by carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn are caused by human activity across the world.'

What is more incredible is that we have a program where the government says, 'Let's plant trees because trees will absorb the carbon dioxide and mitigate the effects of carbon dioxide pollution,' while simultaneously saying to the Australian people, 'We will simultaneously release 74,000 hectares of preserved wood forest in Tasmania and unlock them for forestry.' So on one hand we are going to plant trees—supposedly to have one effect—and on the other hand we are going to unlock 74,000 hectares of trees that are already in existence. You could only conclude that at the very least one will offset the other, and that is if we plant 74,000 hectares of trees at the same pace as we are going to unlock the ones that are already growing. It simply proves that this policy is nothing but a farce when it comes to a response to climate change.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Order! It being 1.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.

The SPEAKER (14:00): The question is that the motion moved by the honourable Prime Minister be agreed to. As a mark of respect, I ask all present to signify their approval by rising in their places.

Question agreed to, honourable members standing in their places.

The SPEAKER: I thank the House.

The SPEAKER (15:14): I present a copy of statements of thanks and appreciation by former members of the 43rd Parliament, March 2014.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (16:17): I began my remarks by pointing out that the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014 forms the centrepiece to the Abbott government's response to climate change. It is clear that, if this is the centrepiece to the Abbott government's response to climate change, the Abbott government does not take climate change seriously. What is even more concerning is that the climate change sceptics in the coalition party room are now in control, so much so that when you look at important documents like A Plan for a Cleaner Environment produced by the Abbott government, you will struggle to find the words 'climate change' in it. In fact, I could not. Perhaps I missed it, but I could not find the words 'climate change' in what is a critical document dealing with the environment.

Secondly, when you look at the white paper on agriculture and go to the terms of reference, again you cannot find the term 'climate change'. Most scientists would say to the government and the people of Australia that climate change is going to be one of the greatest challenges for the agriculture sector in years to come. You can argue about what is causing it, but you cannot deny that our climate is changing. In fact, the evidence is mounting every day. What is even more concerning is that the evidence is confirming what the scientific community have been saying for years—that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to these changes and each year that we do nothing makes it more difficult for future generations to manage the problem.

I pointed out the following statistics in a speech I made to this parliament only last week. Temperatures across this country have increased by about one degree over the last 100 years. There have been massive ice melts in Antarctic and Greenland icesheets. Sea levels have increased by 225 millimetres since 1880 and extreme weather events and changes in seasonal trends are now becoming a part of everyday life. Those extreme weather changes are having a direct impact on the social costs, the environmental costs and the economic costs of this country. Those costs will escalate as CO2 levels and greenhouse gas emission levels rise even further if we do nothing about it.

The government's response to all of those concerns—concerns which are taken seriously by most other governments of the world—is to support a policy that is estimated to increase greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by the year 2050, at the same time subsidising the big corporate polluters to the tune of $50 billion by 2020. I understand that the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations, the OECD, the Climate Change Authority and 33 out of 35 of Australia's leading economists have all urged the Prime Minister not to abandon a price on carbon. So why does the Abbott government persist with this flawed policy? It is a policy that, as I pointed out earlier today, is criticised by one of their own members, the member for Wentworth. It is a policy that we know will cost householders in the order of $1,200 to $1,300 each year, more than twice what they claimed that the Labor government's price on carbon imposes on householders. It is a policy that does not achieve the desired or required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It is, in fact, a policy that is at odds with what every other responsible government around the world is doing.

What is even more concerning is that it is a policy that is at serious risk of failing because of the very climate effects that we seek to mitigate. By that I mean that you plant trees right around the country but in future years we are likely to face severe fires or severe droughts. What are the first things to be affected when you have a severe drought or a severe fire? Probably the very trees that you have planted. We have evidence of that over the last few years. I can point to areas where the large tree plantings done by state governments, local councils and community groups all died as a result of the long drought. I have no doubt that there were trees destroyed as a result of the bushfires that we have seen on a regular basis. So there is no guarantee that we will ever even get the benefits of this flawed policy.

The Abbott government knows that their policy will not work. The reason they know it is because they have turned their backs on our commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to reducing the renewable energy targets and so on. Their philosophy is quite simple: 'We are not going to achieve the targets that we are expected to; we know we won't, so we'll just change the targets. That way, if we change the targets, then we will achieve them.'

This is a policy that, when all is said and done, can never, ever be evaluated until long after this government is gone. In turn, they will never, ever be held to account. There is no way that, even if you roll out the policy over the years ahead, any government will be in a position to measure or quantify the effect that it has had on reducing greenhouse gas emissions until many years have passed. And so, it is a convenient way for this government to just pretend to do something but never to be held to account with respect to it.

The other problem with this policy is, as I said earlier, that it actually gives money to the big polluters throughout this country who, in turn, obviously will have no incentive to do anything other than what they would have otherwise done.

I can understand why the government wants to bring this policy in. Part of the reason is that apart from creating an appearance that it is doing something with respect to climate change mitigation, it is also a convenient way of getting people off the unemployment queues and, in turn, reducing the unemployment numbers. Not in a real sense, but in a pretentious sense. You can take them off unemployment and then give them some kind of subsidy to go and do this, and that way it makes your unemployment figures look as if they have actually dropped when the reality is that very little has changed.

Talking about employment, this policy fails not only as an environmental policy but also fails if you are going to treat it as an employment policy. As an employment policy there is no provision within it for minimum remuneration rates, there is no provision within it for workers' compensation if someone happens to get hurt, there is no provision within it for leave entitlements, there is no provision within it for public liability and there is no provision within it for any training that might be needed. I do not have a criticism of training on the job and on the spot that; if that is going to help someone, by all means it is good thing. But where are all these people going to go once they have done all of this in terms of having a real job? I suspect that they will go back onto the unemployment queues from which they originally came.

If the government really wants to plant trees, it simply needs to proceed with the policies that are already in place and being carried out by community groups around the country. I can talk about community groups in my own electorate, like Friends of Cobbler Creek, Friends of Dry Creek and Friends of Anstey Hill, who continuously plant trees. Support those organisations because not only will they plant the trees but they will maintain and care for them long after they have planted them and ensure that they continue to do the job that they do. This is a policy that is nothing more than a cop-out by a government that wants to pretend that it cares about the environment and cares about climate change when, in fact, it wants to do nothing.

Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (16:26): I am extremely pleased to rise in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. This bill will have a direct action affect on our environment and in delivering the coalition's election commitment in the deployment of a standing Green Army, 15,000 strong.

With the introduction of this amendment, the Abbott government is delivering a real, tangible solution to the maintenance, restoration and beautification of our collective natural assets. In providing such a remarkable benefit to all Australians, the Green Army will serve to provide our youth with a gateway to employment through training and skills development, an acute appreciation of our natural Australian environment and its conservation and preservation for future generations. As such, I am extremely proud to stand in support of this bill.

I would also like to congratulate the Minister for Environment and the honourable member for Flinders for his unrelenting energy, his passion, his support and his belief in this legislation. Minister Hunt has been an amazing advocate for the Cumberland Plain Woodlands lending his voice to the conservation issues and preservation of this critically endangered habitat. He has visited the electorate of Lindsay many times, meeting with local conservationists, environmental groups and local schools to ensure the Lindsay component of the Green Army has real traction and applicability on the ground. I commend him for his commitment, for his work and for his unrelenting understanding of how important the Cumberland Plain Woodland are to the people of Western Sydney.

In my opinion, the success of the Green Army will be singularly realised by the work that the minister has personally committed to, and is engaging in still, with so many local communities like mine. By creating a standing army, we will be committed to make a real contribution to the preservation and conservation of our natural assets. The minister's passion and enthusiasm in this initiative has created interest in other groups in my community, like Muru Mittigar, a local Indigenous community that also provides a commercial horticultural facility that is growing specific plants that are unique to the region. In doing so, it will be restoring our bushland to how it was originally made.

The coalition of Liberal and National parties stand proud of our strong record in delivering on-the-ground environmental projects and tackling environmental issues head-on. I, like the Prime Minister, have long been an ardent supporter of the Green Army, a signature policy of the coalition government that is designed to help the environment, to deliver on our reductions in emission targets and to provide workforce training. To this point the Prime Minister has been a passionate supporter, and has taken a lead role in the development of this legislation.

It is worth noting that the Green Army builds on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program. Like so many other successful programs, the Green Corps, too, saw the knife of the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. Like its predecessor, the Green Army will provide our youth with improved career and employment options through facilitated accreditation programs in training whilst participating in our critical environmental and heritage projects.

The hallmark of these two programs resides—

Debate interrupted.