The SPEAKER (09:01): I present the following reports of the Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration—Report no. 10: annual report 2014-2015 and Report no. 11: budget estimates 2016-17.

Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Ms LEY (Farrer—Minister for Health, Minister for Sport and Minister for Aged Care) (09:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 creates a new legislative framework for the establishment and ongoing management of cancer screening registers.

The need for this bill arose from the federal budget 2015-16 announcement to improve cancer detection, treatment and prevention through innovative measures that ensure Australia remains a world leader in the field. Approval has been given for the renewal of the National Cervical Screening Program, which will increase cervical cancer survival rates through an evidence based pathway backed by research undertaken by the Medical Services Advisory Committee.

The Australian government is serious about increasing cancer screening rates in the fight against cancer. Cervical cancer claims the lives of 250 women annually, and yet it is one of the most preventable cancers. Currently 80 per cent of women with cervical cancer have not been screened or have not had regular screenings.

The changes to the National Cervical Screening Program from 1 May 2017 will introduce a more effective cervical cancer test, the human papillomavirus (HPV) test, to replace the current two-yearly Pap test. The HPV test detects HPV infection—which is almost always the first step in developing cervical cancer—before abnormal cells change. As the HPV test will only be required every five years, the number of invasive procedures during a woman's lifetime will reduce from 26 to nine.

The HPV test will be available on the Medicare Benefits Schedule from 1 May 2017.

Since its inception in 1991, the National Cervical Screening Program has effectively halved the mortality and morbidity of cervical cancer. The rollout of the new screening pathway will decrease the mortality and morbidity by at least a further 15 per cent.

Key activities will also be delivered to support the renewed National Cervical Screening Program, including workforce change strategies, critical management guidelines, a quality management framework and a communication strategy.

Australia continues to have one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world, and this government is committed to improving health outcomes in this area through early detection. Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in Australia, with approximately 4,000 Australians dying from it each year. That is around 80 deaths each week.

The risk of bowel cancer increases from the age of 50, yet, if it is detected and managed early, nine out of 10 cases can be successfully treated. Currently, fewer than 40 per cent of bowel cancers are detected early.

In a bid to fast-track the program and save more lives, approval has also been given to deliver an expanded National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. This program expansion will roll out a free at-home bowel cancer screening kit to Australians aged 50 to 74 every two years by 2020, instead of 2034. That is 14 years earlier than was planned under the previous government. Evidence from clinical trials has shown that biennial screening using fecal occult blood testing can prevent 300 to 500 deaths a year.

Fast-tracking the bowel screening program will also take the pressure off our health system by providing early detection that involves simpler treatment. Advanced bowel cancer treatment is estimated to cost our health system $66,000 per case, compared with $2,000 to remove precancerous polyps.

Australia seeks to connect its health system to deliver better, safer, efficient care now and into the future. With the recent investments in cancer prevention and detection, it is important that the organised approach to population based screening is underpinned by a consistent and contemporary national register. There are significant efficiencies that can be gained by establishing the National Cancer Screening Register that will support not only the renewal of the National Cervical Screening Program and the expansion of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program but potentially other cancer screening programs in the future. By 2020, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will be inviting about four million Australians to screen each year and could detect approximately 3,500 potential bowel cancers each year.

The National Cancer Screening Register will be on the cutting edge of innovation. It will provide an ICT platform incorporating themes of accessibility and usability capable of integrating with the My Health Record system and Health's Electronic Data Warehouse, with the ability to be expanded to support other cancer screening programs in the future. The register will be able to interoperate with clinical information systems to enable healthcare providers to provide data to the register easily and receive information back easily to better inform clinical decision making.

The register will support the screening pathway by facilitating invitations, sending out of test kits and recall of participants. It will enable improved software integration with general practice, specialists and pathology laboratories, as well as improved quality and accessibility of data and rate of data capture and data matching, with the prime focus of maintaining a complete and consolidated source of screening information for participating individuals. Over time it will help increase program participation rates and the effectiveness of the screening programs.

The bill provides a principles based legislative framework to support the government's policy objectives of supporting Australia's health system to meet current and future challenges. The bill lays the foundation for future work to move towards a national integrated system that captures and reports on individuals' screening test results and results of relevant follow-up procedures, up to and including the diagnosis with cancer or precursor to cancer.

The bill provides for the establishment of the register and authorises the collection, use and disclosure of information for the purposes of the register and certain other purposes, such as providing health care.

Establishing the register involves large-scale data migration and merging to create a national database of records for cancer screening information. The bill will allow Medicare enrolment and claims data and healthcare identifiers for individuals and healthcare providers to be collected by the register for the initial system build as well as on an ongoing basis.

The bill authorises collection of HPV vaccination status from the HPV register so that individuals' cervical screening information in the register will also include their HPV vaccination status.

Currently there are eight separate state and territory cervical screening registers and an outdated, paper based bowel screening register, which has created a fragmented system. The bill removes obstacles associated with migrating state and territory cervical screening data by providing the authority to transfer data to the register.

The register will capture a significant amount of information that can be accessed by a range of individuals and entities in order to support the delivery of the screening programs. Such a repository of high-quality data will support the health system by informing policy for national screening programs and service delivery at the local level.

The bill protects the use and disclosure of personal information collected by the register and creates an offence arising from the unauthorised disclosure of personal information contained in the register.

The bill includes provisions allowing individuals to opt off participation in the screening programs, either fully or partially, according to the individual's preference.

The bill includes mandatory reporting of cancer screening information of a prescribed type. Mandatory reporting obligations will ensure routine collection of information which is crucial for the screening processes and clinical pathways. The details of the reporting obligations, including who is obliged to report and what information is to be reported in what time frame , will be prescribed in the rules.

The register will commence operation on 1 May 2017. It will be built and maintained by a register operator to be commissioned by my department.

Royal assent to the bill is required by July 2016 to enable data migration of state and territory cervical screening registers to the register, followed by data cleansing and system testing in time for a fully operational national register on 1 May 2017.

A number of amendments to other legislation are required once the bill receives royal assent to enable certain information to be provided to the register, such as Medicare data and HPV vaccination status. These are described in the National Cancer Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016.

From 1 May 2017, regulations under the Health Insurance Act 1973will be amended to include a new MBS item for the five-yearly HPV test.

This bill will serve to benefit the health of Australians through more efficient cervical and bowel screening pathways—made possible by the establishment of a national register. It will assist general practitioners and healthcare providers in their clinical decision making and contribute to cancer detection, treatment and prevention.

Debate adjourned.

Ms LEY (Farrer—Minister for Health, Minister for Sport and Minister for Aged Care) (09:12): I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

This bill provides for the consequential and transitional provisions required to support the operation of the National Cancer Screening Register.

The National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 and the National Cancer Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016 will establish the National Cancer Screening Register (the register), authorise collection, use and disclosure of information for the purposes of the register, authorise the migration of state and territory cervical screening data to the register, and mandate reporting of screening information to the register to facilitate clinical decision making. The designated cancers for the purpose of the NCSR bills are cervical cancer and bowel cancer.

A number of amendments to other legislation are required once the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 receives royal assent to enable certain information to be provided to the register. These are described in the National Cancer Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016.

Amendments will be made to the Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 and the Health Insurance Act 1973to facilitate the provision of information to the register.

The Health Insurance Act 1973will be amended to enable the ongoing provision of Medicare enrolment and claim data to the register. This information will be used as part of the process for determining the individuals who are to be invited or not invited, as appropriate, to participate in the cervical cancer and bowel cancer screening programs.

The Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015will be amended to authorise the disclosure of information kept on the Australian Immunisation Register to the National Cancer Screening Register. This will allow for the human papilloma virus vaccination status to be included in an individual's record on the register.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 will be amended to authorise the disclosure of specific information kept by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to the National Cancer Screening Register. This will allow information from the National Death Index to be provided to the register, to ensure that individuals who are deceased are not invited to participate in the cancer screening programs.

This bill authorises the disclosure of information from prescribed cervical screening registers to the register. This will facilitate the transfer of information from the state and territory based cervical screening registers to the National Cancer Screening Register without the states and territories being required to amend their legislation to authorise that transfer.

This bill provides for the limited operation of the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 prior to 1 May 2017, to allow the register to be established.

The bill provides for the civil penalty for failure to comply with mandatory reporting obligations to commence on 1 May 2018, allowing a 12-month grace period after commencement of the register to give healthcare providers time to transition to the new mandatory reporting scheme.

The provisions in this bill will commence at the same time as the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 commences. However, if that bill does not commence, the provisions in this bill do not commence either.

I thank the House.

Debate adjourned.

Ms LEY (Farrer—Minister for Health, Minister for Sport and Minister for Aged Care) (09:17): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill is the first stage in giving effect to the government's decision to introduce a new Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme from 1 July 2016.

The Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme will provide states and territories with the highest ever level of Commonwealth financial support for public dental services. The scheme will double the Commonwealth's current funding contribution to the states and territories for dental.

As well as providing record levels of funding, the bill for the first time ever puts Commonwealth payments to the states for dental services on a legislative basis. This will give states the long-term certainty they need to invest in infrastructure and ensure that Australia has a high-quality public dental service into the future.

This government believes that investing in good public dental care is critical to ensuring that Australians have good oral health. We know that poor oral health can have a significant impact on individuals' overall health and wellbeing, and knock-on effects on employment and economic opportunities.

It is shocking that in this day and age there are Australian children who have never seen a toothbrush, let alone a dentist; and those with low incomes are the most affected. The oral health of adults on low incomes is even worse, with nearly 60 per cent of low-income and Indigenous adults having untreated tooth decay—double that of the general population.

The Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme targets Commonwealth dental funding to the people who need it most—all children, and adults with concession cards. The scheme will deliver better dental care to these patients, with an increasing focus on preventative dental care.

The bill I am introducing today amends the Dental Benefits Act 2008 to establish a framework for the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme. Under this bill, almost $416 million of Commonwealth assistance will be available in 2016-17—more than double what is available to the states this year. It provides higher amounts in 2017-18 and 2018-19, and from 2019-20 provides for funding to be indexed in line with population growth and the consumer price index.

The $1.7 billion to be provided for the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme over the next four years is just part of the $5 billion that the Commonwealth will invest to support dental care through the private health insurance rebate, Medicare funded in-hospital dental services, and funding for dental infrastructure in rural and remote Australia.

Turning briefly to the bill itself, broadly speaking it contains two sets of amendments.

The first inserts a new part 1A in the act to establish a framework for the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme.

The detailed arrangements for the provision of funding under the scheme will be set out in agreements between the Commonwealth and the states. The bill provides that in determining financial assistance the minister must have regard to agreements between the Commonwealth and the states. Grants of financial assistance will be subject to the terms and conditions set out in the agreement, and to any other terms and conditions that the minister may determine through a legislative instrument.

The Commonwealth has already had a number of preliminary discussions with the states on a possible agreement.

The Commonwealth's intent is to adopt a broadly similar model to that used for public hospital funding. It will pay about 40 per cent of the efficient price of delivering public dental services for every dental service delivered by the states. This contribution will also extend to services that the state contracts from the private sector.

Use of the national efficient price determined by the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority under the public hospital funding arrangements has seen a steady reduction in the rate of growth in the price over the five years the arrangement has been in place. The government will be working with the states to put in place a similar independent arrangement for determining the efficient price of delivering dental services.

The states will continue to be responsible for managing and operating public dental services. They will continue to make decisions about priorities for treatment, and they will continue to make decisions about the level of services they provide.

Under current eligibility arrangements all children up to the age of 18 are eligible for public dental services in most states and territories. In the others access for children after their early teens does not extend beyond children in concession cardholder families. In negotiating agreements with the states we will make sure that this gap is covered, and that all children are eligible for services. Adults with concession cards will continue to be eligible for public dental services as they are now.

The additional funds available should allow the states to increase the number of services they provide so that they can treat an additional 600,000 patients each year.

That is, the states will be able to increase the number of services they provide by at least 50 per cent over the base level of activity they were providing in 2011-12 before any Commonwealth assistance became available. At that time average waiting times for general dental treatment for adults in the public sector were around two years. Under the first national partnership agreement on dental services, which provided $344 million from 2012-13 to 2014-15, average waiting times were halved. The government expects that the additional funding provided through this bill will see an ongoing sustained reduction in waiting times.

The second part of the bill closes the Child Dental Benefits Schedule or CDBS. The bill removes entitlement to benefits under the CDBS for services provided on or after 1 July 2016. It is important to note that benefits will still be payable for services provided on or before 30 June as long as all the requirements of the act were met. And similarly, the audit and compliance powers in the act will continue to apply to benefits paid in relation to services provided on or before 30 June.

The government has made the decision to close the CDBS because it is an inherently inefficient use of taxpayers' money.

The CDBS has been poorly utilised, hence its inefficiency, with less than a third of eligible children accessing services since it began in 2014. This is because four out of five children were already visiting a dentist regularly before the scheme was introduced. When the CDBS was introduced, the Deputy Opposition Leader, the member for Sydney, who was the health minister at the time, announced that more than three million would be eligible. However, the shadow health spokesperson has since confirmed that only one million children have been treated since the CDBS commenced two years ago. In fact, the member for Sydney was once again misleading Australians about this government's landmark public dental scheme and the inefficient use of the scheme that she introduced this morning. She did acknowledge that only one million children had been treated under the scheme, not the three million forecast, and urged parents to hurry up and get children treated before the end of this financial year. She thus demonstrated how inefficient and poorly targeted the CBDS was; hence the decision by this government to close it. But in that closure we are introducing and creating a better public dental scheme that treats children—that makes all children between the ages of nought and 18 a priority—and also adds low-income concessional adults.

Another mistake, I believe, that the member for Sydney made in her remarks this morning was to suggest that all preventive oral care should be provided by dentists. The dentists I talk to freely admit, and welcome, the support of another dental workforce: the oral therapists, dentists in training and people who support the delivery of preventive care, for example to schools, so that children—some of whom, I have come to understand, do not have any understanding of dental care, do not have a toothbrush in their house and do not have parents who would take them to the dentist, which they would have to have had under Labor's scheme—get introduced to the best way to look after their teeth and, in this era of more bottled water and less fluoride, have fluoride painted on their teeth twice a year. In so doing, they create the best possible preventive oral health start for them.

The CBDS has also, unfortunately, been rorted, with 1,200 incorrect claims uncovered so far, and another $3 million of claims under investigation. Even the deputy opposition leader, the member for Sydney, would have to acknowledge that this is a serious problem. In fact, when she closed another dental program—the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme—she justified it by saying: 'We've had 1,000 complaints about it. Do you call 1,000 complaints a small problem? I think it's a substantial problem.' That is what the member for Sydney said about the number of complaints under a previous dental scheme that she then determined to close.

Clearly, the CBDS does not represent a good use of taxpayers' money.

The Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme will remove waste and duplication in the health system to direct funding where it is needed most. It is a strong national public dental scheme that will ensure people do not fall through the cracks.

This bill represents a landmark investment in public dental care in Australia, that will protect the oral health of Australians now and into the future. It puts in place the foundations for ongoing Commonwealth investment in public dental services. As one state health minister said to me: the fact that we are legislating and locking in the structure of a truly public scheme now and into the future gives them—that state health minister—the confidence to build the infrastructure to deliver what, as I said, is the best possible use of taxpayers' money in targeting the oral health of Australians where they need it most. It is an investment that will benefit not just this generation but future generations. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr BROADBENT (McMillan) (09:28): As Chair of the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members Interests, I rise to inform the House of the outcome of the committee's consideration of an important matter. On 17 March 2016 I presented to the House a report from the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members Interests as to whether the former member for Dobell, Mr Craig Thomson, deliberately misled the House on 21 May 2012. Having regard to the findings against Mr Thomson made by the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on 18 February 2014, in presenting the report I advised the House that there appeared to have been a breach of process in the committee's finalisation of the matter and that this would be considered further by the committee at its next meeting.

I now advise the House that this breach of process was an apparent unauthorised disclosure and publication of the committee's draft report. Members will be aware that, under the standing orders and the Parliamentary Privilege Act, unauthorised disclosure of committee documents may amount to contempt of the House where the disclosure causes, or is likely to cause, substantial interference with the work of the House or the committee system.

I advise the House that the committee considered the matter at a meeting yesterday evening and concluded that, on this occasion, the unauthorised disclosure and publication of the draft report is unlikely to have caused substantial interference to the work of the House or its committees. In addition, the committee's view is that it would be difficult to determine with any certainty the source of the unauthorised disclosure. It is most regrettable that this occurred, especially as the Committee of Privilege and Members' Interests was finalising such a serious reference in relation to a one-time member of this House.

I wish to take this opportunity to remind all those involved with the committee processes of the importance of observing the rules against unauthorised disclosure of committee documents, including draft reports. There is obviously a potential for unauthorised disclosures to impact adversely on our work as parliamentarians. This concludes the matter. It is finished. I thank the House.

Mr IAN MACFARLANE (Groom) (09:31): On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I present the following reports: Report 456 Defence major equipment procurement and evaluation, and Great Barrier Reef regulation: Review of Auditor-General reports Nos 51-52 (2014-15) and Nos 1-10 (2015-16); and Report 457 Development of the Commonwealth performance framework—Second report.

Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Mr IAN MACFARLANE: by leave—I wish to speak to both of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit reports just presented, commencing with the report entitled Defence major equipment procurement and evaluation, and Great Barrier Reef regulation.

This report sets out the findings of the committee's examination of three Australian National Audit Office reports. A key theme emerging from the committee's review of these reports was the importance of effective risk management.

Chapter 2 of the report discusses the committee's findings concerning Audit report No. 52 on Defence vehicle fleet replacement. In terms of the Defence risk management of procurement, the committee noted that the failed first tender process for this matter resulted in an estimated seven-year delay in delivering new vehicles and the need to sustain the existing fleet far beyond initial specifications. The committee made one recommendation: that Defence provide additional evidence that the lessons learned from this project have been embedded in standard operating procedures.

Chapter 3 of the report discusses the committee's findings concerning Audit report No. 3 on the regulation of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park permits. The committee noted the seriousness of the Auditor-General's overall conclusion that shortcomings in the regulatory practices of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have undermined the effectiveness of the permit system as a means of managing risks to the marine park. The committee made three recommendations—that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority: firstly, appropriately accelerate its time frame for implementation of the ANAO recommendations; secondly, implement more effective performance information in this area; and, further, report back to the committee on the implementation of a range of initiatives related to permit application assessment, compliance management and response to noncompliance.

Chapter 4 of the report discusses the committee's findings concerning Audit report No. 9 on the test and evaluation of major Defence equipment acquisitions. Effective risk management in the context of procurement was again emphasised in this inquiry. Several past ANAO reports and external reviews have identified deficiencies in aspects of Defence's test and evaluation program. The committee made one recommendation—that Defence report back to the committee on: the coordination of test and evaluation across the department; how this is consistent with the outcomes of the recent Defence first principles review; key improvements to performance reporting; and implementation of competency and training arrangements in this area.

I commend the report to the House.

I now move to the second report presented, entitled Development of into the Commonwealth performance framework—Second report.

This report is a continuation of the committee's ongoing scrutiny of the development of the Commonwealth performance framework. The report incorporates the committee's review of the draft 2015-16 annual report rules, and also marks the first time the committee has also considered the annual report rules for corporate Commonwealth entities.

The committee has consulted with other committees of the parliament, on the form and content of annual reports, and has identified issues for further discussion and consideration in the longer term.

The committee has reviewed and approved both rules, and anticipates a broader discussion about enhancing the rules for both corporate and non-corporate entities next year. Further the committee hopes to see legislative changes set by parliament to ensure that annual reports are tabled earlier.

The committee has made two recommendations. The first requests that Finance provide the committee of the 45th Parliament with an incoming brief addressing key issues in the Public Management Reform Agenda. As the PMRA moves into its third stage, it is important that Finance briefs the incoming committee to facilitate prompt and thorough committee engagement.

The second recommendation requests that Finance address a range of issues identified through the inquiry to facilitate consideration of the 2016-17 annual reporting rule in 2017.

I thank the Department of Finance for their continued engagement with the committee.

In conclusion, I wish to thank committee members for their deliberations on these significant matters.

I commend the report to the House.

Mr CONROY (Charlton) (09:36): by leave—I want to briefly talk to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit report No. 456, in particular the review of the LAND 121 project. This was a $3½ billion project to acquire new medium and heavy vehicles for the Army. This tender process was signed off in mid-2007. The ANAO condemned this Defence tender process as one of the most flawed tender processes in recent history. The department failed by claiming it was a low-risk military off-the-shelf acquisition. They failed by recommending a single supplier without test and evaluation. They ignored value for money and they failed to advise the minister at the time of the significant risks in acquiring this project. As the member for Groom highlighted, this resulted in a seven-year delay for capability and increased sustainment costs for an ageing fleet. It cost an extra $700 million to acquire the trucks and it resulted in the acquisition of 261 fewer protected vehicles.

This is a poster child for a failed Defence procurement. There are two issues of concern. First, this occurred post the Kinnaird reforms of 2004-05 that were supposed to put Defence procurement back on track. Secondly, the committee went to some lengths to try and understand the accountability mechanisms within Defence over this failed tender process. We asked, in committee, without identifying the individuals involved—because we did not want a witch-hunt—whether Defence could assure us that there were some negative consequences for the officials involved in the flawed tender process. Unfortunately they could not provide any evidence at the committee hearing, and, so far, they have not provided information on notice as to the eventual outcome of this matter. This goes to a fundamental problem with Defence acquisitions at the moment: is there accountability for the individuals involved in making mistakes? That is something that I would hope the public accounts and audit committee pursues in the 45th parliament. I commend the report to the House.

Mr IAN MACFARLANE (Groom) (09:39): by leave—I present executive minutes on report 447, report 448 and report 449 received by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit.

Mr IAN MACFARLANE (Groom) (09:39): On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit I present the committee's report entitled Report 458 Defence major projects report (2014-15): Review of Auditor-General reports No. 16 (2015-16).

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

Mr IAN MACFARLANE: by leave—The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit report, entitled Defence Major Projects Report (2014-15): Review of Auditor-General Report No. 16 (2015-16), the major projects report, or MPR, consolidates information on major Defence acquisition projects, including cost, schedule and capability performance. It also provides a longitudinal analysis of projects and commentary of Defence's project governance systems.

The reform of the Department of Defence, following the release of the government's First principles review: one Defence in April 2015, represents an opportunity for Defence to redress some of the issues identified within the MPR and by the JCPAA. Ongoing commitment, resourcing and leadership will be required to fully exploit the opportunities that the First Principles Review process offers.

In this year's review of the ANAO-Defence MPR, the committee has reviewed a number of specific projects, including some of the most problematic—namely the Air Warfare Destroyers and the MRH90 helicopter acquisition. The committee notes that, despite expectations that the risks involved in these projects were considered to be mitigated, errors in risk assessments and suboptimal contract arrangements have resulted in Australian taxpayers carrying a greater burden than necessary. That is a small understatement. Despite some significant improvement in project management and capability delivery, the committee remains concerned that slippage of projects is still occurring. It is also disappointing that some large projects, such as the Air Warfare Destroyers, still require significant sums of additional funding despite all the progress that has been made over the past decade in better managing these types of acquisitions. The committee does, however, note with satisfaction that the MPR, as a document and as a process, has developed into an excellent tool to assess the status of Defence major acquisition projects. The committee commends both the ANAO and the Department of Defence on their continued work on this topic—work that shall continue into the next parliament and beyond.

I thank committee members for their deliberation on these significant matters. I commend the report to the House.

As this will be my last address to the House, I thank the committee for their spirit and cooperation and for the way they went about a task which always has the potential to be made a political football, if that is the intent of the individual. That did not occur on this committee and I commend both sides of the House for doing that. The committee's work is extraordinarily important. We are very ably supported by a very professional secretariat. I thank David and his team for the support they have given us. The work of this committee will continue in the next parliament. Despite the fact that I am retiring very soon, as I understand it, I will continue to take great interest in the work of this committee, because its work is crucial. If we are to address some of the major deficiencies in the expenditure of taxpayers' funds, this committee is pivotal to that. So I wish the committee in the 45th Parliament all the best. Thank you.

Mr CONROY (Charlton) (09:43): by leave—I rise to talk about the major projects report—one of the excellent initiatives from the Public Accounts and Audit Committee. The member for Groom was right to highlight a few of the brief issues that have come out from that report. I will not go into detail because today is a very important day for a lot of people, but I just want to highlight a few worrying trends. Firstly, there is the inconsistent treatment of contingency in major projects. This inconsistency adds budget risk to the Commonwealth, and that is of concern. Secondly, there is the treatment of schedule changes when a project is re-baselined by a further government decision—that is, truly understanding the schedule delay if a project goes back for a revised second-pass approval.

Thirdly, I am concerned about the management of project payments by the Department of Defence. To smooth things over when something gets delayed, sometimes they bring payments forward. While that makes sense, it potentially exposes the Commonwealth to forgone revenue.

Fourthly, I want to highlight concerns around the AWD contract, the pain-gain model, and whether people in the private sector that are partners to this contract truly are feeling pain from mismanagement of this contract. I want to highlight that, in evidence to the committee, Defence admitted that both the MRH, the multirole helicopter, and the armed reconnaissance helicopter are still unable to deploy to high-threat environments like the Middle East—despite acquisition starting well over a decade ago, supposedly, for MOTS aircraft. That is something that constrained governments of both persuasions and that needs to be improved upon.

I do want to highlight a good news story, which is that, after concerted actions by the Department of Defence, in particular the Navy, under the last two governments the Collins class submarines are achieving excellent availability. They are hitting their targets. That means that we are getting the training pipeline for new submariners. The Collins is proving to be the best conventionally powered submarine in the world. So, despite a lot of myths out there from the media and other people, the Collins class submarine is a great capability that really is the spearhead for the ADF and it is doing great work. As the chair alluded to, future committee hearings will be looking more at defence sustainment, which is well over half the capability budget for the Department of Defence.

Finally, on behalf of the Labor members, I thank the secretariat. Public Accounts and Audit is one of the premier committees of parliament, and it is served by a great secretariat that does brilliant work. I pay tribute to the two chairs of the committee I have served under in this parliament, the member for Boothby and then the member for Groom. The member for Groom came in as chair in the middle of our most heated inquiry of the last three years, where a few young turks from both sides of parliament were trying to make their names—

Mr Ian Macfarlane: You were one of them!

Mr CONROY: I was one of the young turks—and he controlled us superbly. He looked at the public interest, he understood where people were heading and he managed a very heated committee process very well. So I pay tribute to the members for Groom and Boothby and wish them every success in their future endeavours. Thank you very much.

Mr VAN MANEN (Forde) (09:47): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue, I present the following reports, with minutes of proceedings: 2015 Annual report of the Australian Taxation Office: first report and External scrutiny of the Australian Taxation Office.

Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Mr VAN MANEN: by leave—I wish to speak to both the House Committee on Tax and Revenue's reports just presented, commencing with the report entitled 2015 Annual report of the Australian Taxation Office: first report.

This report reviews the evidence gathered by the inquiry through submissions and the committee's public hearings in February with the Australian Taxation Office, the Inspector-General of Taxation, and other stakeholders. This is part of the regular scrutiny by the parliament of one of the most important agencies of government. It is the fifth such report in the life of this parliament.

The ATO's introduction of new computer systems was again the chief topic of discussion. Take-up of the new web-based lodgement system by individuals, myTax, has been rapid and appears to be going smoothly, albeit that around tax time, in early July, there are glitches and it certainly gets a little bit slower.

Tax practitioners have also complained that the ATO's tax agent portal, which was heavily criticised in previous hearings, was still not functioning well. Practitioners were also concerned that the timetable for replacing the portal was unclear. The committee has recommended in this report that the ATO publish a timetable for that development.

On the other hand, tax professionals reported that the ATO had been more willing to engage with them and to hear their concerns.

The committee welcomed the ATO's caution in retaining the existing electronic lodgement system alongside the new lodgement system which will replace it. The new system will use standard business reporting, which has the potential to create greater efficiencies and reduce red tape for business in their dealings with all areas of government.

The ATO is engaged in a broad and ambitious program of technical and cultural change, which it calls 'reinventing'. This has already shown some good results, but a change such as the one envisaged will take many years and will require sustained energy and engagement of all the senior staff of the ATO.

I now move to the second report presented, entitled External scrutiny of the Australian Taxation Office.

The ATO's main scrutineers are the Auditor-General, the Inspector-General of Taxation, parliamentary committees, the courts, and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The key issue during the inquiry was the extent of overlap between these scrutineers. In particular, some stakeholders suggested that there was overlap in reviews, or that external scrutiny was 'haphazard'. The ATO gave several examples of what it saw as overlap.

The scrutineers, however, rejected these claims. They stated that they held co-ordination meetings that were effective. In addition, some scrutiny reports have described why reviews from different scrutineers were not duplicative, although sounding similar at the 'headline' level.

The committee concluded that the extent of any duplication, if it does occur, is minimal. The committee supports the ability of scrutineers to select the reviews they think are the most valuable and within their mandate. The committee also decided that their co-ordination process is sound.

I would like to make two other comments in relation to the inquiry. The first is that the committee supports the work of external scrutineers. The tax system is complex. The ATO has considerable resources and strong powers. The cost and practicalities of the legal system mean that most taxpayers cannot have their day in court. However, we all benefit from the integrity and expertise of our scrutineers.

My other comment is that the quality of communication between the ATO and the Inspector-General of Taxation appears to be problematic. The committee has recommended that these parties redouble their efforts to improve communication before, during and after reviews. I would personally add that the Inspector-General and the ATO could also look at occasions to engage in dialogue more widely, not just around reviews. My understanding is that both parties would welcome such an opportunity.

Both inquiries benefitted from the views of stakeholders, the scrutineers and the ATO. The committee very much appreciates the time, effort and expertise that stakeholders applied to their submissions. The committee also appreciates the contribution made by witnesses at the hearings and their readiness to engage with the committee.

Finally, I would like to thank the secretariat for their tremendous work over the course of this parliament. It was my privilege to chair the committee for the second half of this parliament. So, to David Monk, the committee secretary, and the team, thank you very, very much for all of your hard work. I know they are here in the chamber. I would like to thank my colleagues on the committee for their support and assistance during the inquiries and, in particular, the deputy chair, Bernie Ripoll, who is now retiring and leaving this place

I commend the reports to the House.

Mr VAN MANEN (Forde) (09:53): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services I present the following reports: Impairment of customer loans and the report on the 2014-15 annual reports of bodies established under the ASIC Act.

Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Mr VAN MANEN: by leave—The first report that I wish to speak to is the Impairment of customer loans. The terms of reference for this inquiry into the impairment of customer loans required the committee to consider the practices of banks towards borrowers' financial difficulty and the role of constructive or non-monetary defaults which include breaches of loan contract terms other than borrowers not meeting repayment requirements.

The committee is aware that the matters raised in this inquiry have been examined previously, and, despite previous examination, allegations continue to be raised. In order to ensure that the issues raised during the inquiry were thoroughly examined, the committee has:

conducted this inquiry over 11 months;

received and published 195 submissions;

considered more than 11,000 thousand pages of evidence;

held eight public hearings leading to more than 450 pages of transcribed evidence;

asked and received answers to over 300 written questions;

examined a number of cases in some detail to gain an understanding of the practices of banks.

The majority of the evidence received by the committee addressed small business and commercial loans. Many are small family businesses who may still have to borrow millions of dollars to achieve their commercial objectives yet be run by an individual, family or partnership that has significant personal exposure due to the use of personal assets such as the family home as security.

From the evidence it has received, the committee has been able to determine that there has been—albeit in a minority of cases—a persistent pattern of abuse of the almost complete asymmetry of power in the relationship between lender and borrower.

The committee has not been able to discover evidence that demonstrates that there was widespread or systematic illegal behaviour by banks or that there were deliberate impairments of loans motivated solely by clawbacks or warranties associated with acquisitions of banks. However, the committee does consider that there are four factors that create an environment in which small business borrowers are very vulnerable and that banks are able to exploit this vulnerability. These factors are:

the significant level of discretion and commercial judgement available to the banks for both initial lending and the management of loans in financial difficulty;

complex, non-negotiable loan contracts, coupled with gaps in existing legislation and regulations, give banks the power to behave in ways that—in relation to loans—are unethical, unreasonable and lack transparency;

in many cases, borrowers in financial difficulty are unable to pursue their rights though the courts because the process in either unaffordable, or they have lost control of their financial assets due to the appointment of receivers; and

there are significant gaps in the coverage of mediation and external dispute resolution schemes leaving borrowers without the means to have their disputes with banks tested.

The committee considers that to address the vulnerability of small business and commercial borrowers it is essential that a single body be empowered to:

lead and/or coordinate the implementation of the outcomes of this inquiry and recent government announcements that relate to small business in order to avoid the significant risk that major gaps and flaws in the protections for small business would remain;

bring together a team with expertise in financial services, ethics and education to establish standards for the conduct of bank management and their employees in relation to small business loans and to work with the banking industry to implement those standards and appropriate mediation and dispute resolution schemes;

work with the banking industry to develop nationally consistent standardised loan contracts; and

where gaps in the implementation of those standards and appropriate dispute resolution schemes remain, to act as a small business loans dispute resolution tribunal.

The committee considers that the most appropriate body to undertake this role is the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. The committee therefore recommends that the government bring forward legislation and other measures to give the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman the relevant powers to carry out this role, and to do so retrospectively where appropriate.

The committee has made a number of other recommendations in relation to practices of banks, valuers and receivers.

I commend the report to the House.

Mr RUDDOCK (Berowra) (09:59): by leave—I thank the member for Forde for tabling the report and his comments about it. I do not normally, I might say, participate in committees that deal with such complex and difficult issues relating to financial affairs. It is not my area of expertise. So, it was with a good deal of trepidation that I joined the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services to conduct the inquiry in relation to impairment of customer loans. But I did so because I became aware, in my role as a member of parliament, that there were people who had been dealing with one particular bank who suddenly found that they were on the brink of bankruptcy because loans that they had negotiated were found to be impaired, and I wanted to see a situation where we could understand what was happening and try to find a way forward.

Parliamentary committees are probably not the best way to do it. If you read the terms of reference—and the minister at the table gave us these terms of reference, as I recall—you will find that we were asked to look at:

a. practices of banks and other financial institutions using a constructive default (security revaluation) process to impair loans, where constructive default/security revaluation means the engineering or the creation of an event of default whereby a financial institution deliberately reduces, through valuation, the value of securities held by that institution, thereby raising the loan-to-value ratio resulting in the loan being impaired;

b. role of property valuers…;

c. practices of banks and other financial institutions in Australia using non-monetary conditions of default to impair the loans of their customers, and the use of punitive clauses such as suspension clauses and offset clauses by these institutions;

I do not regard a parliamentary committee as being able to adequately deal with these issues, and I will explain why. If you are going to inquire as to who is to be believed in relation to issues like impairment then you effectively have to hear the evidence from the party who believes they are aggrieved, you need to hear the evidence of the people against whom accusations are made, and, in order to try to determine the truth, you need to comprehensively cross-examine each of the parties to be able to find where the truth lies.

When you have a committee, where other members have an entitlement, you can never get to a point where you are adequately able to test the evidence that is before you. So, one should not be surprised that the committee, in its consideration, uses language like:

The committee considered allegations that there was a deliberate strategy by the Commonwealth Bank to over-impair loans in order to seek financial gain through a range of mechanisms after the acquisition of Bankwest in 2007. After considering the evidence and responses it has received, the committee has not been able to determine that deliberate impairment of loans, solely motivated by clawbacks or warranties, occurred.

The reason you can never get to that is that you can never effectively cross-examine the parties and test the evidence. A parliamentary committee specifically was not able to look at all of those issues.

I want to draw a further point in relation to this, because the committee went on to observe:

While the contractual arrangements associated with the acquisition of Bankwest may have played a role, the evidence before the committee points strongly to a culture of placing profit and return to shareholders ahead of the interests of borrowers.

The most interesting aspect of this inquiry, to me, was that there was an opportunity to consider evidence in relation to two banks where there were suggestions that loans may have been impaired deliberately, and the practices involving each bank were different. For me, the Commonwealth Bank has meant a great deal. I have known many of its senior executives over a lifetime. I had one of its money boxes—which I am sure most people will remember—given to me at school. I look at somebody like David Murray, who is contributing to national debate and who has been a very, very important leader in relation to probity and appropriate conduct. I look at somebody like Les Taylor, whom I knew as the bank's corporate counsel. I look at those who have followed and I cannot see people conducting themselves in the same way.

I do not know on what basis the Commonwealth Bank were asked to take over Bankwest, but it is quite clear that, having been asked by the government to do so, they were a bit worried about the nature of the loan book they received. There is a Mr Narev. I have never met him, but he has made some comments that they thought they were getting a lot of lesser quality loans. That may lead to a situation where 2,000 loans were impaired—it may. They may have been lesser loans. I do not know. But what I am reasonably satisfied about is that in numbers of cases there have been suggestions to me that if the bank had been reasonable and had talked matters through—had negotiated with their clients—the matters might have been resolved very differently.

I will mention just one case. A client of the bank's who was building units in Sydney found, regrettably, that the principal of the building company he had employed had died. The client was worried about whether those who followed would be able to complete the contract. He went to the bank and said, 'Look, I would like to change the builder, to engage a major constructor, Hornibrook, to finish the job.' The bank said no. When the builder did not deliver the project in a timely way, the bank called up its interests, essentially closed down the operation and sold the property—and, I might say, somebody else made an absolute killing in finishing it off. I would like to think that banks, when they are faced with a situation like that, would sit down with people and work out the appropriate way to deal with these issues. I know that they have not conducted themselves unlawfully but I think they have conducted themselves in ways that, in some cases, are absolutely unconscionable.

A committee like this was never going to be able to get to the bottom of that, but I think it is very important for a new government to be aware of the recommendations that are being made in this report, because we have to find a way forward where these issues will be addressed. I have encouraged the Commonwealth Bank, when they have appeared before us, to sit down, like others have—and I refer to the ANZ bank—with their clients, work out where the problem is and come to a reasonable, negotiated settlement. The Commonwealth Bank has essentially refused to do it. I encouraged them, when they appeared before us, to put in place a situation of independent mediation where we could enable people's issues to be adequately tested and address the issue as to whether the bank—not that they had acted unlawfully, because I am absolutely certain they had the best legal advice; they were never going to act unlawfully—had clearly acted unconscionably.

Recommendation 11 in this report is absolutely essential to providing a way forward. It recommends that:

a. lenders should engage independent experts nominated by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman to critically examine contentious cases to determine what, if any, restitution may be appropriate in the light of the standards developed by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, with particular regard to unconscionable conduct; and

b. that funding through a user pays industry funding model be provided to Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman acting as a tribunal to consider cases retrospectively in the event that lenders do not choose to voluntarily examine contentious cases as recommended above.

So the banks will have two choices. One is to appoint independent mediators and to work these issues through. And, if they do not, there will be a body set up to consider those cases retrospectively in the context of whether or not their behaviour was unconscionable. These are remedies in relation to consumer protection that we expect in every other area, and they ought to be available to the banks' clientele.

If you think I am passionate about it, I am, because I believe that people have been treated quite unjustly. And I very much regret how the Commonwealth Bank, invited to look at these issues—probably because of the enormity of the potential claims—approached this. Imagine if you have 2,000 customers all looking for $1 million compensation; $2 billion might come off the balance sheet, and wouldn't that be dreadful? You can see why they may be taking such a view. But, let me say, I did say to the banks during the inquiries, 'Look, you ought to sit down and deal with these matters independently, and if you do not then you may be faced with a royal commission.'

I want to speak about that issue because some comments have been made that others are taking up the view that perhaps there should be a royal commission. I want to make it very clear that I support the recommendations of this report because I think they provide a better way forward, and that ought to be understood. If there were a royal commission, it would be doing merely what our parliamentary committee did before. It may be able to get to the point where it cross-examines and gets a better understanding of what has happened, but at the end it will make further recommendations. That would not be the end of the matter, if a royal commission were appointed. It would mean another inquiry.

My view is that the recommendations this committee has made to set up a body that will be retrospectively empowered to adjudicate on those issues are a far better way to go and will give a more meaningful result. That is why I support the recommendations of this report. But let me just say to my colleagues at the table—because I know that if the government are returned, given the responsibilities that they hold, they may be looking at this issue—that I want to make it very clear that I am a great fan of the Commonwealth Bank. I want to see its reputation restored. And I believe—and I hope the bank is listening to this speech or will read it—that its reputation will be restored only if it is prepared in good faith, with independent arbiters, to deal with these issues, not in terms of the lawfulness of what has happened but absolutely in terms of whether or not the conduct was unconscionable. If they do that, there may be some justice.

Mr RUDDOCK (Berowra) (10:13): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade I present the committee's report of its inquiry into the death penalty, entitled A world without the death penalty: Australia’s advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty.

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

Mr RUDDOCK: by leave—I can genuinely say that this may be my last speech in this chamber. And, having just heard me on another matter, members may know that I do have passion about some issues. I am passionate about achieving a world without the death penalty. I have been chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and I was certainly pleased to be able to conclude a report in a timely way entitled A world without the death penalty: Australia's advocacy for the abolition of capital punishment.

Ideally, this inquiry should not be necessary. Ideally, we would live in a world where the death penalty was relegated to the dark pages of history. Sadly, this is not the case. Indeed, the need for Australia to take stock of the situation and solidify our efforts for global abolition has never been more pressing. This inquiry was undertaken with a view to determining what role Australia might play in the global movement towards abolition; how we, as an abolitionist country, might play a role in reducing the number of executions globally and best assist retentionist nations on the pathway toward abolition.

In 1977, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty. Today, a majority of countries have abolished it in law or in practice, with four countries last year making the transition to abolitionist. While 2015 marked the first time that a majority of countries were abolitionist, it also recorded an increase in executions carried out. Of all executions recorded in 2015, 89 per cent were carried out in just three countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I might say that there are others who do not report the numbers that they execute, and in some cases they may be even larger. However, the United States of America has found itself in the unenviable list of countries carrying out the most recorded executions, even though, as I have said, China and North Korea are both suspected of having carried out far more. I regret that, as recently as this week, media reporting suggests that a country, or perhaps countries, in our region may also be considering a resumption of executions. Were that to be so, it would be most regrettable.

The application of the death penalty is not limited to hardened criminals guilty of the most serious crimes. Indeed, the list of those executed or under sentence of death includes people with intellectual disabilities and juvenile offenders, and in many cases people were sentenced following trials that did not meet international fair standards of trial. Of those sentenced in recent times, some have been found guilty of apostasy, blasphemy, homosexuality, witchcraft or adultery—let me say, not terrorism and not murders. The death penalty is never carried out in a way that could be deemed to be humane, with some even being sentenced to death by stoning.

Last year, 2015, marked the sad occasion where Australian convicted drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in Indonesia. This event sadly focused the minds of many Australians on the issue of the death penalty, and left many wondering what we, as a nation, might do to eliminate this barbarous practice. I am pleased that the government has sought to answer this question by referring this inquiry to the committee that I have chaired, and through its other activities. We can be proud of Australia's advocacy for abolition, but there is more that we can and should do.

The report that I am presenting to the parliament today comprises thirteen recommendations. After many months of public hearings, private meetings, in-depth research and consultation, the committee has arrived at these recommendations as a way that Australia can effectively drive change. Included in the committee's report is a recommendation to develop a whole-of-government strategy for abolition. This includes changes to the way in which we share information internationally, developing a coordinated strategy document for dealing with individual cases, developing a strategy for international abolition efforts, undertaking much needed research and analysis, advocating for transparency, and augmenting the work already undertaken by other nations.

In developing a formal strategy, we will join the United Kingdom and Norway, who are actively advocating for abolition internationally. The committee also recommends that Australia plays an ongoing leading role in the abolition movement, including the World Congress Against the Death Penalty. Recommendations outlined in this report are realistic and practical.

While it is inappropriate for the committee to opine how broad recommendations may be pursued, I believe that in any consideration of priorities we should include powerful international influence. For instance, if the United States, our closest ally, were to change its policy, I think it would present a powerful argument for many others to follow.

Australia has a strong voice on the global stage, and our ability to coordinate our approach with other influential partners may well be beneficial.

I do thank all the witnesses who made themselves available to this inquiry. I particularly note the involvement of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Federal Police, and the Attorney-General's Department. I am grateful to foreign governments for their willingness to assist this inquiry and for the dedication of organisations including Amnesty International, Reprieve, Human Rights Law Centre, Australians Against Capital Punishment, Human Rights Watch, Parliamentarians for Global Action and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, along with many other organisations who have contributed.

Having campaigned against the death penalty for all of my time since entering this place some 42½ years ago, it seems fitting that I am able to present this report as the sun sets on my parliamentary career. Somebody else must have written that for me! I am honoured to do so. I thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, for this reference and her keen and ongoing interest in Australia's effort to abolish the death penalty. I thank particularly my colleagues whom I have waved at formally before, who have played a key role in this inquiry: my colleague the member for Fowler, Chris Hayes, who has co-chaired Parliamentarians against the Death Penalty, and my retiring colleague the member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke. For their dedicated work, I thank the staff of the joint standing committee, including Vikki Darrough, Nathan Fewkes, Sonya Fladun and Emma Banyer, led ably by our committee clerk, who is hiding behind there, Jerome Brown, whom I acknowledge as the leader. He ensured that we were able to do this report in a timely way; he is, with his team, extraordinarily professional, and I do want to thank them. I also acknowledge my staff member Ross Macdonald for his work. It may not be known that he worked previously with my Senate colleague and friend from the ACT previously, who played a leadership role in these matters, and he comes with a personal compassion that I know only too well.

The death penalty is barbaric. It degrades those who perpetrate it. The result is final. But, for me, the most basic principle of human rights, the right to life, should always prevail. I commend this report to the House.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): Member for Berowra, would you mind moving that the House take note of the report?

Mr RUDDOCK: I have failed on my last day! Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough. With great pleasure, I move:

That the House take note of the report—

this very, very significant report.

Debate adjourned.

Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (10:25): On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on Trade and Investment Growth, I present the committee's report on its inquiry into Australia's future in research and innovation, together with minutes of the proceedings.

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

Mr O'DOWD: by leave—Australia faces a world of rapid change as technology creates opportunities to develop new solutions to social and economic problems. Through the inquiry into Australia's future in research and innovation, the committee examined whether Australia's innovation system is enabling the realisation of these opportunities and creating valuable new products, processes and industries.

Delving deeper, the committee considered how ideas created through research and innovation are developed and commercialised. The committee heard from a diverse range of participants in the innovation system, from university researchers to venture capitalists; from start-up software businesses to world-leading medical companies.

Inquiry participants generally welcomed the government's National Innovation and Science Agenda, or NISA. The NISA contains a suite of initiatives designed to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship across all sectors of the Australian economy.

As research and innovation is a progressive field globally, the committee has recommended that the NISA initiatives be reviewed after three years to assess their effectiveness and determine whether they should be continued.

The foundations of Australia's innovation system are strong. Australia has a well-educated population, globally recognised research organisations, and a stable business environment.

It is questionable, however, whether we are taking full advantage of the opportunities that this foundation provides. The committee heard that Australia's record of translating investments in the research sector into outcomes with social and economic benefit could be improved.

One area of potential improvement is the exchange of knowledge between the research sector and business. Rates of collaboration between Australian universities and business are among the lowest in the OECD.

Increased collaboration with researchers and universities could assist business to develop novel solutions to the real world problems being faced. Collaborative research is also crucial to developing the disruptive technologies that could form the basis of new companies and industries.

In view of this, the committee has recommended that the Department of Education and Training examine successful overseas models which could be adapted and used to encourage greater collaboration between universities and businesses in Australia.

Innovative ideas are the fuel for new and improved goods and services, but their development requires capital investment. Australia's innovative start-up companies have often struggled to attract the early-stage investment needed to grow their business.

While still small, the committee was pleased to see signs of growth in Australia's capital venture market. This positive development could be enhanced by initiatives announced by NISA. These include the establishment of a biomedical translation fund and reform to the tax treatment of early-stage investments.

The committee has recommended that Innovation and Science Australia identify emerging industries where Australia has the potential to become a world leader. The committee has also recommended further examination of possible measures to encourage innovation raised by participants during the inquiry.

I would like to thank all those who participated in the inquiry by providing information and submissions and appearing at our public hearings. Finally, I would like to thank my deputy chair, the member for Charlton, Mr Pat Conroy, and my fellow committee members, including Senator Joe Bullock, who has now left the other house, for their support and participation in this inquiry. I would like to thank the secretariat, Stephanie Mikac, John Carter, Timothy Brennan and Carissa Skinner, for the splendid way they pulled together this inquiry. A lot of work was done by them and it is very much appreciated by the committee. I commend the report to the House.

Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP (Mackellar) (10:40): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts I present the committee's report entitled Arts and the news to rural and regional Australiatogether with the minutes of proceedings.

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

Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP: by leave—Rural and regional Australians deserve access to high-quality arts performances and reliable news services. This inquiry has been a timely and productive examination of how well rural and regional communities are currently served in these two distinct, but important, areas.

The live performance industry in Australia each year reaches millions of people, enriching their lives and providing a host of community and health benefits, as well as contributing millions of dollars to the economy. In 2012, the live performance industry generated $2.546 million (value adding $1.529 million to the Australian economy) and employed over 18,000 people.

As a group, Australia's major performing arts companies reached 16 million people in 2014-15, through live arts performances and broadcasts or recordings of their own work. In 2015, the major performing arts companies delivered live arts performances and arts programs to close to four million people in metropolitan and regional areas.

Major performing arts companies like Opera Australia and The Australian Ballet bring excellence to the one-third of Australians who live in rural and regional communities. Opera Australia, as Australia's national opera company, presents more than 700 performances each year, reaching more than half a million people. Since 1996 it has toured to 110 different venues, presented 549 high-quality performances and travelled more than 280,000 kilometres around the country. The Australian Ballet delivers 200 performances in cities and regional areas across Australia each year, reaching over 10,000 people in regional communities.

The performances and interactive programs delivered by these groups are highly valued by these communities, and often have a profound impact on audiences and participants. They can also be an important source of inspiration for, and have a long-lasting impact on, students and local professionals. These groups, and the other performing arts companies, play a crucial role in shaping and reflecting Australia's cultural identity.

In 2014 there were over 18.5 million tickets for attendances at live arts performances, exceeding the football sporting code attendances of over 13.7 million that year. This was a 3.4 per cent increase on 2013 attendances at live arts performances. In Australia, which prides itself on being a sporting nation, the ticket numbers for attendances for live arts performances reflect that the arts are most highly valued.

Touring is one of the key ways in which people in rural and regional communities can access quality live performances without having to visit a capital city or larger metropolitan area. Regional touring is generally undertaken by Australia's major performing arts companies and some small to medium arts groups, and is usually subsidised to some degree by the company itself. These touring and regional engagement activities also typically receive government funding support. The performing arts groups do an outstanding job in delivering tours and regional engagement activities to rural and regional communities. There is wide demand for these shows and engagement, and they are highly valued by people in these communities. Australia's major performing arts companies recognise the importance of enabling everyone, regardless of how far they may live from a major metropolitan centre, access to the very best Australia has to offer.

While regional tours often run at a loss, with groups regularly subsidising their touring activities, they tend to regard it as an 'investment', rather than a loss. Governments must see its funding for these tours and activities in a similar light.

The committee's nine recommendations relating to the arts are aimed at helping to ensure that the excellent work already being done continues and, where possible, is further enhanced. The committee accordingly recommends: the continuation of funding for Australia's major performing arts companies; the government take into account the dynamic and changing nature of the arts in grants programs, including acknowledging the dynamic nature of the major performing arts companies, like Opera Australia, which sees its repertoire as evolving, for example, to include amplified performances and musicals, and challenges the definition of opera so it is not stuck in a 19th century form of opera that makes it part of the past rather than part of the future; the government, when assessing the effectiveness of its funding, encourage the educative role that performing arts companies play—for example, the Australian Ballet, which brings professional excellence to these communities in its performances, and through its interactions with schools has reached thousands of teachers and students; maintaining adequate funding for the Australia Council for the Playing Australia program; national touring status arrangements are retained and extended to additional performing arts companies; the Australia Council explore ways to encourage and formalise mentoring arrangements between performing arts companies and rural and regional communities; the new Catalyst Australian Arts and Culture Fund be evaluated, and this be reported on the department's website to heighten awareness of the program; the government consider funding and support for digital innovation in the delivery of the arts; and the eligibility for the Catalyst Australian Arts and Culture fund includes competitions and eisteddfods.

Commercial, public and community broadcasters play important roles in providing news services to people in rural and regional Australia. The ability to access diverse local content, including news and emergency information, is vitally important to Australians living outside of the major metropolitan centres. People in these communities should have equitable access to fast and reliable broadband and related services. The government needs to take the necessary actions to help ensure that rural and regional communities continue to receive reliable and quality news services, including locally relevant content.

The committee makes seven recommendations aimed at providing the necessary support for regional services in the changing media landscape. Accordingly, the committee recommends: reducing broadcast licence fees for free-to-air and community broadcasters; the need for the government to take into account the implications of any reforms to media ownership on broadcasting and news services to rural and regional Australia; reviewing the existing broadcast licencing system to consider the adequacy of the concept of 'local' and the provision of incentives for broadcasters who deliver more targeted local content to rural and regional audiences; ensuring that the ABC board is more representative of the Australian community, including rural and regional communities and ensure two members are from rural and regional Australia; changes to the ABC Code of Practice to include a requirement that any correction or clarification must be made on the relevant program in which the error was made, in addition to being published on the ABC website; developing a level playing field for public, commercial and community broadcasters in adhering to standards for broadcasting; developing a framework to enhance the accuracy and accountability of the ABC; and the SBS and ABC remaining as separate entities.

On behalf of the committee, I thank the organisations and individuals that assisted the committee during the inquiry through submissions and giving evidence at public hearings. I also thank my colleagues, the deputy chair, Mr Tim Watts MP, and other members of the committee—Mr Laurie Ferguson, Ms Nola Marino, Mr Graham Perrett, Ms Melissa Price, Mr Rowan Ramsey, Ms Maria Vamvakinou and Mrs Lucy Wicks—for their contribution to the report. I would also like to thank committee secretary, Mr Stephen Boyd; inquiry secretary, Ms Samantha Mannette; senior researcher, Dr John White; and the secretariat team for their diligent work on the report. I commend the report to the House.

Mrs MARKUS (Macquarie) (10:49): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, I present the committee's report of the inquiry into the Seasonal Worker Program entitled Seasonal change.

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

Mrs MARKUS: by leave—It gives me great pleasure to present the committee's report for its inquiry into the Seasonal Worker Program. The Seasonal Worker Program is extremely important to the developing nations of the Pacific islands and Timor Leste as well as the Australian horticultural and agricultural industries. It assists these nations by providing valuable employment opportunities, economic development through remittances, and new skills and training for seasonal workers. It also supports the Australian horticulture industry by filling a significant industry labour shortage with hardworking, reliable and productive employees.

While this is a valuable program providing job opportunities for Australians, particularly in the areas of labour shortages, there appear to be poor perceptions surrounding the agriculture industry—in particular, that it lacks viable career pathways. More needs to be done to change this misconception and to support youth employment pathways.

That is why the committee has recommended the Australian government allocate funds to establish a three-year pilot program for 17- to 24-year-olds to train and work in the agricultural sector, a Future Force, similar to the model of the Green Army Program, with appropriate adjustments. Overall, submitters were very supportive of the program and its objective to contribute to economic development and support Australian employers in the horticultural sector.

However, the committee received evidence that there were a number of impediments preventing the program from reaching its full potential. Most notably is the horticultural industry's significant reliance on working holiday maker visa holders. Over 41,000 second working holiday visas were granted in the last financial year, 2014-15, and over 92 per cent indicated they had engaged in agricultural work.

While the impetus to establish the working holiday visa is for cultural exchange, the reality is it fills a significant labour gap within the industry and it has been asserted that is in competition with the Seasonal Worker Program. The committee has therefore recommended that the Australian government undertake a comprehensive review of the changes to the seasonal worker and holiday maker programs by December 2017 to ensure they are meeting their stated goals and not adversely impacting on each other or the local labour market.

Female participation in the program remains very low, at only 13 per cent of participation in the last financial year. Gender equality and empowering women has been shown to contribute to economic growth, development, stability and poverty reduction. The committee has made a number of recommendations aimed at increasing gender equality and providing women with greater employment opportunities.

The committee also recommended that the Australian government standardise labour market testing requirements across the range of temporary work visas, undertake a review of current superannuation requirements for Seasonal Worker Program participants and consider expanding the program to the aged-care, childcare and disability care sectors, as has already happened in the north of Australia. The committee recommends that the Seasonal Worker Program provide an employment pathway for Australia Pacific Technical College graduates.

I would sincerely like to thank all the stakeholders, particularly the governments of Seasonal Worker Program participating countries, approved employers and growers, peak bodies, government departments, academics, unions that presented, and organisations and individuals, for their time in preparing submissions and appearing at public hearings. I would also like to thank my hardworking committee colleagues for participating in this inquiry. I would particularly like to thank the deputy chair, Maria Vamvakinou. She and I have been chairing or deputy chairing this committee for some time now. I would also like to thank Jerome Brown, the committee secretary, and Paul Zinkel, the inquiry secretary.

The report was very insightful. There have been a number of challenges, as we heard, particularly in the last 12 months, around labour market hire companies and their work in the agricultural sector. This was an issue that was particularly raised with us. While the compliance and other settings around the Seasonal Worker Program are very strict and we are seeing employers choosing the Seasonal Worker Program as a better, safer, more reliable option with more integrity, we did hear about some issues. The government has taken serious action through Taskforce Cadena and other measures to ensure workers in the agricultural sector are treated fairly and receive all their work entitlements. I move:

That the House take note of the report.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): The debate is adjourned in accordance with standing order 39. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Mrs MARKUS (Macquarie) (10:55): I move:

That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.

Question agreed to.

Mr MATHESON (Macarthur) (10:56): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, I present the committee's report on its inquiry into the jurisdiction of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

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

Dr STONE (Murray) (10:56): On behalf of the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the committee's first report of the inquiry into development partnerships in agriculture, entitled Food for thought: improving health and nutrition in the Indo-Pacific region.

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

Dr STONE: by leave—On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Aid Subcommittee, I am pleased to present the committee's first report for the inquiry into the role of development partnerships in agriculture and agribusiness in promoting poverty reduction, economic growth and regional stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

This first report offers some directions on what Australia can do to improve health and nutrition outcomes for our nearby Indo-Pacific region, and particularly for our nearest neighbours in the Pacific.

The evidence taken during the inquiry urged the committee to note that there is a looming health crisis in our region.

By 2050 the global demand for food is expected to rise by 60 per cent. Meeting the need for a sustainable supply of nutritious and affordable food will be 'one of the greatest challenges of our time'.

The Indo-Pacific region is the epicentre of a youth bulge. Significant nutrition deficits will not only have grave implications for maternal and child health but also have long-term economic and population health impacts.

This report details the result of increasing affluence in some families, where, despite more of family income being spent on food, it is not necessarily being spent to purchase food with a higher nutritional value. Urbanisation, changed agricultural production, the incursion of urban development, the migration of men and youths to cities or overseas and changes in trading patterns in the Pacific region are all making a difference to what people have access to in the way of food and the preferences in food consumption.

As local food production and fishing industries have fewer people engaged in them and often overseas remittances provide families with additional income, unhealthy imported convenience foods—for example, fatty mutton flaps, turkey tails, turkey necks and other offcuts from the abattoirs of the US—typically become available in quantities, and often at a price, where they become a preferred and higher status food for many consumers. Tinned spam and fish is too often replacing the fresh meats and fresh fish which once underpinned the local diet.

The result is that the enduring challenge of malnutrition, particularly among mothers and children, has transformed into a double burden of both overnutrition and undernutrition, sometimes occurring in the same communities.

The statistics presented to the committee bear this out. For example:

in Papua New Guinea, 49 per cent of children are stunted, while 13.8 per cent of the children under five are overweight or obese; and

In the Solomon Islands, 33 per cent of children are stunted, while 39 per cent of women are obese.

The health impacts of poor nutrition, combined with the rising price of healthier fresh foods, a more sedentary lifestyle and a lack of knowledge about dietary health are placing high cost burdens on communities, particularly in relation to health services.

In Pacific island countries, the incidence of non-communicable diseases has escalated, with some of the world's highest rates of obesity and associated diseases, such as diabetes, recorded in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. In August last year a diabetes related amputation was being carried out in Fiji every 12 hours. This year, in Vanuatu, 11 diabetes associated amputations had occurred by April.

The solution to these problems is clearly not just a matter of increasing food supply. Rather, better information about nutritional values, food storage and preparation, better support for local food production and some control on advertising unhealthy food choices for children all play a part.

Contrary to conventional assumptions, improvements to income or GDP do not automatically lead to improvements in health or better nutrition, as shown in Australia, where poor dietary choices and excess sugar and fat are often part of the rise in diabetes.

At the same time, affordable fresh food and sustainable local industries to produce it can improve the health and incomes of the poor in the region. Australia in particular has expertise in how to manage agriculture, use small-scale equipment and look at better genetics for livestock. We are in a perfect position to assist these countries to ensure their own food production remains stable and, indeed, is even improved.

Often women remain the main workers in agriculture in the region. But, as more men leave communities to migrate to the cities or overseas, women are having to assume even greater roles. Some refer to the feminisation of farming in the Mekong. We took evidence of how some equipment traditionally used by men in agriculture is now being modified—in particular, being made smaller—so women can use it. This is a very important development.

A focus on what has been termed as 'nutrition sensitive' agriculture intervention results from international recognition that agricultural development is facing extraordinary threats, including encroaching urbanisation, less access to water, soil erosion and local pollution. We know we must carefully target these particular communities, taking on board their particular challenges, if we are going to improve nutrition outcomes.

This approach takes into account the broader social underpinnings of economic wellbeing, including the clear nexus between women's involvement in agriculture, their status, their education, good nutrition and health.

With women now in charge of around half of the farms in the region, as men move offshore to paid work and to send remittances home, women's empowerment—from working as farm and financial managers, as family educators and as cooks—has never been more important to the region's prosperity, health and wellbeing.

The subcommittee was pleased to see advances for women in agriculture being considered in the context of the Australian government's recent commitment to integrate gender and nutrition programs. I am so pleased that more than 80 per cent of our Australian aid programming is directed towards the empowerment of women.

A companion policy focuses on child nutrition, in recognition of the importance of good nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life, without which a child will never reach their physical nor intellectual potential.

The subcommittee's report examined closely global donor commitments to support nutrition-specific programs, for child and maternal health, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture policies, to address malnutrition, and we found that Australia is making commitments but could be taking more of a leadership and coordination role in improving nutrition in the region.

The report makes four recommendations, with the first being to develop a stronger regional policy and funding focus on nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive activities under our overseas development assistance program.

Much of the evidence gathered during the inquiry, in some 50 submissions and during public hearings, documented the tremendous work being done in agriculture related programs by regional governments, organisations, businesses and universities, in partnership with the Australian government and its agencies. In particular, we commend the excellent work of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and the CSIRO.

The final recommendation calls for improved education and analysis, and for greater co-ordination between multisector partners to act more decisively on nutrition related initiatives. This includes us continuing to engage and partner with our Pacific neighbours in the Scaling Up Nutrition movement and to make the 'double burden’ in the region a global priority, in partnership and with leadership from Australia.

I commend the report to the House.

Mr BILLSON (Dunkley) (11:31): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme I present the committee's report entitled Accommodation for people with disabilities and the NDIS, together with the evidence received by the committee.

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

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mr BILLSON: I would like to thank my friend and colleague Mr Husic for his encouragement! In tabling this report I recognise the bipartisan—the omniparliamentary—support for the NDIS. And what a great achievement it will be when it is fully rolled out. I extend the committee's congratulations to all who were involved in that important mission for our generation.

Enabling people with disability to have choice and control over their lives is one of the central tenets of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. At present, Australians with disability are not assured of access to housing that is suitable for their needs. This has been an issue at a local, state and national level for some time and amongst so many of us in this parliament. And, as was noted in the committee's 2015 report, the lack of adequate housing can significantly limit people's ability to fully exercise choice and control. Ultimately, it restricts their ability to participate in society and live an ordinary life.

Hence, as part of the committee's review of the implementation, administration, and expenditure of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the committee decided to examine the issue of affordable and appropriate accommodation for people with disabilities. The committee noted in its most recent annual report, in July 2015, that the lack of adequate accommodation can limit people's ability to fully exercise their individual choice and control over their lives. It can also limit a person's ability to fully participate in society and to live a life with ambitions that we all share as Australian citizens.

On 23 October 2015 the committee concluded a round table hearing here in Canberra on housing. This was the first part of the committee's inquiry into accommodation for people with disabilities. The committee received 56 submissions to the inquiry. I would like to thank all of those who took the time not only to present their ideas to the committee but to engage in the discussions the committee instigated.

The committee has put forward four core recommendations to government to assist in addressing these important issues. I will not dwell on them for too long, other than to say that this is something that needs to be addressed, and the national disability peak organisations throughout our country as well as the state, territory and Commonwealth governments should liaise and work closely with the Australian Building Codes Board to examine updating the Building Code of Australia regarding to accessibility.

Another recommendation was to encourage the idea that accommodation for people with disability be integral to the development of affordable and social housing policy proposals more generally. A third recommendation was to urge the Commonwealth to explore all possible proposals for disability accommodation and ways in which the Commonwealth can assist in bringing them to fruition. Recommendation 4 was about the Commonwealth assessing how financially accessible housing is for people with a disability and their families as part of that examination of bringing different disability accommodation proposals to fruition.

Recommendation 5 supports the idea of the Department of Social Services clarifying the status of the Supported Accommodation Innovation Fund, and, if the fund is no longer available, whether other initiatives will either complement or replace it over time. The final recommendation urges the Commonwealth to explore capital sharing, securitisation and joint ownership options to expand the provision of appropriate accommodation for people with disabilities.

In the moments that are available to me, I would like to thank the committee for its work over the journey. We have been extraordinarily well served, as so many of us in this chamber know, by our committee staff: the secretary, Mark Fitt; the principal research officer, Gerry McInally, who has been confused as being my brother; senior research officer, Fiona Gardner; senior research officer, Natasha Rusjakovski; and also administrative officer, Hannah Dunn. I commend this report to the parliament. I urge all members to acquaint themselves with the recommendations and findings.

In a moment of pure indulgence, may I acknowledge and thank my bodacious wife, Kate, and my delightful children, who are in the chamber. My valedictory was impromptu and not able to be shared by my family.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mr BILLSON: My friend Mr Husic has pointed out that, yes, I am indeed batting well above my average, and I thank him for pointing that out. I thank my sweetheart wife and my children for their unstinting support in public life. I love them; I admire them. I am eternally grateful and I will be home soon.

Dr JENSEN (Tangney) (11:36): On behalf the Standing Committee on Petitions, I present the committee's report, entitled The work of the Petitions Committee: 2013-2016, together with the minutes of the proceedings.

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

Dr JENSEN: by leave—It has been a privilege to serve on the Petitions Committee for two terms. In the last parliament I was deputy chair and for this term I was chair of the Petitions Committee. This committee has a significant function for the parliament, and that is to give voice to people and what they believe so that the parliament can see what people out there are thinking. The benefit of having petitions is that, when the petitions are found in order, they are forwarded to a minister for response. This is something that does not necessarily happen when people write letters directly to a minister, so it is a significant benefit to the community. An important issue with the committee is that the committee needs to continue to evaluate petitions purely against the standing order requirements. There is a potential danger: you might have a committee evaluating a petition based on content and the perceived views of the committee on content. We must ensure that that is never the case. We must ensure that petitions that are tabled and presented to ministers are representative of what people think, whether or not we happen to agree with what is in the content of those petitions.

I will not hold up the parliament for too long, but I would certainly like to thank my deputy chair and all members of the committee. Most particularly, I would like to thank the secretariat: Sharon Bryant, and Catherine Cornish before, Pauline Cullen and other members of the committee for the sterling work that they do. The work of the secretariats of all committees is, I venture to say, very much unsung in this place. I know that people do acknowledge it, but, for people out there in the community who might be listening to this, the secretariats of the committees in parliament work very hard to ensure the smooth running of this place. I commend them for that.

Mr IRONS (Swan) (11:39): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health I present the committee's report on its inquiry into chronic disease prevention and management in primary health care together with the minutes of the proceedings.

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

Mr IRONS: by leave—Recent societal and lifestyle changes have had profound effects on the illnesses that beset the Australian population. While medical advances have increased life expectancy and decreased mortality rates, the increase in sedentary workplaces and lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and habitual behaviour such as smoking and excess alcohol consumption has seen the incidence of chronic disease skyrocket, both domestically and internationally.

According to the World Health Organization non-communicable chronic diseases are responsible for 70 per cent of mortality rates worldwide and, unfortunately, 90 per cent of mortality rates in Australia. The vast majority of these are lifestyle diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and most chronic respiratory conditions.

The primary health care system is ideally the mechanism for addressing the rise in chronic disease, however the fragmented nature of the current care model challenges the system's ability to deliver the best patient outcomes.

The fluid and open definition of chronic disease can also complicate prevention and management programs, as any condition with persistent symptoms and duration can be classified as a chronic disease.

Many specific health conditions were highlighted during this inquiry, however many illnesses and conditions not mentioned in the committee's report are just as relevant as those that are mentioned.

The federal, state and territory governments, as well as private health insurers and individual providers and peak bodies, all have a role in preventing chronic disease, although more could be done to coordinate the programs that exist, as well as widening the scope of screening activities that can identify the earliest signs of chronic disease.

The coordinated care and multidisciplinary approach to improved chronic disease management is evident in the examples that show best practice in Australia and internationally. The Wagner chronic care model, patient centred medical homes and supported self-management of chronic disease are evident in health care systems across the world.

These models can help inform the development of chronic disease care into the future, the first steps of which will be made with the Healthier Medicare introduction of Health Care Homes trials in 2017. The Health Care Homes trials announced by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health on 31 March as part of the Healthier Medicare package will help to improve the prevention and management of chronic disease and with appropriate funding, privacy considerations, capture and consolidation of data, and a focus on research and improvement the cooperative care goals required to improve chronic disease primary care can become a reality.

The improvements that will come from these trials are welcomed by all Australians, though the positive impact they can have on care outcomes for low socioeconomic status, rural and regional and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations may be profound. About 65,000 Australians will participate in initial two-year trials in up to 200 medical practices from 1 July 2017.

The submissions and evidence received during this inquiry have indicated that the groundwork to improve the primary health care system to better prevent and manage chronic disease already exists across all providers and interested parties.

It is clear, however, that this cannot occur without cooperation, coordination, evaluation and adequate data and records to support Primary Health Networks in fulfilling their important role as coordinators of care.

Performance measurements, expansion of chronic disease items, improved referral and rebate claiming processes and encouraging private health insurers to manage their members in cooperation with the primary healthcare system is a clear goal.

The current regulatory and legislative framework that governs private health insurance in Australia is complex, but there are small areas of improvement that could be made to the Private Health Insurance (Health Insurance Business) Rules 2015 regarding expanding the providers that can be used by private health insurers in chronic disease management plans.

The committee appreciates the efforts and honesty of the large number of organisations and individuals that contributed to the inquiry. The breadth of chronic disease prevention, management and research in the Australian community is evident and the desire to improve the system was the overwhelming message communicated to the committee.

I thank all those who have contributed to this inquiry. I also thank the committee members for their participation and contribution to this important and wide-ranging inquiry and the secretariat—Jeff Norris and Stephanie Mikac—who did an enormous job. I also thank my colleague the member for Shortland, who I know is going to talk on this subject—it is one of her favourites. I would like to personally thank her for the time we have spent on the health committee since 2009 for the cooperative and helpful assistance that she has given while I have been the chair of the committee. On a personal note, I wish her all the best for the future. I want to thank all members of that particular committee. I commend the report to the House.

Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (11:45): by leave—I rise to support the report that has just been tabled by the Standing Committee on Health, Inquiry into chronic disease prevention and management in primary health care,and to emphasise the importance of dealing with the issue of chronic disease. It is vital that government puts in place a proper strategy to deal with chronic disease, and it starts with prevention. I look at the inquiries that the committee has dealt with over the time that I have been involved with it. I was lucky to be on the first health committee in this parliament where we released The blame game: report on the inquiry into health funding. I would like to emphasise that practically every inquiry we have had has linked into chronic disease of some type. It shows that you can look at one disease, one illness and one category of diseases, but we need to look in a more holistic way and understand that all of these diseases contribute to and make up chronic disease—for example, things like dementia. One of the key inquiries we did that relates to chronic disease was on obesity. So many of the chronic diseases hang off obesity. You look at heart disease, cancer or asthma—everything that we do, every chronic disease, links into lifestyle. I think it is very important that we take note of this report and that we look at it. I would say that there is more work to be done in the next parliament.

I have to put on record my thanks to the committee and the committees over the years that I have worked with in health as well as a special thanks to Steve Irons, the member for Swan. It has been wonderful working with him. I know that he has a total commitment to health. Sometimes we look at things a bit differently but, overwhelmingly, we have the goal of improving health, improving the availability of health care for people in Australia and to giving people the opportunity to lead a healthy lifestyle. Thank you.

Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:54): I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House;

(1 )notes:

(a) in Question Time yesterday, the Government refused to outline the 10-year cost of the centrepiece of its Budget, its 10-year tax cut for big business;

(b) in an extraordinary interview on national television today, the Prime Minister declined on 18 separate occasions to tell Australians how much his 10-year tax cut for big business will cost, with the Prime Minister also stating 'the Treasury has not identified the dollar cost of this particular item'; and

(c) in Question Time today, the Prime Minister repeatedly refused to provide the Parliament and the Australian people with the cost of the centrepiece of his Budget;

(2) further notes, if the Prime Minister does not know the cost of the centrepiece of his Budget, he is incompetent, or, if he does know, he is being untruthful; and

(3) censures the Prime Minister for hiding the true cost and fundamental unfairness of his centrepiece 10-year tax cut for big business.

The SPEAKER: Is leave granted?

Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, given the shadow Treasurer has not asked the Treasurer one question about the budget, we will give leave for this debate.

Mr BOWEN: I move the motion. The only question before the Australian people is: is this government incompetent or is it dishonest? It is quickly becoming apparent that it is managing to do both. It has managed to be incompetent and dishonest about its budget. Its centrepiece measure is a fraud—its centrepiece measure is a fraud on the Australian people—and the Prime Minister is being dishonest about the reasons that he will not be honest about the cost. The Prime Minister is not only covering up the cost of the centrepiece of his budget; he is covering up the reasons why. He should learn the lessons of history. As Richard Nixon learnt, it is always the cover-up that gets you. The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten that point.

The Prime Minister is being tricky with the Australian people, and he is being dishonest as he goes about his incompetence. We learnt today the Prime Minister is going to lock in the cost of his tax cuts over 10 years, but he will not even tell the parliament or the people what the cost is. He seriously seeks to come into this House and put legislation before the Australian people, and he will not tell the parliament or the people the cost of his plans. This is the height of arrogance and incompetence. No wonder the Australian people think this bloke is out of touch—because he is. He thinks that $55 billion is a small amount of money, apparently. He does not realise that the Australian people think that maybe that money could be spent on schools and hospitals. It could be spent on budget repair. But, no, the Prime Minister has to also be dishonest about why.

He said in question time today that budgets never include a 10-year cost in dollars—that that never happens. He has forgotten he was a cabinet minister in a government with a budget that did. When the member for Warringah cut $80 billion out of health and education, at least he had the guts to be honest about it. At least he had the courage to tell the Australian people what he had done. The member for Warringah would have told us the 10-year cost, because we know he has form. When he was cutting schools and hospitals, he managed to tell the Australian people. At least the former member for North Sydney managed to be honest with the Australian people as he was going about his incompetence. This Prime Minister is so bad he has managed to be dishonest and incompetent all at once.

The Prime Minister has been found out. He thought he could bring in a 10-year plan, a 10-year cut to the company tax rate, but not explain what it costs over 10 years. You just cannot do that. The Prime Minister lectures us—lectures the parliament, lectures the Australian people—about living within our means. 'We've got to live within our means,' he says. But he decides to change the means. He decides to reduce the corporate tax rate and reduce the means of funding schools and hospitals, and he just cannot be honest about it.

What a budget. What a budget. And what a launch for an election campaign! The Prime Minister is off to see the Governor-General in the next couple of days, and he launches his election campaign by not being honest with the Australian people—and not even being honest about the reasons he is being dishonest with the Australian people. He could just come clean, stand at the dispatch box and reveal the cost.

He says the Treasury has modelled it. We were not sure whether he had been incompetent. Now he says in question time today that Treasury has done the work—that Treasury has done the modelling. Well, stand up and tell us what the number is. Defend your decisions. You have decided to give away money; won't you tell us how much and defend it before the Australian people? Why won't you stand before the Australian people and say, 'You have a choice on 2 July. You can vote for Malcolm Turnbull, and I will give billions of dollars away for a corporate tax cut, or you can vote for Bill Shorten, and he will invest in schools and hospitals, and budget repair which is fair.' That is what he should do, but he will not. He will not tell the Australian people how much it costs and he will not be honest about why.

Can you imagine around the cabinet table, around the ERC table, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the ERC saying: 'I think we'll get away with this one. I think we'll do a 10-year plan. They'll never notice it is a 10-year plan. They won't ask us what the 10-year cost is. It's a no-brainer. Of course we will get away with it.' That is what they would have said—'They'll never get onto us; they'll never notice it's a 10-year plan.' Then they forgot they had written into the budget that it was a 10-year plan. The budget says it is a 10-year plan. The Prime Minister says budgets do not include 10-year plans, but his budget does. It says it in there. I can tell you on which pages. He said on national television this morning there is a page where it outlines the cost. He is wrong. There is not. It shows a balance over the years, and—guess what?—if the Treasury can predict the balance then they know what the cost is. It is very simple. If the Prime Minister knows the answer he should tell the Australian people the answer. If he does not know, he is incompetent—but we now know he knows.

This is very simple—we are giving the Prime Minister an opportunity. We gave him one this morning; we moved a motion in the House inviting the Prime Minister to come in and clean the situation up. He had the opportunity to do that this morning but he did not. We are giving him the opportunity now. He had the opportunity 18 times on national television this morning. You are about to go to an election, Prime Minister, on a budget that is fundamentally dishonest, that is flawed in its conception—but you could at least tell the Australian people what the cost is. The Prime Minister is treating the Australian people with contempt. He had this all planned out for weeks; we know that. He went out into the Prime Minister's courtyard with his cunning plan, and he called us back for three weeks—that went well; two days later we were all on the plane home. He had it all mapped out for the 2 July election. He was going to bring down a budget and the budget was going to be the launching pad for an election—'Malcolm Turnbull in his rightful place as Prime Minister of Australia after all these years,' he thought to himself, and he was going to use the budget as the launching pad.

There was one little problem with that plan: his budget was a dishonest document. His budget was a flawed document. His budget tells us all about his priorities when it comes to tax—who gets a tax cut; who does not. Nobody under $80,000 a year gets a tax cut and somebody on $1 million a year gets a $16,750-a-year tax cut. He is so desperate to give big business a tax cut that he has decided to define small business as any business up to a turnover of $1 billion. That is how desperate he is. With all these priorities, all these grand plans and all these plans of attack, he has decided not to tell the truth about it. He has decided not to tell the truth to the Australian people. The Australian people can take the truth. The Australian people want the truth. The Australian people demand the truth from this Prime Minister. This is not the new economic leadership we were promised when he knifed the member for Warringah. This is not what his backbench was expecting. Wasn't the backbench excited during question time today? Weren't they—the members from Tasmania and the members for the Central Coast of New South Wales—just leaping out of their seats in excitement about the coming election? They were looking forward so much to going for re-election on a platform of redefining small business as any business under $1 billion.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The members for Barker and Bass will cease interjecting.

Mr BOWEN: Giving big business a tax cut is their big re-election pitch to the Australian people. Almost $17,000 worth of tax cuts to somebody on $1 million a year—that is their big pitch for re-election. Well, good luck with that—but tell the truth about it as you go. The Prime Minister was kind enough during question time to mention that I have written a book about treasurers. I have, and none of them had a budget as bad as this one, none of them had a budget fall apart as quickly as this one has and none of them tried such dishonesty as the government has with this one. None of them did that, Labor or Liberal.

This is a government based on a fundamental premise of being dishonest with the Australian people, a fundamental premise of not telling the Australian people the truth. We say this carefully because we know it is the case. We know it is a serious charge to level, but there is no other conclusion you can reach. The Prime Minister knows the cost—he told us today he knows what the cost is. He got the briefing in the Expenditure Review Committee. The Treasury did the work. He knows what it is. If you know what it is, Prime Minister, tell the Australian people what it is. You managed to tell us what the impact of cutting schools and hospitals was in 2014. You were in the cabinet. The Prime Minister sat around in the cabinet as they approved the budget with a 10-year cost in it. The Prime Minister lectures us that schools and hospitals should be funded over 10 years and that we need a 10-year funding plan. They make erroneous claims about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but they say it should be funded over 10 years. We agree, and that is what we do: we funded our plans over 10 years. The same test applies to this Prime Minister. He thinks he is above all. He thinks he is the smartest person in Australia. He might be the smartest person in Australia—I cast no judgement—but he is still required to be honest with the Australian people. He is still required to tell the truth.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Barker is warned!

Mr BOWEN: The Prime Minister is required to be honest with the Australian people as he seeks their trust and a mandate, and if he cannot be he does not deserve that trust. He does not deserve that mandate. The Prime Minister does not deserve the term in his own right that he so desperately craves. The member for Warringah knows it.

Those people on the backbench who are not supporters of the Prime Minister know it. Aren't they excited about this budget—the Abbott forces over there. They are so excited about the budget. Aren't they saying: 'Well, that went well. Glad we changed the Prime Minister. That went really well. That was worth all the grief to change Prime Minister.' All this new economic leadership. The Prime Minister, we know, does not have the courage of his convictions. The Prime Minister, we know, wanted to increase the GST and then thought it was too hard. He announced the greatest reform to Federation at the Penrith oration. That lasted to the next day. Now his big conviction is a corporate tax cut and he does not have the courage to tell us how much it costs. It is pretty basic.

We are happy to have the debate; we are happy to have the argument; we are happy to put our case about our priorities and the government's priorities. We are happy to explain why we think our priorities are more important, why investing in our schools is more important, why investing in hospitals is more important, why returning to budget balance is more important and why retaining and protecting the AAA credit rating is more important than the Prime Minister's thought bubble of a corporate tax cut. We are happy to have that debate. I will be debating the Treasurer, if he turns up, three or four times during the election campaign. Bring it on. Let's have the debate. But you have to come with the facts as well as policies. They have finally come up with an economic plan, but it has fallen apart.

I said yesterday in the House that at least the budget—I give it that—has gone better than most of the Turnbull government plans. It lasted to day 2. It turns out that I spoke too soon. It has collapsed on day 2, just on the basic fundamentals of knowing what it costs. How can you say to the Australian people, 'These are our priorities, but we can't tell you, we won't tell you, we refuse to tell you how much it costs'? That is what the Prime Minister says. He is going to the election on this platform: 'I don't trust you. I don't trust the Australian people.' He says the election is about trust and he is right. He does not trust the Australian people enough to tell them the truth. He does not trust them to tell them what the cost of his plan is. It is amazing that a Prime Minister would go to an election on the fundamental platform of not telling the truth to the Australian people. That is what this Prime Minister is doing. We are happy to have this debate; we are happy to debate government economic policies. Now you have come up with one, finally. After you have been rolled so many times, you finally have your act together and had a plan, and it has just fallen apart because you thought you could get away with it. The Prime Minister thought he was such a good explainer, of course. The world's greatest debater. 'I'll get away,' he thought, 'with a 10-year tax-cut plan without explaining what the cost is. Of course I'll be able to do it. I am, of course, Malcolm Turnbull. It's self-evident that I'll get away with it.' Well, he does not get away with it.

The SPEAKER: The member for McMahon will refer to members by their correct titles.

Mr BOWEN: He is required to conduct himself with fundamental honesty in the great office that he holds, but the Prime Minister is showing that he does not deserve the great office he holds, because the Prime Minister who holds this great office has one integral responsibility: to tell the Australian people the truth. Everything else flows from that. All his responsibilities flow from that one fundamental responsibility to the Australian people: to be honest with them and tell them the truth. If the Prime Minister cannot tell the Australian people the truth, then he does not deserve the office he holds. If he cannot go to an election on the basis of fundamental honesty, then he does not deserve to win that election.

The Prime Minister may think it is more important to give a tax cut to big business than to invest in schools. The Prime Minister may think it is more important to give big business a tax cut than to invest in hospitals. The Prime Minister may think it is more important to give big business a tax cut than to invest in support for Australia's families. If he thinks that, he should tell the Australian people that. If he thinks that, he should be honest with the Australian people about that. And he should tell them how much his plan costs. We know he knows the cost. We know it is billions and billions of dollars. And we know why he does not want to tell them. It is because he actually fundamentally does not think he could win the argument. He does not think he could win the argument that investing in schools and hospitals is less important than a big business tax cut.

Prime Minister, it is time to fess up to the Australian people. It is time to fess up that you do not want to tell them the truth. It is time to finally look the Australian people in the eye and say, 'This is what I believe; I believe in spending tens of billions of dollars on a corporate tax, and I'll tell you how much it costs.' If you will not do that, you do not deserve to win this election and you do not deserve a mandate—

Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, given that the shadow Treasurer is yet to make a substantive point, I move:

That the member for McMahon be given a five-minute extension of time.

Question agreed to.

The SPEAKER: The member for McMahon for five minutes.

Government members interjecting—

The SPEAKER: Members on my right! The member for McMahon has the call.

Mr Dutton interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Immigration will cease interjecting.

Mr BOWEN: I tell you what this government have not done: they have not made a fundamental point which justifies their re-election. That is what the Turnbull government have not done. This government have not made a fundamental point that justifies a mandate from the Australian people. If you have the courage to seek a mandate from the Australian people for a corporate tax cut, then tell them the truth about it. If you have the courage to go to the Australian people and say, 'These are my plans and this is what they will cost,' then you should go ahead and do it. You go and call that election, Prime Minister. Go down to Government House tonight and call that election. We welcome it. We welcome it very much. We will be saying in every electorate conference across the country and at every press conference we hold: 'This is a Prime Minister who does not trust you. This is a Prime Minister who will not tell you the truth. This is a Prime Minister who thinks a corporate tax cut is a good idea.' Well, good luck to him, but we fundamentally disagree with him.

We are prepared to be honest with the Australian people. We are prepared to lay out our plans, as the Leader of the Opposition has been setting the political agenda in Australia for two years. This Leader of the Opposition has been announcing policies. This Leader of the Opposition has been talking about high-income superannuation and announcing policies, not coming up with a retrospective thought bubble at five minutes to midnight. He has been leading the debate. This Leader of the Opposition has been leading the debate on multinational tax. This Leader of the Opposition has been leading the debate when it comes to budget repair which is fair. This Leader of the Opposition has been leading the debate on school and investment. This Leader of the Opposition has been leading the debate on hospitals.

You have been in his wake. This Prime Minister is playing desperate catch-up in the wake of the Leader of the Opposition. You have been exposed and now you have been exposed again as somebody who will not tell the truth. This Prime Minister's been exposed as somebody who treats the Australian people with contempt. This Prime Minister has been exposed today and he will be exposed on 2 July. We welcome an election. We welcome an election based on your budget. We welcome an election based on our alternative policies, because we have had the courage to put our policies out there, to explain them, to back them and to campaign on them across the country.

This Prime Minister has shown in the last 48 hours that he is simply not up to the task of being Prime Minister. And this Treasurer is not up to the task of the being finance minister of a G20 economy. It is time for this Prime Minister and this Treasurer to be replaced, but not in another party room coup; not with the Abbott forces circling around planning their return—

The SPEAKER: The member for McMahon will refer to members by their correct titles.

Mr BOWEN: This Prime Minister and this Treasurer deserve to be replaced on 2 July by an alternative team who have been outlining their policies, an alternative team which does have an alternative vision for Australia, an alternative team which has the courage to explain why we should be elected and which has the courage to explain our policies and just how we will fund them. That is the alternative facing the Australian people. On 2 July, the Australian people will go to schools and halls across the country knowing that their Prime Minister does not trust them and knowing that their Prime Minister is not prepared to tell the truth.

The Prime Minister can fix this now. He can stand at the dispatch box now. He can table the Treasury modelling. He has plenty of notes and paper there. Somewhere in those notes there is some modelling. Somewhere in those notes is a cost. Somewhere in those notes is a figure. Why doesn't he get up and table it? Why doesn't he get up and tell the Australian people the truth? Why won't he justify his actions? Why won't he support his budget?

A Prime Minister and a Treasurer who bring down a budget are now hiding from it 48 hours later. Never has that been seen before. Never has a Prime Minister and a Treasurer been so ashamed of their policies that they are not prepared to defend them. Never has a Prime Minister and a Treasurer been so embarrassed about the cost of one of their measures that they have gone to such lengths to hide it. Never before has a budget gone into the witness protection program—individual members have, but never before has a budget been hidden in a safe house, not to be spoken of. Never before has a budget been such an embarrassment to a Prime Minister and a Treasurer that they will go to such lengths to avoid scrutiny. Never before has a budget been such an embarrassment that the Prime Minister will go on national television and refuse to answer a question about it 18 times in one interview. Never before has a Prime Minister been so exposed as not being up to the job. The member for Wentworth is not up to the job. The member for Wentworth is not fit to be a Prime Minister. I tell you what: the member for Maribyrnong is. And on 2 July the member for Maribyrnong will seek and receive a mandate from the Australian people based on honesty, based on policies and based on courage.

Opposition members interjecting—

The SPEAKER: Members on my left!

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Herbert! Obviously, the level of interjections is far too high. I have warned a number of people. I am going to lower the temperature instantly. The members for Barker and Griffith have been warned and have interjected continually through the member for McMahon's contribution. They will both leave under 94(a).

The member s for Barker and Griffith then left the chamber.

The SPEAKER: I call for a seconder of the motion.

Mr Burke: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (15:16): I move:

That all words after "that" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "This House welcomes and supports the Governments economic plan for jobs and growth."

Mr Burke: Mr Speaker, on a point of order. I think that counts as a direct negative and therefore is out of order.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Bass will cease interjecting. The Clerk and I have had a chance to review the motion. The motion is in order and there is ample precedent. The Prime Minister has the call.

Mr TURNBULL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In 2016 Australians face opportunities of a kind they have never seen before. We live in an age of extraordinary economic change. We live in an age when the pace and the scale of economic change is utterly unprecedented. The challenge for this government, the challenge for every member of this House, is: how do we ensure that Australians are able to take advantage of those opportunities?

Mr Champion interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield has already been warned.

Mr TURNBULL: How do we ensure that, at a time when we see the slowdown of the mining and construction boom, we maintain strong economic growth, strong growth in employment? How do we ensure that our children and our grandchildren have the great opportunities that await them if their government leads them with wisdom and with an economic plan that is designed to ensure that they achieve the greatness that awaits this nation in the 21st century? Every element of our economic plan is pulling in that direction of growth and jobs. We began with our Innovation and Science Agenda. We recognise at a time of rapid technological change that Australians need to be more innovative, more productive, more competitive. So, we have set out in our innovation agenda real incentives for Australians to invest in start-up companies, for our best scientists and researchers to collaborate with business and industry to ensure that we are at the cutting edge of technology.

We need to ensure that our defence forces have the 21st century capabilities they need to protect us in the years ahead. But we also need to ensure that every dollar that we can spend in Australia on Australian technology, on Australian advanced manufacturing, is spent here. So, we have set out a defence industry investment plan that will drive thousands of jobs in Australia directly and thousands more in the industries and the businesses that will spin off that high-tech advanced manufacturing base that we are creating.

Growth in our region is, as I said, unprecedented, in scale, in its size and in its pace. Forty years ago, China was barely part of the global economy; now it is, by many measures, the world's largest single economy. We have opened up the doors to those huge markets with free trade agreements with Korea, with Japan and, of course, with China. We are seeing across Australia, therefore, the response to that with more jobs, particularly in the services industries, in education, in tourism and, of course, in soft commodities, particularly from agriculture. Enormous opportunities have been generated, and that is why we had 300,000 new jobs created last year and three per cent real growth. That is why we had 26,000 jobs created last month. We have to continue with this agenda for economic growth. We cannot afford to risk it by changing tack in the way the Labor Party would propose.

In the budget on Tuesday night, the Treasurer set out the other elements of this national economic plan, including an enterprise tax cut plan over 10 years which will see our company tax rates become far more competitive with other countries around the world and in our region. In particular, it will benefit small companies—smaller businesses with turnovers up to $10 million, rising to $25 million, $50 million and $100 million in the earlier years. We know that those smaller companies that turn over up to $10 million employ 3.4 million Australians, and we know that reducing company tax to make it more competitive will result in more investment, more employment and more jobs. It drives economic growth and will add, over the long term, one per cent to GDP. Of course, it adds GDP to our economy every year, but it adds real growth over that period—as, indeed, the shadow minister who spoke so heatedly a moment ago has acknowledged in his own remarks and his own books in the past. We know that this will drive growth.

We also need to ensure that our tax system is sustainable over the long term, so we have made the tough decisions with respect to superannuation by scaling back very generous tax concessions to Australians on very high incomes and Australians with high levels of wealth, so that the superannuation system is more sustainable, fairer and, above all, more flexible. As I said earlier, in question time, it will be more flexible for women in particular who find themselves out of the workforce with family. When they come back, they will have the flexibility to catch up with concessional contributions if they are able to do so. Of course, people who are self-employed will be able to contribute to super in the way that they should be able to. Indeed, it will be more flexible for people over 65.

We have also set out to ensure that young Australians who are unemployed have a pathway to get into the workforce. The best way to ensure a young person is employable is for them to be employed. We need to give them the preparation—to give them the internship that gets them into the habit of getting up, turning up to work punctually, working with other people and getting the confidence to become more employable in the years ahead. These are enormous changes—life-changing policies that will transform the future of up to 120,000 young Australians in the years ahead. This is our commitment to ensuring that this works for every Australian right across the board.

What we are also doing here in the budget is ensuring that we live within our means. This is vitally important—bringing the budget back to balance. We have to ensure that we are able to slow the deficit, bring the deficit down, bring debt down and relieve that massive burden of debt and deficit that was left on future generations by the six misguided years of Labor government. We cannot forget that the Labor Party inherited a government which had cash at the bank and left Australia with a government mired in debt and with a huge structural deficit. All of our policies are determined, calculated and designed to drive growth and jobs. That is what they will deliver. What the Labor Party are proposing, on the other hand, is one measure after another that will stand in the way of enterprise. We all agree we need more investment in Australia. Who could argue with that? Well, apparently the Labor Party do, because they want to increase the tax on investment by 50 per cent—they want to increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent. That can have only one consequence: there will be less investment. And if there is less investment, there will be fewer jobs.

The Labor Party claims to be concerned about housing affordability. What they propose is a ban on negative gearing which will have the consequence that no Australian who lives by the sweat of his or her brow will be able to offset an investment loss against their personal income—it might be a salary, a wage or a professional income. What that will mean is that someone on average earnings or less—as is the case with 70 per cent of the people who lodge returns with negative gearing—in the future will not be able to purchase an investment property and offset a net rental loss against their income. This will take thousands of people out of the investment market. It will ensure that rents will go up. They have to go up because investors will have to seek a higher after-tax return. The availability of rental properties will decline, because the pool of investors will be gone and when investors sell they will have to sell to owner occupiers.

When you pull so many people out of the market the price of housing will crash. Not so long ago in the House I made the point that, all other things being equal, if you reduce the demand and the pool of buyers by a third, values and prices will fall. I recall the member for Isaacs cried out, 'You are making that up.' This is just the law of supply and demand. Every measure we have set out will drive growth and jobs—every single one: trade, innovation, investment and backing enterprise. Everything Labor has proposed stands in the way of jobs, stands in the way of enterprise, stands in the way of growth.

The SPEAKER: The original question was that the motion be agreed to. To this the honourable the Prime Minister has moved an amendment. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (15:26): I was going to move an extension of time for the Prime Minister, but I thought his backbench would have killed me. They are back there, sitting there like house bricks—without the animation or the enthusiasm. The reason they are feeling that way over there is that they know full well that ultimately the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs. That is exactly where we have ended up. There is no longer a point to this Prime Minister; there is no longer a point to this government. How out of touch would you have to be to think you could get away with this? You might think, 'There are some budget measures I will not be questioned on. There are some I might not need to know the cost of.' But it is a fair bet that you ought to know the centrepiece—a fair bet. Of all the measures for which you might think, 'Maybe there is a figure I should carry in my head,' surely the centrepiece of the budget is not a bad starting point.

I loved hearing the Treasurer complain today, 'Why aren't you directing more questions to me?' It is because yesterday every time we asked, 'What is the cost,' he would not say. We thought that maybe they had not modelled it. We thought maybe they had been so incompetent that they never even checked what the cost would be. Maybe they are so hopeless at their job that it never occurred to them, when they were giving money to the big end of town, to even bother to check a little detail like what the cost to the budget would be. But it turns out, from the answers the Prime Minister has given today, they did know. They knew full well. They know the answer to this question, and they think they can get through from today all the way to 2 July and keep it a secret from the Australian people.

They have made the choice to prioritise the big end of town over families, over schools and over the health system with Medicare. They think they can get away with costing their cuts over 10 years and with spending the beginning of this week talking relentlessly about 10-year projections; they reckon they can get all the way to 2 July and not touch at all—out of all their measures—their budget centrepiece. The problem is they do not want to talk about their budget centrepiece at all anymore. The amendment that was moved by the Prime Minister does not mention the budget centrepiece. It is as though it is gone. The amendment is to take all references to that tax cut out of the motion. That is what the Prime Minister has moved. Not only has he moved it in his own handwriting; he has then added that they will not just support it—he has written the little addition: 'and welcomes'. It is an emotional thankyou, as we get rid of any reference to the centrepiece of his own budget.

When the Prime Minister was describing the centrepiece of his own budget, he deliberately did not tell the full story not only of the cost but of the measure itself. He talked about small businesses growing. 'Here are the figures', he said, 'to $10 million, to $25 million, to $50 million, to $100 million' and then he stopped there. But the budget plan does not stop there at all. Sure, right now, and last year under the Abbott government, we had the establishment of a bipartisan basis of the small business tax rate. We have bipartisan agreement that the small business tax rate should be lowered, but what they want to do is change the definition of small business every year—and it does not stop where the Prime Minister stopped.

Over the next seven years, we end up with eligibility for the small business tax rate going to businesses worth $1 billion. I have to say, in the history of this nation, there has only ever been one Prime Minister who would regard that as a small business! It has only ever happened once and it has happened here. The budget documents that we have been presented with this time around are extraordinary. My favourite is 'Making multinationals pay tax on what they earn in Australia' and it has a little picture of a map of Australia and a picture of an island tax haven. They have actually put it in their own budget documents. I do not know what that island might be. I do not know what is presented in there—and I expect a public servant will pay very dearly for the graphic design at some point in time.

Budgets are about choices and when they say, 'Why should we have to tell you what the 10-year projection is?' the answer is simple: they have told us what their 10-year cuts will be. They told us from the start what the 10-year cuts would be to hospitals and what the 10-year cuts would be to schools. We know what the 10-year projections are on the cuts that they give to families. We know that this is in the context of a budget where they put off all their talk of child care. Remember at the hearing that workplace participation was going to be the key—all pushed off in this budget, all gone. That is gone because choices have been made. The choices that they have made are fundamentally different to the choices that a Labor government would make.

If it is as we were told, 'Well, maybe, it is $55 billion'—as though it is small change between friends—if it is that, that is bigger than the entirety of the education cuts; in the order of the cuts to hospitals. The money we are talking about here is not like it is just a free kick in spare change to business. This government have decided who they will help and who they will hurt. While they wanted to say, 'It's some sort of class war,' it is not that. It simply runs against the grain of an old-fashioned concept of Australian fairness. That is it. It is not like the benefit is going to the top half of Australia versus the bottom half of Australia; it is going to about the top two per cent of Australia and the rest of Australia, at best, gets $6 a week—and that is only if you are somebody who does not have a family.

Even at the top of that $87,000 area, where they have a shift in the name of bracket creep, if you are a single parent on $87,000 a year with two high school kids, even after you have had that tax benefit, you are still $4½ thousand behind. That is the choice that has been made. I am sure they are out there thinking, 'But I've got my $6 a week'! That is the choice that has been made. That is before they get to the reality of someone who brings in $1 million in a year being $17,000 better off.

The concept of saying, 'Would we like taxes to be lower?' does not answer the question when you also have to say, 'Is the price of that an attack on every family in Australia?' Is the price that you are going to gut what we were told before the election, which was a bipartisan approach on school funding? We were told before the election that pensions would not be changed and then we saw a government come in here, budget after budget, and try in every different way to cut the pension. That money that is being cut from them is the same money that will now go to billion dollar companies under their plan. That is exactly why they do not want to say the number out loud.

Well, it does not take much for people to be able to say that they know the priorities of those opposite. We know, and the Australian people know, that the government was given a choice, and they chose the top end of town over the vast majority of Australia. That is the choice they made. And the price of that is that if you are a pensioner you get cut; if you are a family you get cut; if you are sick, Medicare goes backwards, hospitals go backwards. If you believe in jobs and growth, no-one delivers jobs and growth by cutting education, cutting infrastructure and making the internet slower. No country in the world would try to do that. But that is the prescription that is offered by those opposite.

What we have today is not the opposition choosing some corner of the budget to debate. We have gone directly to the budget centrepiece, and the Prime Minister believes that he can get away—even though he knows how much it will cost—with not letting the rest of Australia know how much it will cost. They know the cost of the cuts. They know that the price of the cuts is this benefit to the big end of town, the redefinition of small business, all the way up to companies with a $1 billion turnover. It is about choices, and the choices those opposite make are against the vast majority of Australians. Labor stands proudly against them.

Mr MORRISON (Cook—Treasurer) (15:36): I am very pleased to be speaking in favour of a motion for our national economic plan for jobs and growth. As I said in the House earlier, this is a plan that consists of six points: an innovation and science program for start-up businesses; a defence plan for local high-tech manufacturing and technology that does not just benefit the shipyards, obviously in Adelaide in Perth, but the defence supply chain all around the country, supporting high-tech jobs for the future for decades; export trade deals to generate new business opportunities; tax cuts and incentives for small business and hardworking families, which I will return to in a second; a sustainable budget with crackdowns on tax avoidance and loopholes—things that those opposite voted against when they had the chance to support them in the parliament, and they decided not to—and of course guaranteed funding for health, education and roads, money that is made available by providing the savings that are necessary to spend in these areas so that we can give the genuine commitments, such as he genuine commitment of $1.2 billion extra for schools, which will see schools funding increase by 26 per cent over the next four years, and for public schools by a third over the course of the budget and forward estimates, and, as the health minister will know, some $2.9 billion extra for health spending. It has been agreed with the states, signed together with the states and meeting those commitments.

The House may know, if they have read the budget papers, that now 53 per cent of all schools funding, all education funding at a state level, when you include the transfer payments of the Commonwealth, is actually met by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth, under this government, is more than a partner when it comes to supporting education and schools funding by the states, because we account for more than half of those contributions. And we do that because we invest in the things that drive our economy as we move through this transition from the resources and investment boom to a more diversified and stronger economy with more jobs. And central to that plan is to ensure that we are providing the incentive for businesses, particularly small and medium businesses, to be able to go out there and keep doing what they are doing. These are the businesses that are taking more people on, particularly more young people. They are typically Australian owned businesses that will invest back into their business to get the jobs and growth that we are looking for in this budget.

So we have made the decision, as part of our enterprise tax plan, to drop the corporate rate for small and medium businesses to 27½ per cent over the budget and forward estimates. This is an important program that will back them in to keep doing the things they would do. I would have thought that those on the other side of the House would have supported those initiatives, because they certainly have in the past.

The shadow Treasurer is no longer in the chamber for his own debate.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr MORRISON: Oh, he is over there. He has moved seats. I am happy to acknowledge his presence, because I can remind him of what he said in that great, lengthy tome Hearts and Minds, where he said—

Dr Leigh interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Fraser will cease interjecting.

Mr MORRISON: and he reminded us of his great mentor, the former Treasurer and Prime Minister Mr Keating—that 'Keating knew that the corporate tax rate needed to be cut'. That is what he said. He went on to say:

At 30 per cent, our company tax rate is now above the OECD average … it is how the rate compares to that of our competitors that counts.

This is the bit I really like. He said:

… it's a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax …

It is apparently a 'thing'. Is it your thing anymore, shadow Treasurer—through you, Mr Speaker? Is it a Labor thing still to want to reduce company tax?

Others have certainly said so. I go to the Leader of the Opposition in an editorial in TheAustralian in 2005, as the Prime Minister reminded us, where he said: 'The top marginal income tax thresholds should be raised to create a fair, productive and competitive tax system. It should be remembered that reducing the top marginal rate is part of the solution.' He also said, 'All the income tax brackets and terms of tax should be lowered, and that obviously includes the top rate.' These are his views. He said, when he was the Assistant Treasurer, 'The government recognises that higher taxation reduces incentives to work, save and invest.'

But I can go no further than the budget that was brought down by the member for Lilley when he was Treasurer. In that budget, in 2010-11, he actually proposed to reduce the company tax rate.

A government member: Is that right?

Mr MORRISON: He did! He proposed to reduce the company tax rate. Do you know how he was funding the reduction in the company tax rate?

A government member: The mining tax.

Mr MORRISON: The mining tax. That tax was going to fund his company tax cut. I admire him for saying he wanted to reduce the company tax rate; it is just that he came up with a tax that did not raise any money to actually pay for that. What he said in those budget documents was that:

… in conjunction with the introduction of the Resource Super Profits Tax—

the member for Lilley remembers all this very fondly—

It will improve the international competitiveness of Australia's tax rate.

By remaining competitive with similar countries, we can reinforce Australia's recognised advantages as an investment destination.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Mr MORRISON: The member for Sydney says, 'We said how we could pay for it.' How they paid for it was with the mining tax! She seems to think this is an excellent point to make in the middle of this debate. They proposed a company tax rate that they could not afford because they came up with tax measures that did not work. That is the big difference.

Tonight the Leader of the Opposition will come to this dispatch box and he will need to explain to the Australian people what he plans to do and what he plans to spend. That is the reckoner when he comes to the dispatch box tonight. This is only over the next budget and four-year forward estimates period. That is what it is when you have to produce a budget. We know they have a $20 billion black hole in their excise estimate, but over the budget and forward estimates it is actually $3.2 billion. So I will be happy if he can come to the dispatch box tonight and explain where he is going to find the missing revenue that is supposed to be going to support school funding.

There is $20.16 billion in savings and revenue measures the government has proposed that the Labor opposition are now blocking. They must reveal tonight which of those measures they are going to stop blocking and support, otherwise that is additional expenditure on top of the budget and forward estimates that they will have to find the savings and revenue for.

Secondly, there is $44.39 billion of spending that Labor says we must restore from the bank savings. Some of those were referred to by the member for Watson when he came to the dispatch box and pounded away. Through the Leader of the Opposition, he has to tell the Australian people tonight how many of the things that they say are the wrong savings—the wrong savings which they apparently oppose, including changes to the pension eligibility in last year's budget—they will no longer oppose. Every one that they say they are going to continue to oppose is additional expenditure. It is $44.39 billion over the budget and forward estimates.

Then there is $11.79 billion in spending proposals that they have put forward since the last budget which are additional to what is in the budget and forward estimates. That comes to $76.34 billion over the budget and forward estimates. That is a starting line in the red. When the Leader of the Opposition comes to the dispatch box tonight, that is what he has to make up.

What he has announced so far is $12 billion over the budget and forward estimates in increased taxes. They like to call them savings. They are not savings; they are increased taxes. And they are increasing taxes by $12.09 billion on top of what is there. That is how they are going to pay for those—with $1.86 billion only of savings. So there is $76.34 billion in additional expenditure but just nothing—$13 billion to $14 billion worth of increased taxes and savings measures—to pay for it. That is just over four years—forget 10. Over four years they have a budget black hole of $62.39 billion before the Leader of the Opposition comes to that dispatch box tonight. That is before they even start talking.

We know that, when the Leader of the Opposition comes here tonight, as long as you see his lips moving he will be spending more. That means he will be taxing you more. That means he will be putting up debt and he will be putting up the deficit, because the reason they tax more is that they cannot control their expenditure. That is the problem: they cannot control their expenditure. So every time you hear him announce something new, you will pay for it. You will pay for it over and over again. I am glad they have raised the issue of costings today, because, as I have just outlined, they are starting $62.4 billion behind. That is equivalent over the budget and forward estimates to about one per cent of GDP. That means that, if they went forward with that plan, they would be bigger spenders than Rudd. (Time expired)

The SPEAKER: The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

The SPEAKER: The question is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (15:57): I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.