Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (10:01): Today, I present the 15th report of the Petitions Committee for the 45th Parliament, together with 29 petitions and three ministerial responses to petitions previously presented.

The Petitions Committee is heartened to see that Australians from all across the country are raising their collective voices by petitioning the House about issues that matter to them and to their communities.

The petitions that I present to the House today include eight paper petitions and 21 electronic petitions. The topics of these petitions encompass community concerns about issues including electricity prices, same-sex marriage, family violence and tertiary education. To demonstrate the spectrum of views presented in petitions put before the Petitions Committee, I present petitions today which reflect both sides of the climate change debate.

This report includes three petitions the committee has received about climate change, coordinated by a group called Micah, a coalition of churches and Christian organisations. These petitions are identical, except that they originate from different electorates around Australia. The committee has received 15 of these petitions to date, containing a total of over 13,000 signatures, which will all be referred to the environment minister for response.

This initiative is a great example of individuals and communities joining together to engage with the parliament about a matter that they care deeply about.

The committee wants to help Australians to better connect with the petitions process, by making it easier for them to petition the House online.

To this end, the committee continues to seek feedback from petitioners and other stakeholders, for its inquiry into the House electronic petitions system.

I am pleased to report that the committee received more than 100 responses to the survey launched in the last week, on the committee's webpage. These survey responses will prove extremely valuable, as the committee formulates its recommendations for future enhancements to the e-petitions process.

I will continue to provide updates to the House on the work of the Petitions Committee and the inquiry into e-petitions.

Mr MORTON (Tangney) (10:06): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, I present the committee's report entitled The strategic importance of Australia's Indian Ocean Territories, together with minutes of proceedings.

I have to say: without any hint of bias, we have some of the most spectacular coastlines along Western Australia.

It may be a common perception that Australia's western boundary is the beautiful coast of Western Australia.

In actual fact, the westernmost reaches of Australia are the boundaries created by the Indian Ocean Territories, that are closer to our Indonesian neighbours than they are to the Australian mainland.

Despite the distance, the small sun-drenched communities of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands remain uniquely Australian.

The deep connection of the local communities to their diverse ethnic and cultural heritage complements their Australian way of life.

As part of the inquiry, I was fortunate to join my committee colleagues meeting with local communities on Christmas Island, West Island and Home Island to see this beautiful corner of our nation.

While many Australians may associate the region as a key plank of Australia's defence and border protection activities, the committee's inquiry also highlighted vibrant communities, deeply committed to Australian values.

The present inquiry and report is quite different to those carried out previously by this committee.

While several previous inquiries have examined economic and governance issues in the Indian Ocean Territories, the purpose of our inquiry has been to take a step back and to consider these territories from a broader, strategic perspective.

In this process, the committee has affirmed that the recommendations of previous reports remain as relevant as ever.

The present inquiry reinforces and builds on the work of earlier committees.

This inquiry, referred by the Minister for Local Government and Territories in November last year, considered a number of issues.

The inquiry canvassed the changing regional security environment and security contingencies in the Indian Ocean region—home to growing economies and an important trade route for Australia. The region is witnessing growing competition among major powers and these rapidly expanding interests in the region require a deeper understanding of this dynamic strategic environment.

Heightened activity in the region brings both opportunities and challenges for Australia.

In hearing evidence, the committee concluded that Australia's Indian Ocean Territories play a vital role in Australia's engagement with the broader Indo-Pacific region, extending our strategic reach well beyond the Australian mainland.

We heard that this dynamic region is undergoing significant changes.

To ensure that the parliament continues to engage with the Indian Ocean Territories from a strategic perspective, the committee has been keen to ensure that this committee conducts a similar inquiry on a regular basis—and in our report we have suggested five years as an appropriate time frame.

The committee considered Australia's strategic infrastructure assets on the islands, particularly those that further Australia's defence capabilities. In particular, the upgrade of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Airport runway, and the development of medium- and long-term solutions for the Christmas Island Warf.

The committee's report also recognises the importance of continued and strengthened engagement with regional partners through bilateral and multilateral exercises with regional partners. Such operations will ensure Australia continues to contribute to broader regional stability.

Noting the strategic importance of the islands, the committee recommended that the Australian government consider extending these capabilities in the Indian Ocean Territories, potentially through activities including surveillance, naval patrols, a military reserve or cadet unit, and training exercises.

The committee recommended that, where possible, the Australian government and its agencies engage with the local community, businesses and suppliers of goods and services, considering proposals for funding and planning on the islands.

Through its inquiry, the committee had the opportunity to hear from a wide variety of stakeholders.

These included Australian government agencies and analysts with a deep understanding of the defence and strategic considerations that underpin Australia's commitment to the Indian Ocean Territories.

On behalf of the committee, I thank all organisations and individuals who contributed to the inquiry by making written submissions or appearing at our hearings and roundtable discussions.

I wish to also thank my committee colleagues, who in engaging with the inquiry brought a range of perspectives and experiences to the report and the inquiry process more broadly.

In particular, I would like to thank the member for Berowra and Senator McCarthy who also took part in the committee's visit to the Indian Ocean Territories.

Finally, the committee thanks the residents of the Indian Ocean Territories who provided an important local perspective to this inquiry.

Their warm hospitality and candour provided the committee with a vital understanding of the region along with the challenges and opportunities that it presents.

The committee has a renewed understanding of the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean Territories, which we convey to the parliament and to the Australian government through this report.

I commend the report to the House.

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

Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (10:11): Firstly, can I thank the member for Tangney for chairing the committee in the latter stages and for taking the committee to visit the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Can I also thank his predecessor, the member for Canning, who initiated the inquiry and terms of reference and who left to go to a another committee. The member for Tangney replaced him and did it very adequately, and I thank him for the work he has done. I also thank the committee secretariat, who are sitting here in the parliament, for the work they have done. I also thank my committee colleagues, including my comrade to my left, the member for Canberra—she is not always on my left, but in this particular instance she is on my left. I want to thank her for her encouragement and engagement with the process, as a person with long-term and longstanding interests in territory matters generally, but particularly, of course, in the ACT. She has a longstanding interest in the Indian Ocean Territories.

The Indian Ocean Territories I'm familiar very familiar with, having been their member in this place since I first got elected here in 1987. I'm very familiar with the issues raised in this report. Of course, it is not the first time that issues to do with strategic matters relating to the Indian Ocean Territories have been discussed—not in this place but elsewhere. There have been elements of white papers previously, of course. We know that, historically, the First World War saw the sinking of the Emden by the mighty Australian Sydney off the Cocos Islands. The remains of that magnificent ship, the Emden, rest on the bottom near North Keeling Island in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. We know that both territories were occupied by the Japanese during the last war.

They have been places where those we have fought have seen opportunity, and they are important to us now because we've used them, for some time now, as transit points. During the respective Gulf Wars we had our major heavy lift aircraft fly through Cocos Islands on a regular basis. We know that the P-3 Orions fly through Cocos and, to a lesser extent, Christmas Island, and are stationed at Cocos regularly. So they are seen as important in terms of our strategic interests, and that will be the case in the future. When we went through this inquiry, we heard a great deal from people with expertise in the areas of strategic and defence matters—including the Department of Defence—all of whom said that these island territories were of importance to Australia's strategic interests.

The recommendations of the report bear some consideration—and I'm sure they will be considered by the government and, hopefully, adopted—but I want to make a point about a couple of them, one of which concerns the development of infrastructure on the island territories. Certainly, in the case of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, there is a need to extend the runway and harden the runway. That needs to be done, but it needs to be done in consultation with the local communities. As other investment, where it happens, needs to be done on Christmas Island for similar purposes, there needs to be contemplation of engagement with the local community, where possible providing local community members with job opportunities and small-business opportunities. There's clearly a need for significant investment on the Cocos islands in particular, and to a lesser extent on Christmas Island.

We know that they are both important for Australia's surveillance of its territories. We now have naval vessels in and around those territories on a regular basis for our own border protection purposes. The people on the islands are very receptive to Defence Force personnel and to engaging with Defence Force personnel. Indeed, some argued for the development of a cadet unit on Christmas Island and on the Cocos islands. That's potentially going to be difficult, I suspect, but nevertheless it shows the level of interest from people on the island territories around accepting their role as part of the broader Australian community and as Australian citizens, and they need to be commended for that.

They are a wonderful people, and it's in our strategic interests to make sure that those two communities remain viable in the long term. That means that other investments, not directly to do with defence, are undertaken. We need to make sure that the long-term economic interests and economic development of those two island communities are at the forefront of our thinking when we're talking about our strategic interest, because, if we don't invest and don't continue to invest in their economic and social development, then we'll soon lose the vision which they have for themselves and we currently have for them also.

Ms LANDRY (Capricornia—Deputy Nationals Whip) (10:17): On the behalf of the Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation Science and Resources, I present the committee's report entitled Social issues relating to land-based automated vehicles in Australia, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.

The introduction of highly automated vehicles will have wide-ranging and significant effects, and it is important that the general public is on board with these changes. One of the main things that the committee was told throughout this inquiry was that public engagement is vital if we want the expected benefits of automated vehicles to happen in Australia. As the technological and regulatory barriers to automated vehicles are solved, it becomes more and more important that the social issues which will come from the introduction of automated vehicles are considered. The committee heard that the availability of automated vehicles should bring some great benefits to Australians: better road safety, improved mobility and quality of life for people with disability and older Australians, decreased traffic congestion and pollution, and changes to the way land is used, particularly in cities.

However, automated vehicles will bring with them a series of challenges, too. Before Australians can be entirely comfortable in highly automated vehicles, they will want to know that the legal and insurance questions have been settled, that their personal data and their privacy are secure and that their concerns about safety have been resolved in a transparent way. The committee is also strongly committed to the idea that people in regional and rural Australia should not be disadvantaged by a lack of access to the benefits of automated vehicles.

The committee's report makes 10 recommendations and, while I don't intend to read all of them out now, I would like to highlight some of them. In recommendation 2, the committee recommends that, noting the range of benefits automated vehicles are likely to bring and the need for public acceptance of the technology, the Commonwealth government facilitate and encourage trials of automated vehicles in Australia, with a particular focus on trials that enable members of the public to experience automated vehicles on public roads. The committee made this recommendation because one of the main barriers to the public acceptance of automated vehicles is that most people have never been in one. Studies have shown that people are much more comfortable with the technology once they have experienced it firsthand, and so the committee believes that more people should have that opportunity.

In recommendation 3, the committee recommends that the national cyber security strategy specifically investigate automated vehicles and associated transport systems to address potential vulnerabilities relating to automation. Another significant barrier, as I mentioned above, is that highly automated vehicles will generate enormous amounts of data, some of which will be quite personal to individual passengers. It is vital that this data is secure, private and trustworthy.

In recommendation 6, the committee recommends that the Commonwealth government's preparation for autonomous vehicles includes consideration of how the needs of people with disability, older Australians and those in regional and rural areas can be met via automated vehicles. One of the major benefits of automated vehicles is that they have the chance to improve quality of life for people who are unable to drive, particularly people with disability and older people. The committee thinks it is important that there are no barriers preventing these benefits from being available to those who need them most. Similarly, the committee believes it is vital that a divide in access to these benefits between those in Australia's major cities and those in regional, rural areas does not develop. The committee recommends that the Commonwealth government consider the merits of establishing either a dedicated national body or a cross-agency task force in conjunction with state and territory jurisdictions and working with vehicle and software manufacturers to coordinate Australia's preparation for the introduction of land based automated vehicles and the associated social issues that the committee has heard about during the inquiry.

As I have said, there will be many changes brought about by the widespread availability of automated vehicles in Australia. Our report discusses some of those. The committee believes it is important that this work continues. If Australians are to reap the undoubted benefits of automated vehicles, we need to ensure we are prepared for these changes, including how the impact on employment is managed, how people in rural and regional Australia can better access these benefits, how legal and safety dilemmas are answered and many more.

The committee received nearly 50 written submissions and held 10 public hearings, with a total of over 30 witnesses, over the course of the inquiry. We also conducted four inspections, including riding on an automated bus in Perth and in a highly automated car here in Canberra. I would like to thank those individuals and organisations who took the time to contribute to this inquiry and help the committee to identify some of the key issues and solutions. (Time expired)

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

Mr GOSLING (Solomon) (10:22): I thank madam chair for her work on this committee. I rise to speak to the tabling of this report, a very important report for our time, for our days, a report on the social issues relating to land based automated vehicles in Australia. I was very pleased to be the deputy chair of this committee; and I had the chance to chair one of the hearings, which was a great experience, down in Melbourne. The chair has already outlined some of the committee's main findings and recommendations. I want to speak to some of the other recommendations because they're important themes for this inquiry. In recommendation 4, the committee recommended that the Commonwealth government further investigate the issue of data rights for consumers, vehicle manufacturers and third parties such as insurers and relevant government agencies. I would like to thank the member for Lyons, who had a particular interest in this area and provided some great thinking for the committee.

The chair has already discussed some of these data and privacy issues. They are incredibly important for us to consider. There is going to be an incredible amount of data produced. A benefit of that is that it could explain to us how and why an accident between two automated vehicles may have occurred. Hopefully, automated vehicles won't crash into each other. But if any vehicles do come into contact with each other, that data will help to ascertain how that may have occurred and will reduce the amount of accidents on our roads overall.

The ownership issue that we've spoken about is important to work through. Recommendation 5 is that the Commonwealth government establish a working party with industry and academic stakeholders to identify those industry needs and to look at support services and a strategy—how we can best exploit emerging opportunities and also how as seamlessly as possible we can move into this new future not only for public transport but for private transport as well.

One of the inquiry's main themes was the impact of automated vehicles on employment, and obviously a lot of drivers out there may be a little bit nervous about what this automated future looks like. It's important that we look at the skill sets that are going to be involved and have a clear understanding of where the jobs may be lost, but there are also opportunities for future jobs. As these new technologies develop in the coming years and decades, we need to be well placed to contribute to the opportunities of those emerging technologies but also clear eyed about those that are going to be affected by the change in employment circumstances.

Recommendation 7 went to the Commonwealth government in association with the state and territory governments and local councils—the three levels of government—considering trials. When it comes to trials in my own electorate, I'm very proud to say that we've been trialling automated vehicles in Darwin for some time. First, we had a trial down at Stokes Hill Wharf in our tourism precinct down at the waterfront. It was a very short distance travelled by a semi-autonomous vehicle. Then it was a longer stretch of road down by the waterfront. This month we are running stage 3 of the automated vehicle trial in Darwin city, where we will have people actually driving down the Esplanade in Darwin. Almost 5,000 people have taken part in those trials so far, and it went to what the chair mentioned before about more opportunities for Australians to be involve in these trials. That will give the general public a bit more of an understanding about the issues involved in this transition but also a little bit more trust in this technology and the transition. I think those experiences are important for the Australian people to get an understanding of how these technologies operate.

We need to remember—and I know the chair does, as I do, as we are from regional areas of Australia—that we need to continually look at how these technologies are going to improve life in regional areas of Australia. I join the chair in thanking all those who contributed to the inquiry, in particular the secretariat. We've had a number of people working on the secretariat. Thank you for your work. I also thank the other members of the committee.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): The time allocated for statements on this report has expired.

Ms LANDRY (Capricornia—Deputy Nationals Whip) (10:27): I move:

That the house take note of the report.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next day's sitting.

Ms LANDRY (Capricornia—Deputy Nationals Whip) (10:28): I move:

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

Question agreed to.

Mr WILKIE (Denison) (10:28): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill seeks to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to narrow the circumstances under which an enterprise agreement can be terminated when it has passed its nominal expiry date. Under the current act, an expired agreement that is still in force can be terminated unilaterally by the employer if the Fair Work Commission considers it appropriate and not contrary to the public interest. This bill would simply prevent the commission from terminating any agreement if it would result in less favourable terms and conditions for any employee covered by the agreement. It would also invalidate any decision of the Fair Work Commission to terminate an agreement since 22 April 2015 if the decision would not have met the new requirements in this bill.

This bill responds to significant concern about expired agreements being terminated by employers in order to force employees on to lower wages and conditions. The bill is necessary because the practice has become more common in recent years, particularly since the Fair Work Commission decision in Aurizon Operations Limited; Aurizon Network Pty Ltd; and Australia Eastern Railroad Pty Ltd on 22 April 2015.

The Aurizon decision—which is how I will summarise it—more than two years ago is credited with creating a troubling precedent that has led to some employers resorting to what has been described as the 'nuclear option' of industrial tactics. In short, employers threaten to, and indeed do, go to the Fair Work Commission to terminate expired workplace agreements and return workers to less generous awards rates. Faced with this, workers are forced onto less favourable enterprise agreements, thereby losing the wages and conditions they and others had fought for over many decades. As far as negotiating tactics go, they don't come any stronger or more potent.

Regrettably, transport, power and mining businesses have wholeheartedly embraced this nuclear option. And in the fallout workers have lost thousands of dollars in pay and had their leave cut, and in some cases regional communities and towns have been left devastated.

In the 2015 Aurizon decision, the full bench of the Fair Work Commission ordered that a number of expired enterprise agreements covering Aurizon and its employees would terminate the following month. The commission found that the termination of the agreements was not contrary to the public interest and said that, 'the bargaining parties needed to set their attention on appropriate terms and conditions of employment that focussed, not on the past, but on the circumstances that prevail in 2015 and those which are foreseeable beyond'.

In essence, this decision significantly shifted the commission's approach to the termination of agreements that have reached their nominal expiry date but are still in force. As a result, a string of cases have followed where employers have successfully applied to the Fair Work Commission to rip up expired enterprise agreements despite justified protests from unions and workers. These include the high-profile case of Griffin Coal. In that instance, wages were slashed by 43 per cent and this cut retrospectively applied to accrued annual leave and long-service leave. As you can imagine, the impact of this decision on the town of Collie in Western Australia has been devastating. It's not just individuals, but whole communities, who are suffering due to this loophole which must be closed.

Today, sadly, the termination of agreements in the Fair Work Commission is commonplace. Hard-won wages and conditions are being driven down and employers enjoy a massive unfair advantage in negotiations for new agreements. Indeed the Aurizon precedent has been blamed for a reported explosion of enterprise agreement terminations from 156 in 2014, to 517 in 2016.

These are obviously troubling statistics, in a time of record low-wages growth, particularly when you consider that each of the hundreds of terminated agreements potentially represent entire workforces, or communities as in the case of Collie, driven onto lower wages and conditions. We can't allow this to go on. We can't have workers going backwards. We don't want nuclear warfare in our enterprise bargaining. This is not the path to productivity. This is not the path to fairness.

Which brings me back to the bill I present today, because the simplest approach to stopping employers from using the nuclear option, is for this parliament to change the law as it applies to termination of expired enterprise bargaining agreements.

This bill would create a level playing field for employees and employers because it would prevent the Fair Work Commission from terminating an agreement if it would result in employees going backwards. It would also invalidate any decision of the commission to terminate an agreement since the Aurizon decision in 2015 if the subsequent decisions would not have met the new requirements in this bill.

Just last month, in a landmark decision that sent shockwaves across the country, Murdoch University became the first public institution to use the nuclear option, when the Fair Work Commission ended the enterprise agreement covering staff at that Western Australian university. Of course this was a devastating and shocking move by Murdoch University for the individual workers who now face the real possibility of lessened conditions including significant cuts to salaries, super contributions and leave.

But it is also a decision with wider ramifications and one that will send a shiver down the spine of staff at universities around the country—including at the University of Tasmania where staff are working under the shadow of an expired enterprise agreement. Yes, Murdoch University has agreed to maintain some workplace conditions for six months, but the National Tertiary Education Union is predicting dire consequences for staff including cuts to salaries of between 20 and 30 per cent; cuts to superannuation contributions of up to 17 per cent; reductions of redundancy payments of up to 80 per cent; the withdrawal of paid parental leave; and the loss of two days of personal leave.

How are staff at Murdoch University supposed to negotiate a new enterprise agreement in this situation when the employer has its finger ready at the trigger? Frankly it's a terrible power imbalance that gives employers a most formidable weapon and puts staff between a rock and a hard place. Of course there will be enormous pressure on workers, trying to bargain in this unfair environment, to sign onto new agreements with lesser conditions than they would have accepted had they been negotiating on a level playing field. No wonder the NTEU has been inundated with emails from concerned staff from Murdoch since the decision a few weeks ago. No wonder staff at other universities, including at UTAS in my electorate, are watching on in fear. What a terrible situation to put workers in.

Shamefully, sitting on the sidelines cheering on Murdoch University is Education Minister Simon Birmingham, who is cutting the teaching budgets of universities nationally. He would be relishing the prospect of up to 30 universities across the country cutting staff costs using the threat of terminated enterprise agreements.

Surely this is an unintended consequence of the Fair Work Act, one that is being used as a weapon against employees. The rules of fair play have been broken and it's just too easy at the moment for employers to undercut their workers' wages and conditions. Frankly the Aurizon precedent has opened a door that must be shut.

The aim of the Fair Work Act is to achieve productivity, and fairness, through an emphasis on enterprise bargaining. The bill I present to the parliament this morning would help achieve that because it would simply return us to the original aim of the act. In other words it would help recreate a more level playing field for workers, and their employers, by returning the emphasis to fairness and productivity.

There's nothing complicated about any of this. The bill would simply prevent the Fair Work Commission from terminating an agreement if it would result in less favourable terms and conditions for any employee covered by the agreement. It would also invalidate any decision of the Fair Work Commission to terminate an agreement since 22 April 2015 if the decision would not have met the new requirements in the bill.

In closing, I thank the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Tertiary Education Union for their advice on this bill as well as their support and advocacy on behalf of workers. It's my hope now that the government, and the opposition, will put their political self-interest aside and focus on the public interest and get behind this bill that we have before the parliament today.

I also thank the member for Melbourne for seconding this bill, and for his tireless efforts fighting for workers' rights. Once again it's left to the crossbench to stand up for sensible reform.

It's time the Fair Work Act lived up to its name, and intent, and I urge the parliament to support this bill.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): Is the motion seconded?

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

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (10:40): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Fair Work Amendment (Recovering Unpaid Superannuation) Bill 2017 would, if passed, strengthen the power of employees to get a fairer deal on their super.

Superannuation has long been considered a great Australian public success story. It aligns and achieves multiple public policy goals simultaneously. Superannuation helps Australians to achieve greater financial independence in their retirement; it also aggregates financial capital, making it available for large-scale investment in Australian infrastructure and enterprise; and it reduces the cost upon taxpayers by reducing the need for age pensions.

And yet, despite strident successes, superannuation is not currently working for all Australians. Industry Super Australia and Cbus estimate that there are at least 2.4 million workers in this country who have been underpaid their super, creating a $3.6 billion shortfall in retirement savings. This is further estimated to balloon out to $66 billion by the year 2024.

In my own electorate of Mayo there were accounted for more than 12,000 employees who had been underpaid their super last year, missing out on an average of $1,748 each.

This amounts to a staggering 28 per cent of all employees in my electorate who are entitled to employer-paid superannuation contributions, but they are underpaid on those entitlements.

I want to tell you the story today that set me down on the path towards introducing this bill.

September last year, as a newly elected member, I met with two men, one young and one in retirement, who asked for my assistance to recover their unpaid super from their employer, a transport business.

Travis initially contacted the Fair Work Ombudsman, who directed him to the ATO.

Travis came to me with a mountain of paperwork, which was his considerable efforts in trying to recover his unpaid super for several years through the Taxation Office.

From 2009—Travis lodged several investigations with the ATO. For each quarter the ATO would find an 'employer debt established' but debt after debt never progressed to actual debt collection. Despite being owed thousands of dollars over a near eight-year period of unpaid super, Travis received just two small amounts from the ATO, and one of those 'payments' was a letter stating he had been paid just one cent. It would have cost the ATO more in postage than what Travis received—and really makes a mockery of this situation.

Travis liked his job; it is hard to find work close to home in my electorate. He just wanted his super paid. In March this year, after all those years, his employer went into bankruptcy. Travis, with his two young children and wife, is owed thousands from eight years of unpaid super. He has effectively been robbed of his money, and nobody is in trouble for it.

Terry worked with Travis until he retired. Terry is now 71. He needs to keep his superannuation account open, costing him money every year on the slim chance that perhaps, after several years of waiting for payment, he will see what is owed to him.

I immediately raised this issue with the Treasurer and then with the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services.

Sadly, I have been approached by many constituents who have been robbed of their super.

Some employers simply evade their obligation to pay superannuation to their employees, and manage to do so with relative impunity. All too often, employees are either unaware that their superannuation is not being paid, or unwilling to pursue unscrupulous employers for fear of retribution or possibly losing their jobs.

And for those employees both brave and well informed enough to lodge claims to recover their unpaid superannuation, the main avenue of recovery via the Australian Taxation Office, I believe, is woefully inadequate. I believe there could be a better way.

This bill offers real solutions to the problems, whilst simultaneously also enabling employees to get a fairer deal on super.

Due to constitutional limitations, the superannuation guarantee charge currently operates as a potential charge that is only owed by the employers to the Australian Taxation Office in lieu of payment of superannuation contributions to employees. The effect of this is that the only legislative avenue for employees to recover their unpaid superannuation is by entreating the ATO to recover it on their behalf.

This bill includes superannuation within the National Employment Standards. This gives the Fair Work Ombudsman the authority to pursue the recovery of unpaid superannuation on an employee's behalf, but it also gives employees the legal standing and a direct legal avenue to recover their superannuation directly themselves, rather than being forced to rely on only the efforts of third parties—that being the ATO.

Currently, an employee's pay slip tells them how much superannuation they are owed by their employer, but does not tell them how much is actually paid. Even the vast majority of scrupulous employers only pay super once a quarter.

This bill would enable employees to track if and when superannuation contributions are actually paid to them by their employers, by requiring employers to provide employees with notice, such as via their pay slip, of when contributions are actually paid—or are not paid—for each pay period.

To further augment this greater transparency, superannuation funds will be required to notify their members within 28 days from when a superannuation payment to a superannuation company that is reasonably expected, remains unpaid. This could be as simple as an email or text to the employee.

The bill removes a loophole in the law which allows employers to claim salary-sacrificed super as if it was an employer superannuation contribution, thus reducing an employer's obligation to pay an employee's super themselves.

This bill also removes an exemption which allows employers to not make superannuation contributions to employees when those employees are paid less than $450 in wages in a calendar month.

This bill removes the remaining restrictions on choice of superannuation fund, as effected via workplace agreements and determinations. For example, no longer would an enterprise agreement be able to force employees into a particular superannuation fund against their will.

As soon as practicable after 12 months of operation, the bill requires the Commissioner of Taxation to conduct a review of employer compliance with superannuation payment obligations, and must include recommendations on how to further improve compliance.

The information that superannuation funds are required to provide annually to the Australian Taxation Office will be expanded such that it also includes information on:

each employer who has made contributions to a superannuation plan for an individual, including under industrial instruments, and the amounts of those contributions;

the amount of any voluntary contributions to the superannuation plan.

The provision of this additional information to the ATO will help them to better identify recalcitrant employers, and to better formulate future public policy on superannuation.

I urge this parliament to turn its attention to the millions of working Australians who are missing out. We must do more for the 2.4 million Australians who are being robbed of their retirement savings, their future—and our nation's future.

I would like to give my time remaining time to the member for Indi.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): Is the motion seconded?

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (10:47): I am very pleased to second this motion and, in doing so, I congratulate my colleague the member for Mayo and draw the attention of the House to how well the crossbench work together. There is clearly a problem—the minister recognising it, the parliament recognising it—and what we have seen today is a really strong demonstration to all in the community of the really good work that happens in cooperation here on the crossbench. So, congratulations on this bill, Member for Mayo.

The Fair Work Amendment (Recovering Unpaid Superannuation) Bill 2017 really brings together many of the solutions that we know need to take place. In saying that, I call on the government to actually consider bringing on for debate, and a vote, many of these very sensible, very practical solutions that are coming from the crossbench. I will be working with the Clerk, with the Leader of the House and with the opposition on how we can bring this particular legislation to the House so that it can be voted on, and then we can have what this parliament does really well: the give and take so that we get better legislation through debate. I want to acknowledge your work, Member for Mayo, and say thank you.

Following a similar private members' motion that came through the House last week, when this topic was debated, I took an opportunity to speak to the minister and to ask for her commitment to follow through on this work. There are 32 recommendations made by the Senate Economics References Committee, and only some of them have been addressed—good to have some. I will invite my colleagues of the parliament to come with me and meet with the minister and her advisers as she explains some of her thinking. And some of the other areas I am particularly keen to work on include the impact of superannuation for women. We all know they are particularly disadvantaged in the workforce and their superannuation is so important, so I will look forward to my colleagues joining me in doing that.

What I really want to say to the government is: come and walk with us on this next step. Bring some of this really sensible private members' legislation to the parliament and let us have the debate, as we know we need to do. Let's do something about it. Let's not just leave it on the table. Let's have the legislation that we need and that is so well proposed by the member for Mayo. Let's actually take action on this really important topic.

Debate adjourned.

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (10:51): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I hold up a map of the world. The only countries that are shaded in grey are Russia and the Middle Eastern countries. All the rest of the world is on ethanol: China; India; half of Indonesia; all of Europe—all cars in Europe have to be E20; they have to take 20 per cent ethanol—Turkey; all of the South American countries with the exception of Venezuela; and all of the North American countries. The only country on earth outside the oil producing countries is Australia. Why do we have this anomaly? Why are we the only country on earth that doesn't oxygenate its petrol?

Lead was removed from petrol because lead kills people. Unoxygenated petrol, we now know absolutely, kills people. There is a graph here, which I'm quite happy to present to the House, which shows that when you double the small-particle emissions from petrol in the atmosphere then the number of people dying of lung and heart diseases doubles.

As a result of work that was done in the United States, every country on earth has moved to oxygenate petrol, except Australia. Mr Iemma, when he introduced it into the New South Wales parliament said, 'I can't go another day with the death of people on my conscience, who simply don't have to die.' It doesn't seem to have worried successive governments in this place. I have to be really nasty—I think 'nasty' is really the right word here—when asked by my honourable Independent colleague from Tasmania, Mr Wilkie, why we haven't introduced it.

Mr John Anderson was the first minister who made the decision to reject ethanol. He represents a red-hot area for ethanol: it's a big grain-growing area. He was later appointed a director of Santos; he stepped down this year. He made the decision against ethanol and then he was appointed a director of an oil, gas and minerals company. Mark Vaile was the second minister who rejected ethanol. He later became a director of Santos, another oil, gas and minerals company. The next one was Martin Ferguson. The next one was Martin Ferguson. For those in this place who think that I'm making a partisan point, the first two were in the National Party and Martin Ferguson is in the Labor Party. He is on WesTrac, he is the chair of an advisory board at Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Associations and he is a non-executive director of British Gas, the biggest gas-producing company in the world. The last one was Ian Macfarlane. He is the non-executive director of Woodside and head of the Queensland Resources Council, which is oil, gas and minerals. This is an exercise in impropriety. It's extraordinary and it's very, very sad, for the reason that people, about 600 or 700 people, die in Sydney each year as a result of this country not going into ethanol.

I just want to move on and say that Treasury says that they have taxed ethanol. We're the only country on earth that taxes ethanol. Most countries subsidise ethanol, but we tax it! When those trucks roll out of the Dalby plant, or out of the Sarina plant or out of the Manildra plant, the ethanol coming out of those plants carries a 40 per cent tax burden. The petrol coming in from overseas carries a four or six per cent tax burden. I don't have time today to go into the reasons why, but the tax department believes that ethanol should be taxed twice but that foreign oil should only be taxed at the bowser.

Ninety-three per cent of Australia's motor vehicle fuel is now imported. In total, we only have two weeks' storage capacity. So, if a couple of dozen tankers are blown up then in Australia we will walk, quite literally. There is no conveyance by which we can move from point A to B. All of our conveyances, except for the odd tramway here and there, are run on petrol. For those who don't know much about their history, they will recall that the European war was about Hitler trying to get to the oilfields. Stalingrad, being a great battle, was the gateway to the oilfields in Russia. And, of course, he was fighting across the Libyan desert. What was he doing in the Libyan desert? He was trying to get to the oilfields.

I think that most people in this place know that the Japanese went to war because America cut off their oil supply. But, of course, successive governments in Australia—ALP and LNP in this place—are quite happy that we rest upon the mercies of the Middle East for our oil supply. Twenty-five billion dollars a per year now goes out of Australia to the oil-producing countries, principally in the Middle East—$25 billion a year. On the Brazilian experience, half of that would be going into rural and regional Australia—into the electorates that I and the member for Indi and the other members on the crossbench here represent, with the exception of the member for Melbourne.

The Brazilian experience is that they've moved to and average of around 50 per cent, but all it had was a 20 per cent mandate. You start with a 10 per cent or a six per cent mandate, as they did in America, because the price is attractive and the price drives the ethanol. And so we have America on maybe 12 per cent today and we have Brazil on about 60 per cent, because they've been doing it for 30 years. We hear debates in this place and maybe a tenth of them are about CO2. Well, here lies the answer! People like myself have to say that the ALP and the LNP indulge in some towering hypocrisy here. They could introduce ethanol tomorrow, but of course they'd upset their rich donors from the oil companies and the gas companies if they did. And the proof of the cake is where each of these ministers is now receiving income—from the oil companies and the gas companies.

Let me be quite technical about this. If you grow sugar cane to produce ethanol—and most of it would probably be coming from grain in Australia from electorates like the member for Indi's, I know the figures here—you would produce about 1,000 litres of ethanol from every hectare of cane. That would put about three tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Each hectare of sugar cane pulls 73 tonnes a year out of the atmosphere. So three tonnes are going up into the atmosphere and 73 tonnes are being pulled down every year. Whilst it is not as simple as the rather crude analysis that I'm using here, still, you've got the idea that ethanol is burnt the same as petrol, with the same amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but the difference is that, in the member for Indi's electorate, growing grain pulls it back down again. So it's simply going up and down. With fossil fuels, it goes up and it stays up.

In the greenies' bible—it's not a bad book, even I have to admit that—An Inconvenient Truth : The Crisis of Global Warming by Al Gore, what does he name as the first solution to the CO2 problems to the world? What is the first solution? Ethanol. But we haven't heard one single word from either the ALP or the LNP about ethanol and not even from their backbenchers. They've been remarkably silent, and yet we stand on the crossbenches, once again, united, asking what all of the world is doing at the present moment. Those of us on the crossbench the four of us represent regional and rural electorates. There are jobs for our people in the struggling agriculture of Australia and there is a benefit for the grains industry. The lot feeders are almost all foreign-owned, I might add. They are squealing blue bloody murder, because it puts the price of grain up 16 per cent. Where would the Victorian wheat farmers be if they were getting an extra 16 per cent? (Time expired)

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): Is the motion seconded?

Ms McGowan: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (11:04): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Like many people in this place, I'm fairly sick of buying my grandchildren—although, for a lot of you, it would be your children—woomeras that won't throw a spear, boomerangs that won't come back and bullroarers that don't roar. So, firstly, we would like to give our tourists, whether they are Australian tourists or overseas tourists, a bit of genuineness in the product that we sell.

Infinitely more importantly, First Australians—and I often identify, so I will here: we First Australians—might argue that the land was taken from us by the settlers and the people that came from overseas, and they might well say, 'Well, you're the most land-rich people on Earth, you blackfellas; you're the most land-rich people on Earth,' which, I suppose, if you look at the map, you'd say we were. But there is just a little problem here: we're not allowed to use any of that land. We can't get a title deed off any federal or state government in Australia. It's not hard to do; I issued 800 in 2½ years when I was minister. But that's far from addressing the problem. And there have been no title deeds in Queensland issued, effectively, it's a fair thing to say, since 1990, when the much-maligned Bjelke-Petersen government collapsed. So we can't get any income from that source.

But, as it turns out, we've been remarkably good at some of the most magnificent art, and it's a school of art. When the impressionists came in, there was a group of artists, and when people began to appreciate the great beauty of what they were doing, their art became very, very valuable indeed, and that style of art went throughout the world. In this case, we have styles of painting, whether dot paintings or Namatjira-style landscape art, which are very, very culturally identifiable as First Australian artwork. Well, that has been copied in China, in India and in Indonesia and replicated a million times and then sent into Australia and sold as genuine, authentic First Australian art. Well, of course it's not genuine and authentic; it's simply a copy.

When this matter first arose and was brought to our attention, a senior staffer in my office went down to three outlets for tourist souvenirs in Cairns, and 23 of the items—in fact, almost every single item, but there were 23 separate items in those stores—were imported from Indonesia, China or India. So here we go: 'Australian Indigenous art' is being produced in, and marketed and sold from, foreign countries—once again, sending all the jobs overseas.

So what this bill will achieve is that no longer will those jobs go overseas—they will remain here in Australia—and Indigenous art will remain the property of the First Peoples. Whether one wants to talk about whether land was taken off the original people or whether it wasn't, one thing is for certain: if this bill goes through, they will no longer take our art and our culture away from us, and I think every single Australian would agree with that proposition.

We pay our thanks, our gratitude and our appreciation to the minister for setting up an inquiry. But, in this place—for example, on water development—all we get is inquiries. Nothing ever happens. On the issue of CO2, all we get is inquiries; nothing seems to ever happen in this place. So we want action on this, and I thank very much my colleague on the crossbenches for her support in this matter and her very great commitment to what is a cause of fairness for our First Australian peoples.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): Is the motion seconded?

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (11:09): It is a great pleasure to second this motion, and I reserve my right to speak.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ) (11:47): The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (11:47): To resume my speech: with respect to the state-by-state modelling for unmet demand, I understand that my colleague Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore has sought the production of the documents. It is quite unacceptable for this parliament to be expected to vote on such reforms when such critical information is not available. However, the evidence before us does tell us that there is possibly a more meaningful way to address addiction. Experts also tell us that income management as a first step when a person reports that they need help would drive away participants and recipients from self-reporting. In turn, this will make it more difficult to do what I believe the government does want to do—that is, better assist every person receiving the jobseeker payment to be free of addiction and to be job ready.

Schedule 4 no longer provides for drug or alcohol addiction as a reasonable excuse. This can only be a reasonable excuse if we accept that drug or alcohol addiction is a barrier to employment, and then ensure that we provide the pathways to rehabilitation for the participant. As I have previously said, it is reasonable to expect a jobseeker to look for work or to take steps to address the barriers that stop jobseekers participating in looking for work or employment activities. Equally, we as a society must provide as many supports and pathways as possible to assist people to beat their addiction.

Schedule 15 provides for targeted compliance. I accept that we should place expectations on jobseekers to be activated and engaged. I do believe, though, that the compliance framework should include income management as a last resort after all demerit points have been exhausted and before the cutting of payments. There is a fine balance with mutual obligations, and I would like to see debate to consider what recipients' further chances should be before payments are removed, as this would cause detrimental financial impact and possibly adverse or unintended consequences, such as a person turning to crime as they see no other option. I think we must look at this legislation and at these clauses from the point of view not just of the individual recipient but of families, and many of these recipients do have families. As this clause stands, ultimately we could possibly be depriving children of food in the cupboard.

In closing, I cannot support this bill in its entirety as it currently stands. I and my colleagues will continue discussions with the government in good faith, and my Senate colleagues will examine this bill in greater detail. We all want every Australian jobseeker to have every opportunity to address barriers, find employment and achieve happiness and prosperity. This goal is not beyond being realised.

Dr ALY (Cowan) (11:50): The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 implements a range of complex measures across the portfolios of Social Services, Employment and Human Services. Labor is committed to ensuring that the proposed measures are in the best interests of supporting and empowering Australians, not demonising and isolating them. We believe in fairness, we believe in equality and we believe in justice. Many of the measures proposed in this bill certainly do not promote these principles. In fact, many of the measures in this bill will deliver the exact opposite for Australian jobseekers and people suffering with drug and alcohol dependency. We note that there are measures we could potentially support if they were separated from other measures in the bill, and we will move amendments in the Senate to do just that. That's exactly why Labor referred this bill to a Senate inquiry—to ensure that it's scrutinised and to ensure that all relevant information on the proposed measures is available.

However, unfortunately, the government has rushed this process through. It has only allowed a short Senate inquiry into the proposed changes and has scheduled the bill for debate in the Senate on the day that the report is released. That's just not good enough. The government wants to shield these proposed changes from the scrutiny of not just the Labor Party but experts in the field being affected by them.

I want to speak to several schedules in the bill. Schedule 3 concerns the cessation of the wife pension. The wife pension is a non-activity-tested payment. It's been closed to new applicants since 1 July 1995. It's paid to female partners of age pension or disability support pension recipients who are not eligible for pensions in their own right. The wife pension was granted to women solely on the basis of their partner's eligibility for the age pension or disability support pension. As at 2020, it's estimated that there will be around 7,750 wife pension recipients. According to this bill, of these, 2,250 will transfer onto the age pension and around 2,400 onto the carers payment. These women will be no worse off under schedule 3 of this bill. However, 2,900 women will be transferred onto the jobseeker payment. These will be women below pension age who do not meet the activity test for the carer payment. Transitional payments would apply that mean that they will continue to receive the pension rate of payment rather than the lower jobseeker payment rate, but its indexation would cease, meaning that they would be worse off in real terms over time.

It's estimated that around 200 wife pension recipients who reside overseas will no longer be eligible for any social security payment as a result of this measure. These recipients are under age-pension age and would not be eligible for either another payment under an international agreement or a portable payment. So, in actuality, this means that these 200 or so women will up to be $670 worse off per fortnight. The group of low-income women who will be transferred onto the jobseeker payment will suddenly be left with nothing to live on—including the 200 women who are recipients of the wife pension and reside overseas—other than their partner's pension, and they probably have been out of the workforce for many years. It would seem reasonable for this group to be grandfathered to avoid them facing financial crisis, particularly given their small number and, therefore, the minimum cost of doing so.

Schedule 9 of this bill proposes changes to the activity tests for persons aged 55 to 59. It removes the ability of Newstart recipients and some special benefits recipients between the ages of 55 and 59 to fulfil the activity test by volunteering for 30 hours per fortnight. The overwhelming evidence provided by experts to the Senate inquiry considering this legislation was that mature jobseekers actually face significant adversity, including ageism, when trying to enter the workforce. The proposal seeks to adjust the obligations of the 55-to-59-year-old cohort by forcing them to enter the workforce, but in actual fact the government hasn't provided any additional support to help them overcome the significant barriers they face.

Experts in the volunteering sector are particularly concerned that the changes may reduce the number of people volunteering in Australia. As somebody who works very closely with community organisations and not-for-profit organisations in my electorate, I understand that they rely very strongly on volunteers, and any kind of negative impact on the volunteering sector is also going to negatively impact those organisations that are providing vital services to people within my electorate.

We also note that the participation and unemployment rate for the 55-to-59-year-old cohort is similar to the population overall but, once out of work, the length of time a person aged 55 to 59 spends looking for work is 73 weeks, compared to averages of 40 and 50 weeks for those of different age groups. A while ago I held a jobs forum in my electorate, and that was overwhelmingly attended by people within that cohort—people over the age of 50 who are unemployed. I was quite astounded to know that these people don't need more training. They aren't unemployed because of a lack of skills or because of a lack of education. In fact, some of them have PhDs and some of them have engineering qualifications, apart from 20 to 30 years of experience in the workforce.

The government has announced a new program targeted at helping people over 50 back into the workforce called the Career Transition Assistance Program, due to be rolled out in 2020. What I'd like to say about that is that it really doesn't recognise those barriers that our older and mature workers face. Those barriers aren't about their level of skill and they aren't about their level of education. As I've said, many of them have a high level of skill and many years of experience in the Australian workforce, and many of them have education qualifications. In fact, one gentleman who attended my jobs forum has an engineering degree and 20 years of experience in the engineering sector. But, because he's over the age of 55, he's been unemployed for five years and is finding it very difficult to get back into employment.

They don't need retraining. Our older Australians and our mature workforce don't need retraining. What they need is a substantive change in the system to recognise and value the skills, the experience and the education that older and mature workers bring to a workplace. I would suggest that it might be more worthwhile to promote mature workers in workplaces and to incorporate some substantive measures that address the level of ageism that is occurring in our workplaces, because it is those kinds of systemic and substantive barriers that older workers and mature workers, at least in my electorate, are facing. It's not a matter of their not having any skills. It's not a matter of their needing more training. It is a matter of their skills, their experience and their education being undervalued by the employment market, and I think that's where we need to focus our efforts in that space.

I would like to move on now to schedule 12 of the proposed bill. The fact is that the government really hasn't provided any evidence to support the establishment of its drug-testing trial. In fact, evidence from overseas actually goes against what the government is proposing. In New Zealand, for example, a drug-testing program for welfare recipients was introduced in 2013. In 2015, only 22 of 8,001 participants returned a positive result for illicit drug use. The detection rate was much lower than that for the general population of New Zealand estimated to be using illicit drugs. So, if there is no evidence for this proposal, what information is available to show that it will work? We simply don't know.

The government hasn't told us what the cost to the taxpayer of this testing will be, nor what kind of test it will be. Addiction medicine specialists are concerned about the technical aspects of this particular trial, and still no information has been forthcoming. A long-term cannabis user who is trying to address their drug use will still test positive up to six weeks after their last use. But this doesn't tell us if they are using currently. So how can this test, a test that we have no details about, tell us if a person has actually stopped using drugs, if the drugs are still detected in their system six weeks after they've stopped? These are the kinds of concerns that we are raising but that seem to be swept under the carpet by the government. The government wants to pass this bill without asking the substantial questions about exactly how this part of the bill—exactly how this proposed drug trial—is going to operate.

Medical professionals and the drug and alcohol treatment sector have also raised significant concerns about these measures and their impact on the community. These organisations include St Vincent's Health Australia, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, ACOSS and UnitingCare. In fact, no health or community organisations have actually come out publicly in support of the trial. On top of this, the government is claiming that the availability of treatment will be a criterion for selecting trial sites. The Senate estimates revealed that the Commonwealth doesn't actually have access to data on the availability of treatment and has to rely on the states to provide this information. So, again, there is a lot of confusion about how this is actually going to work and, again, no evidence that treatment places will actually be available.

The treatment sector tells us that there are long waiting lists for treatment all around the country. At a meeting in Perth about two months ago, the treatment sector said exactly the same thing: huge, long waiting lists for people who are looking for help with their drug addictions and for beds within drug treatment facilities. The trials that are being proposed by a government whipping up a policy on the run will just increase pressure on an already overburdened system. There is no plan for people who are identified as having an actual drug problem and who can't access treatment because it is not available. So what do we do? We identify that somebody has a drug problem, but then there is nowhere to put them because the drug treatment facilities are already overburdened.

Again, we see a government that is wanting to pass a bill without the support of the organisations and specialists who know best and without giving us any information on how it will work. We can't simply continue to ignore the advice of experts in the field. The advice that comes from those working at the grassroots—those who are working with people who are drug addicted—is telling us that this drug trial is simply not going to work. In fact, it will have adverse effects on those people who are trying to rehabilitate and discontinue their drug use.

Now, we know that the kinds of punitive measures like those being proposed do not stop illicit drug use. You cannot stop drug use simply by incorporating a range of punitive measures or by punishing those who are caught up in this illness. Testing like this can actually lead to people simply using less-traceable but more-harmful drugs like, for example, synthetic cannabis. It can also encourage people to turn to other drugs that aren't being tested for as part of the trial, such as alcohol. What we can see is that the proposed measures do not promote fairness or justice or compassion for jobseekers.

I know that receiving welfare and looking for work is stressful and difficult enough as it is. I've been there. I know what it's like and I've lived through it. It's not something that a lot of people are proud of. A lot of people find it quite humiliating. These measures will potentially make it harder for those jobseekers to provide for their families and break out of cycles of poverty and drug abuse. They will not help or support jobseekers with drug use issues. They will just punish them and make it harder for them to address those issues. (Time expired)

Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (12:05): I thank the previous speaker for her contribution and all those participating from this side of the chamber. I have to say that I'm a bit bemused by the fact that there's been such a drop-off of government members speaking on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. So few of them have actually participated, which raises a number of questions, I would have thought, about the belief that exists within the government ranks about some of the measures incorporated in this legislation.

As we know, this bill seeks to amend a range of quite complex measures across social services, employment and human services portfolios. As usual, I'm indebted to the Bills Digest from the Parliamentary Library and the work they've done on this legislation. As the Bills Digest tells us, schedule 12 amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to enable the government to run drug-testing trials in three locations. From 1 January 2018, 5,000 new recipients of unemployment payments will be asked, under this legislation, to take drug tests as part of a trial to take place in three locations across the country. People who refuse to take the tests may face penalties. People who test positive on the first test will be placed on income management. If they test positive on later tests, they may be asked to accept drug treatment as part of their mutual obligation requirements.

The government argues that the drug-testing trials have two objectives: to maintain the integrity of, and public confidence in, the social security system and to provide new pathways for identifying recipients with drug abuse problems and facilitating their referral to appropriate treatment facilities.

However, that's not the full story. As again I'm reminded by the work being done by the Parliamentary Library, there are a number of issues that may be of concern. Firstly, the government did not consult with outside experts or service providers while developing the policy. I will come to that in more detail in a moment, because, as we're reminded by the Bills Digest, few welfare agencies, health professionals or drug treatment experts regard a combination of random drug-testing and penalties for refusal to undertake treatment as a promising approach. Indeed, I will explain in detail the concerns of these organisations.

Secondly, a number of policy experts and commentators have suggested that drug-testing measures are more about signalling the government's disapproval of drug use than they are about assisting the problem drug users into employment.

Thirdly, if the cashless debit card or a similar card that is distinctive and readily identifiable is used to income-manage recipients who test positive on a drug test, that may lead to a stigma because it identifies cardholders as drug users. So they are stigmatised and indeed victimised.

Fourthly, the availability of drug and alcohol treatment is in the context of national undersupply. Fifthly, and lastly, the Department of Human Services will engage contractors to administer drug tests and determine that a person should be subject to income management. That raises some very serious concerns, and that is why Labor has moved an amendment which will seek for the House to decline to give the bill a second reading. As we argue, it's a cynical attempt by this government to distract from its political problems—that we know about. And it calls on the government to drop their costly and unproven social security recipients drug-testing trial that medical experts say won't work, to listen to medical and health experts by implementing proven ways to assist people by investing in treatment and rehabilitation services to battle drug addiction, and to stop demonising vulnerable Australians who rely on our social security system.

We expect a lot from our government, but what we want them to do that is most important is to look after the most marginalised, disenfranchised and, ultimately, victimised people in our community. This piece of legislation is doing precisely the opposite. We expect leadership from the Prime Minister. He says this legislation is an act of love. I say to the Prime Minister it's a very poor act of love. It's a very strange definition of what love is, as my comrade reminds me, if you're seeking to victimise and stigmatise people, because that is the outcome of this legislation on the people this aims to recruit into this drug trial.

It's very important that the Prime Minister comes into this place as the leader. He is the Prime Minister of the country. He should be using his position for all Australians, not just for some Australians, and what he is doing here is penalising some of the most disadvantaged, marginalised people in this country. He has no problem, as we saw last weekend, attacking the Leader of the Opposition in the most puerile way—in a very childish and schoolboy manner. Yet he can't bring himself to look after the interests of these Australians who, as we're being told by people who know this business, will be victimised, will be demonised and will be stigmatised by this approach. You can't have it both ways in this country. You either govern for all Australians or you don't. In this case the Prime Minister and the government have made it very clear to all who care to listen and watch that they are not interested in properly governing in the interests of all Australians regardless of who they are or where they live.

I'm a bit over this Prime Minister, to be very frank, because on the weekend he was in Darwin for a whole of an hour. A whole hour he was in Darwin, attending the local Country Liberal Party conference. We know he's got huge problems, but what was his major message from this meeting of the luminaries of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory? A reminder: he was there for an hour. It was basically to attack the people of the Northern Territory for saying they were concerned about fracking. That's what his message was. He was telling the Northern Territory government that they should overlook the interests, needs, demands and desires of the people of the Northern Territory and just get on with it. Again we're seeing a Prime Minister who clearly has a tin ear. He can't listen, doesn't understand and won't watch and learn from what people who live in regional or remote Australia in this instance think, want and need.

It is no surprise to me that the Prime Minister has adopted this course. But I have to say to him: why doesn't he just look at the evidence and listen to what people who are involved in looking after people who are marginalised in our community say about this legislation. I want to point to a particular submission which was made to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 by a Western Australian organisation—a very good organisation, an organisation that I have a lot of confidence in. It is the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia. They say:

We contend that the proposed changes outlined within the above schedules, will not result in any significant decrease in alcohol and other drug use by those on welfare, or result in any significant savings by the Commonwealth Government—the intended aim of the Bill.

That's what this is about. This is not about looking after the interests of Australians; this is about cost-cutting and getting savings for the government. If they were fair dinkum, they would look at the views that have been expressed.

I agree with the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia, who say:

The proposals lack an evidence-based approach to welfare reform—

that's clear—

The proposals do not provide a culturally-safe and appropriate service model—

that's also clear—

The proposals are not in line with the National Drug Strategy, and various other Commonwealth and State alcohol and other drug strategies.

You would think, would you not, Deputy Speaker, that if you were going to administer this sort of approach on drug use or the abuse of drugs, you would actually go to the drug strategy that this government is actually proselytising. But no, that's irrelevant to this approach. This Prime Minister, who ought to know better and who parades himself around as a true Liberal, instead of listening to the concerns of people who know, closes his mind, with a very blinkered approach pushed, no doubt, by those on the right-wing rump of the Liberal Party and the Nationals.

The Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia go on to say:

The proposals are effectively punitive responses that do little to address what is essentially a health-related issue—

which it is. Drug abuse, misuse of drugs and alcohol abuse are largely health-related issues. Alcohol and other drug dependency, as they say in their submission, is a health issue that 'requires primarily a health-focused response to address the needs of those people with complex needs'. Therefore, you would think that if the government accepted that proposition—which they clearly don't—they would adhere to the direction and investment in the strategies outlined in their own National Drug Strategy 2017-26. Not this government. They can say one thing on one day and another thing on another day, depending on who the audience is or what their purpose is. This Prime Minister and his government have shown yet again how duplicitous they really are.

Also—these proposals in this submission pick this up—the government do not outline the provision of any extra investment to voluntary support and treatment services for people with drug and alcohol dependency, who in this case are Aboriginal people. The bill has not been involved with and is not inclusive of community consultation. What we need, as this document points out, is 'further investment in culturally appropriate, evidence-based and ideally community-led, early intervention and prevention services'. That is true. That's what we need. If we've got a concern about alcohol and drug abuse, that's what we need to do.

Deputy Speaker, you've only got to look at the propositions being put by so many others. This government ought to—but they clearly don't want to—listen to the propositions which have been put to them. For example, the president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, Alex Wodak, has said:

The drug treatment system in Australia is overloaded and underfunded. Unless that crisis is addressed, these people will go to the back of an already long queue.

Hear, hear! But what are we doing? Instead of looking for jobs for these people and instead of addressing their concerns and their needs around alcohol and other drugs, what we are doing is saying to them: 'Come in, have a drug test. By the way, mate, you've shown up. You've got a problem with alcohol or other drugs. We might have to look after your income.'

I note a very touching photograph I saw on the television this morning of the Prime Minister at a football game on the weekend. It was a very touching, beautiful photograph of the Prime Minister with a grandchild, giving a warm embrace to the grandchild with one hand and holding a beer in the other. I don't have a problem with the Prime Minister drinking—none at all—just as I don't have a problem with the member for Warringah having a drink now and then, yet the member for Warringah has admitted that he got so stonkered that he couldn't even come in to vote on important legislation. That's not a problem. Everyone laughs it off.

Mr Champion: Put him on the BasicsCard!

Mr SNOWDON: Put him on the BasicsCard. Mate, let's just see him on an income trial!

There are so many people—the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the AMA, the Australian Council of Social Services, Catholic Social Services Australia, the Australian National Council on Drugs; the list goes on and on—who have all said that this will not work, it's not appropriate and it shouldn't be done. Why are the government doing it? What is it they have got against these Australians? (Time expired)

Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (12:21): It would seem that the government has lost interest in its own legislation. It has run out of speakers on its side of parliament. There is a very long list of Labor speakers because we're very concerned about this bill and this welfare 'reform'—and I say 'reform' because really this bill is full of, firstly, malice and, secondly, ignorance. This bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017, has been done for blatantly political purposes. You can see the conduct of the minister: he's been out there, often peddling the sorts of welfare-bashing headlines that we see in tabloids from time to time, with misleading information given about whole communities. Most recently, there was one in my community where a whole suburb was blackguarded on the basis of 80-odd people not showing up for interviews. So a suburb full of people—a suburb and an area with, literally, thousands of people—was blackguarded on the basis of the few who perhaps didn't show up for interviews for one reason or another. So we know that this government comes to this bill and to this parliament in this area not in a spirit of practical improvement or of trying to design a social security system which provides people with income support between jobs and endeavours to give them help as they seek work; instead, it really does bash them around the ears and adopts a sort of pernicious approach.

There are three areas of this bill where the government's approach will be very, very damaging to their political processes. It's not just that it's wrong—and we know it's wrong—but that it will actually damage them politically, and I think they should think twice about the nature of the politics about this. The first area is schedule 9, about mature-aged workers. My experience with mature-aged workers, in my area, is that often they left school in year 10 or year 11 or year 12 and went to work in factories. They went to work, day in, day out, for years and years and years. They always rocked up at work and always did the right thing. And then one day their factory was scheduled for closure.

I meet people like that all the time. In the middle of the last campaign, I went down to Avery Dennison in my electorate, a little envelope manufacturer—well, it was little; it used to be big, with 400 employees at its height, but it was down to 40 employees during that campaign. And those 40 employees were being made redundant. Those workers, some of whom had started there as they left school and had stayed there for a very long time, did a good job, paid their taxes and did the right thing. Those workers found that when they got made redundant, not only did they not get any help from the social security system, because of the liquid assets test—which the government is further changing in other bills before this House—but that their job prospects were very grim indeed. If you are in your mid-50s, or your early 50s, or even if you're just over 40—if you're my age, 45—your job prospects can be very, very grim.

The problem is that those people, by any measure, have done the right thing in the contract between citizen and government, if you like: they've worked very hard over a very long period, they've contributed to the system and they've contributed to their communities. Often, what they want is a fair go. Now, at the moment the government says to those workers who might not be able to find work again—and that's the grim reality in some instances—that they can fulfil the activity test, which is the number of jobs applied for per fortnight, by volunteering for 30 hours per fortnight. Frankly, when many mature-age workers apply for work they sometimes send in hundreds and hundreds of applications only to get hundreds and hundreds of rejections. And you get a letter of rejection if you're lucky; often you get no response at all. But volunteering allows them some measure of dignity. They can keep volunteering to fulfil the activity test and to contribute to society, as they've done over decades, and not—I don't want to say 'be harassed' by Centrelink or by the job agencies—be put through the ringer in the same way that, say, a young person is who hasn't contributed to the system and who hasn't paid taxes over decades may be. That's a fair acknowledgement of the situation that many mature-age workers find themselves in.

We know that there is age discrimination. We know that the job prospects for these workers can be very grim indeed, even when the labour market is operating well on the macro scale. Often there are regional impacts or individual impacts in terms of their skills. But we know that the work ethic of many of these mature-age workers is really, really good, and that they are often very distraught about not being able to find work. Volunteering gives them a role in the community and in society, and it frees them from the work activity test—which can sometimes be frustratingly cruel, I think, for workers in that situation.

So the government should be very, very careful. In regard to mature-age workers, I doubt very much that this bill would ever have been applied in the Howard years. I don't think that John Howard would have put these mature-age workers, who—through a combination of economic change, age discrimination and lack of skill formation—have now found themselves in a very difficult situation indeed, through this. So I think that the government should think again, and that when the Senate inquiry gives them an opportunity to rethink this that they should think about the provisions for mature-age workers very carefully indeed.

The second area where this bill will impact on my constituents is on jobseekers generally, with the demerit system that would be introduced—ostensibly to avoid people missing interviews and the like. I've had a fair bit to do with this area. Often, I struggle to see the point of the sometimes onerous nature of these compliance systems that we put in place: often they're riddled with error or with human frailty, and often people who are trying to do the right thing get caught out by them. The idea is that we would apply more financial penalties as a result of this new system coming in. At the moment it's projected that the 72,881 financial penalties that are applied every year will rise to 147,000 financial penalties every year. Now, I understand that might sound like a good idea on talkback radio, or when people are bending the arm at the pub. But in reality it diminishes people's capacity to find work and it diminishes their capacity for human dignity, because often the result of those financial penalties is to impoverish them and sometimes to make them homeless. It is an entirely counterproductive thing to apply financial penalties. It doesn't motivate the individual concerned—I can assure you. It often exacerbates the very problems that they face.

The last provision that Labor has concern with is the drugs tests. I can understand people think, 'This is a terrific idea. If only we quarantine their income, that would yield better results.' We had the BasicsCard. I'm not against it in principle, because we implemented a trial in the city of Playford, which is in my community, and I was an advocate of that trial, but I can tell you from personal experience what we found. What we found worked better were the wraparound service that were put in place at the same time. They were what yielded better results. What yielded better results was actually having Centrelink go out to the community. They went out to places, like the Peachey Belt, and had the Centrelink officers visit the community. Those things yielded better results.

This government would have more credibility in this area if they hadn't cut a billion dollars out of the flexible funds in health and other areas, which provided the very services that might assist people getting off drugs. We know, from personal experience and from every credible study, that people are addicts. Addiction is a very complex thing and you need to deal with it in a complex fashion. You can't just apply simplistic notions to it. For all the reasons that were given before, we think these drugs tests are (a) waste of money that could go into treatment, and (b) unlikely to yield any positive result. There are plenty of examples from Missouri and New Zealand and all over the world that suggest you catch very few people, and that the result from catching people is often that you could have actually just spent the money on services and done the job there.

For all these reasons, we think this bill is a very, very flawed bill. It comes down to the government's intentions in this area. This is a government which is in desperate and dire straits politically, and so it is grasping at the most desperate of territory and the most desperate of proposals to try to fix its political problem. I think, particularly for the mature-age-worker proposals, the government will find that these provisions, when implemented, will infuriate a large group of people in the community who are very good citizens, and who find themselves unemployed through really no fault of their own, as a function of a changing economy.

I think the government will rue the day this bill came to parliament and rue the day the minister brought it here, because, once you get past the cheap headlines, what backbench members will find is that they have to face up to these individuals in the community and they have to face up to the results, and the results will not be pretty. This bill, hopefully, will be sensibly amended in the Senate. I hope we can save the government and the community from this minister.

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (12:33): In the Senate inquiry into this bill, Sharon Pellas from Volunteering Australia, reported:

I have actually found that in the volunteering role I have had a lot more value in terms of the input that I give into where I've been volunteering in both services. I've actually had an opportunity to also increase my skill set and learn to use different IT systems that I wasn't aware of before. I've also been able to share my knowledge in terms of good customer service skills and looking at customer service models. I've also been able to foster self-esteem in people under Job Network and also with people who are working for the dole. I've been able to be involved in bringing a community together.

She says:

I'm still looking for work. I'm doing that myself anyway. So I think I keep a much more positive approach than what I would have if I wasn't volunteering.

That's Sharon Pellas, a witness giving evidence on behalf of Volunteering Australia. Jemma Toohey, the Chief Executive Officer of Albury Wodonga Volunteer Resource Bureau, quoted a volunteer for her organisation:

In 2013 at the age of 59 I commenced volunteering for 15 hours weekly at the Albury Wodonga Volunteer Resource Bureau. Volunteering gave me a sense of pride, in knowing that some of the skills I had acquired from my previous occupations could be useful to this organisation. Volunteering has also given me many personal benefits, such as teaching me some new skills, meeting new people and a sense of wellbeing by giving back to the community. In 2016 I was fortunate to be offered some casual paid working hours which are still ongoing. It is only due to my volunteering that this opportunity arose and I am extremely grateful. Kind regards, Judy Gallagher.

Ms Gallagher's experience is similar to that of many volunteers around Australia aged 50 to 59 who are able to meet participation requirements through volunteering. We know that in Australia we have a challenge in maintaining the strength of community spirit. What the Americans call the Bowling Alone problem and we call the Disconnected problem has meant that Australians now are less likely to donate money, to volunteer their time, to join organisations like Scouts, Guides, Rotary or Lions, to attend a religious service or to be part of a trade union. Social capital is on the wane in Australia, so we need government policies to be looking creatively at how we can encourage volunteering, not discourage it.

After the last election, Bill Shorten, reflecting Labor's strong commitment to the charity and not-for-profit sector, announced that for the first time there would be a frontbencher with responsibility for charities and not-for-profits, and I am honoured to have that portfolio as part of my responsibilities. Labor takes charities and not-for-profits seriously. Labor stands with charities and not-for-profits in measures that will encourage volunteering.

Among the organisations that have expressed concern about the volunteering measures in this bill are Uniting Communities, ACOSS, Jobs Australia, the National Social Security Rights Network, the Chinese Australian Services Society Limited, the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association, the Australian Association of Social Workers, the National Employment Services Association and People with Disability Australia. In their submission to the Senate review of the bill, Volunteering Australia wrote:

For many older Australians, losing employment at this age can be quite difficult, with finding gainful options for employment incredibly difficult. Volunteering can be an effective way to engage in society, acting as a pathway back to employment, and a way to keep people healthy and active.

Volunteering Australia also noted a survey conducted by the Human Rights Commission in 2015, the National Prevalence Survey of Age Discrimination in the Workplace, which found that the highest incidence of age discrimination involved those aged between 55 and 64. The submission quoted from a manager of volunteers in the Barwon region, who referred to closures at Ford and Alcoa 'forcing many folk into early redundancies and unemployment' and went on to say:

I meet many hundreds of potential volunteers each year and a significant number of these individuals are 55 to 59 years of age and above. Invariably, the experience recounted to me is of a demoralising period of job hunting, applying for roles that they are never offered, let alone interviewed for, within a job market so competitive that they rarely if ever receive an acknowledgment for the considerable effort made in each application.

The Volunteering Australia submission also quotes from a volunteer-involving organisation in South Australia:

You may appreciate that we are in the business of ‘second chances’, so we accept those who have criminal records wanting to make a go of it and contribute back to society through volunteering. In the case of our Volunteer Manager who works 80 hours a fortnight, we will be forced to shut our Furniture Warehouse if an exemption is not put in place. We accept volunteers according to their skill set … to find full time work and be in this age range with a criminal record makes things near impossible for them.

I commend Volunteering Australia's Adrienne Picone and Lavanya Kala for compiling that important submission.

Leep says of this measure:

… Leep interacts with hundreds of individuals seeking to volunteer their time and skills. A large proportion of these individuals perceive volunteering as a meaningful avenue to paid employment, with 1:4 volunteers enquiring about volunteering through Leep in 2016-2017 being unemployed.

The submission points out that volunteering brings a range of benefits to jobseekers: the opportunity to gain local knowledge and experience, a supportive environment to build skills, a point of reference for future potential employers, an opportunity to engage socially and enhance wellbeing, and a platform to gain confidence. The Leep submission, from Laura Goddard, the deputy CEO, concludes:

Volunteering is the backbone of a robust, safe and engaged community. The benefits that it brings volunteers, organisations and the broader community deserve to be highly regarded and appreciated at all levels of government.

The submission from Anglicare Australia points out:

Volunteers aged 55-64 are the single biggest cohort of volunteers nationally. Forcing people to desist from volunteering and seek jobs that simply aren't there will have a negative impact on their self-worth, and hurt many valuable and treasured community organisations that rely on volunteers to operate.

We are today in an Australia in which the federal government is continuing to wage war on Australia's charities. From 2011, when the charities commission was established, until just last year, the coalition has been committed to abolishing this one-stop-shop regulator for the charitable sector. Despite having had five ministers responsible for the charities commission over the four years in which it's been in office, the coalition has decided not to renew the contract for Susan Pascoe, the head of the charities commission. She's been there through the tenure of five ministers. She's provided stability to the charities commission through a time of 25 per cent staff turnover every year and considerable uncertainty, and she has received professional awards for her work there. The failure to renew Susan Pascoe's contract ought to be a black mark against Minister Sukkar's name, a minister who has failed to engage with the charities commission.

The charity sector also feel they have to fight other retrograde measures from this government, such as the war on advocacy. Charities support the right to advocate. They believe that it is important not just as a social service arm but also for environmental, legal and social services charities to be able to talk about big-picture issues and use their on-the-ground experience to inform policy development. Yet we have a government that is attacking charities' right to advocate. We see, through this bill, a further attack on charities by reducing the opportunity of voluntary organisations to satisfy the participation requirement for 55- to 59-year-olds. This will reduce the number of volunteers available to community organisations. Charities shouldn't be fighting the government. Since the Liberals came to office in 2013, the charity sector has had to write two open letters to prime ministers, one in 2013 to Prime Minister Abbott, pleading with him to change his position on scrapping the charities commission, and another—signed by a range of charities, including St John Ambulance, Philanthropy Australia and Volunteering Australia—just this June, calling on the government to take a more constructive attitude to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.

Labor supports charities. We want to work with charities not just to fight against the retrograde attacks from the coalition but to try and improve the regulatory rules around fundraising, to avoid the scandals of the kind that we've seen in Britain following Olive Cooke's suicide and to deal with a patchwork of fundraising laws set up in the pre-internet era. We want to work with charities through our Reconnected forums, of which Labor has now held eight around Australia with a range of my shadow ministerial and parliamentary colleagues. Labor wants to work with charities to garner great ideas to build community life. We're not attacking charities; we're in the business of helping the work of the charity and not-for-profit sector.

In the few minutes remaining, I want to make a couple of remarks about the aspect of this bill which goes to drug testing. I want to begin with the very real story of one of my constituents, who contacted me. She's on the pension, and her 33-year-old daughter, she told me, has been addicted to drugs, mostly methamphetamines, for most of her adult life. Occasionally, the woman told me, her daughter turns to prostitution in order to buy drugs. My constituent said to me, 'If you take away her welfare payment for failing a drug test—because she's been addicted to drugs for the last 15 years—all she'll have to pay for food is my pension.' That's not going to make Australia better off. It's a policy that could increase homelessness and could well increase crime. It's a policy that will make Australia less safe.

In New Zealand, as Shadow Minister Macklin has pointed out, only 22 of the 8,001 participants who were drug tested in 2015 returned positive results, at a cost of some $1 million. That detection rate—22 out of 8,001—was significantly lower than the drug use rate reported in the general population. As Shadow Minister Macklin has pointed out, the organisations that have expressed serious concern about the government's drug-testing trials include the Australian Medical Association; the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine; the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists; St Vincent's Health Australia; the Rural Doctors Association of Australia; Harm Reduction Australia; the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation; the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre; the Penington Institute; the Kirby Institute, at the University of New South Wales; the Victorian Alcohol & Drug Association; the Australian Council of Social Service; UnitingCare Australia; Homelessness Australia; the St Vincent de Paul Society; the Wayside Chapel; Anglicare; Catholic Social Services Australia; the National Social Security Rights Network; Odyssey House; Jobs Australia; Community Mental Health Australia; the Public Health Association of Australia; and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

As Shadow Minister Macklin points out, the extent to which this government has managed to unite the experts in this sector against it is extraordinary. We've had an open letter from 109 addiction specialists, 330 doctors and 208 registered nurses calling on the Prime Minister to stop the drug-testing trial. The Australian Medical Association has described the measure as 'mean and stigmatising'. The Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs said:

At a time when we desperately need money for frontline services, it's being spent in a way all the available evidence tells us won't work …

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians said:

Existing evidence shows drug testing welfare recipients is not an effective way of identifying those who use drugs and it will not bring about behaviour change. It is an expensive, unreliable and potentially harmful testing regime to find this group of people.

The Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation said:

Had the Turnbull government consulted experts before unveiling this plan, they would have been advised to drop these measures pronto. Drug testing trials for people on income support have been trialled and abandoned in a few countries. In addition to causing significant harm to affected people and the wider community, they came at an enormous cost to the taxpayer. Isn't the government supposed to be reining in wasteful spending?

Labor will not support these retrograde measures which hurt volunteers, increase homelessness and may increase crime in Australia. We will listen to the evidence and the experts.

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (12:48): We've been debating the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 for three days now, and two days ago the government ran out of speakers. It's such important legislation that for the last two days we haven't seen a government member get up and speak on this particular legislation. Labor members, one after another, have got up and spoken on this legislation, criticising schedule after schedule in this legislation. If it's so important for those opposite, why won't they own it? Why won't you see more of them in this place speaking in support of this legislation? They'll vote for it, but—I'll tell you what—they'll quietly vote for it, because they won't go back to their electorates and advocate for many of the measures in this particular legislation. That's the case.

We've got a situation where the national accounts were released last week. Mining profits are up and gross profits are up, but guess what? We're in a situation where we've got wages growth at anaemic levels of 1.9 per cent. We've got 730,000 people unemployed in this country, according to the July figures. We have a situation where we've had over 710,000 people unemployed for nine consecutive months in a row. The last time we saw that was in the 1997. And still the legislation we have before this chamber is the priority for the government. We have a situation where the tax-to-GDP ratio has risen under this government. That is, the government is taking more and more revenue from the Australian public: from 21.4 per cent up to 23.7 per cent. Government debt has increased from $273 billion to $501 billion under this government. Labour underutilisation rates have increased as well; more than 1.1 million Australians would like more jobs. Many of them would be dealt with in this legislation today: the 55- to 59-year-olds.

What I cannot understand is the fact that this government is actually in one of the schedules getting rid of the bereavement allowance. Without the bereavement allowance, which helps vulnerable people after the death of a partner, they will be $1,300 worse off. I bet those opposite won't put that in their newsletters that go to constituents. I guarantee they will not tell their constituents that, for example, if you're a pregnant and you've lost your partner, for 14 weeks you won't get any support whatsoever in terms of the bereavement allowance. It's gone if this legislation gets through. I guarantee they will not be talking about that at their listening posts or mobile offices. And they won't be telling the 200 wife pension recipients that they're going to lose their support. They won't be telling the 2,900 women who will be transferred onto jobseeker payments that their indexation will cease and they'll be worse off in real terms over time. I guarantee they won't be telling them that.

And what about those 55- to 59-year-olds who are currently making tremendous contributions by volunteering in wonderful organisations around the country? In fact, last Friday night in my electorate I was at the child safety protection awards, where two wonderful local organisations were there and many people were honoured. There were a number of police officers and school principals, but also present were Mission Australia and the Ipswich Community Youth Service, who do fantastic work in terms of child protection and assisting young people and older people with disability with employment services as well. They are fantastic organisations who do wonderful work in the local community.

Schedule 9 will remove the ability of Newstart and some special benefit recipients between 55 and 59 to fulfil the activity test by volunteering for 30 hours per week. Fifteen of those 30 hours now will have to be paid work. We have a problem with volunteerism in this country at the moment. The previous speaker, the member for Fenner, wrote a tremendous book called Disconnected. He worked previously on Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, which was a great examination of the drop-off in social inclusion and volunteerism in the United States of America.

Wonderful organisations such as the Scouts, brigades, P&Cs, trade unions, chambers of commerce, sporting clubs, RSLs et cetera have a decline in contributions and the number of people attending and being involved in these organisations. The member for Fenner wrote a book called Disconnected, and I commend people to read that particular book. I'm not advocating for his sales, by the way; I'm not trying to enrich him. It's a great contribution that he's made to public life by writing that book. He points out that we have seen that in Australia as well. Organisations are dropping off. As a federal member, I know you only have to go around to many organisations to see the fact that there are many people of what my grandmother would call 'the older generation' when she was alive. Everald Compton, the great advocate who stalks these corridors, calls them the oldies. He is a former head of National Seniors Australia. He does that sort of thing, but he's a great contributor to community life as well.

Many of these people face terrible age discrimination because they've lost their jobs. In my community right now, some of these people are facing the challenge of losing their jobs. We are losing 900 jobs in the Ipswich and West Moreton region, from the Churchill Abattoir and facility there owned and run by Woolworths to the Steggle's chicken processing plant out there in the Wulkuraka region. There have been people who've come to or contacted my office and people whom I've spoken to personally. I've spoken to the meat workers union—the AMIEU—and the metalworkers union, who are both working with these people, and there is a great all-of-government and community response to these. But some of these are older workers will be facing the challenges that in this legislation currently before us today. I want to thank the government, in a bipartisan way, and Minister Tudge, for the fact that Centrelink and the Australian government Department of Employment will be helping out. I want to thank Regional Development Australia for the help they are providing. I also want to thank Ipswich City Council, and I want to pay particular credit to Alan Brown, the business liaison officer, and also the Queensland state government. I've been dealing closely with the member for Ipswich, Jennifer Howard, and the state member for Ipswich West, Jim Madden.

It's a big challenge we are facing in our community, but some of the workers who are going to be subject to this legislation, including one who was in my office fairly recently, are in this age bracket. The government has said that this is part of its broader, stronger participation provisions but those workers will face big challenges, and I want those workers in Ipswich to know that we are with them all the way. We will help wherever we can, and my office will always be available. If they need help with Centrelink payments or assistance to make applications, we will be there to help them and, if they are interested in contacting us, I am happy to talk with them about the challenges they face.

I note that there was a Senate inquiry into this legislation. Many of the community organisations that I referred to before, such as Mission Australia and Ipswich Community Youth Service, are part of organisations such as Volunteering Australia. Volunteering is a tower of strength. We know how important it is. It touches every section of our economy and every section of our community: sport, recreation, art, heritage and emergency services. It's so important. The role of volunteer support services is about empowering local communities and about being there in times of need. I have seen this in times of terrible floods in 2010-11 and in 2013 in Ipswich and Somerset. Sadly, Volunteering Australia records show that, for the first time in 20 years, the number of people formally volunteering in Australia in 2014 has reportedly declined to 31 per cent, down from 36 per cent in 2012. So volunteerism is under challenge. But what is happening here? Volunteering Australia made a submission to the Senate inquiry into this legislation before the chamber. What they said about tightening the activity test was that it will have a profound impact on the volunteering sector. I will quote from the submission. The truth of the matter is that many people fulfil their activity contribution by volunteering. That's laudable and wonderful.

Volunteering Australia is strongly opposed to the proposed amendment.

They call this particular aspect of the bill 'short-sighted' and lacking in understanding of the pervasive age discrimination that this group experiences every day. We saw that when I was the shadow minister for ageing in the Labor opposition in the last term of parliament. We saw great age discrimination campaigns undertaken but, sadly, people in this age bracket do face age discrimination.

The Willing to work: national inquiry into employment discrimination against older Australians and Australians with disability (2016) report of the Australian Human Rights Commission found that people aged 55 years and over make up roughly a quarter of the population but only 16 per cent of the total workforce. The report found that older people experience greater levels of discrimination in workplaces when applying for jobs. That's backed up by a survey conducted by the commission in 2015 revealing that those who had reported experiencing age discrimination gave up looking for work entirely. Indeed, Volunteering Australia, whom I've met here in Canberra to talk about this issue, have said that people more likely to give up volunteering as well.

I pay tribute to the wonderful community organisations in my electorate and to the volunteers who are involved with them—the SES, Emergency Management and a whole range of others. We honour them every year. I want to praise Cityhope Church in Ripley in my electorate that has a day of honour for volunteers who make such a great contribution. When I look around the room when I speak at that particular church service every year—I commend pastor Mark Edwards and his congregation for what they do; hundreds of people were there from all corners of the electorate and beyond—there are many older Australians there who contribute, and I pay tribute to what they do. I was struck by that recently when the The Queensland Times did a photograph of me with Mark. The people who contribute whether in the local ambulance, the rural fire brigades or the SES were lined up there in their orange or blue uniforms. The contributions of older Australians make such a difference. The fact is that this particular legislation will be harmful to the contribution that volunteers make in this country.

But there is another aspect of this particular whole thing that the government is undertaking. That was mentioned by the shadow minister for employment, the member for Chifley, and that is, the Career Transition Assistance program, which is part of the suite of employment participation that's referred to in this legislation. My electorate and the Somerset regional part of it is being picked up as one of the trial sites from 1 July 2018, ahead of a national rollout in 2020. I am deeply sceptical about this, because this is a situation where the government spends $9 billion annually on employment projects. There are about 40,000 employment service consultants in this country. With the sorts of things that employment consultants should be doing themselves, in my view, things like skills audit, training requirements and helping people to market themselves to employers, I can't understand why the government is spending $98 million on this particular aspect. What they should do is have a really good look at the job services network. I don't believe it's working anywhere near as well as it should. We've got a takeover of about 35 per cent of wage subsidies. About one in five people over 26 who get jobs in these areas are actually still in employment after 26 weeks. The government should do a lot better and a lot more. We know they have cut $3.5 billion out of skills and training in this country. We've got 148,000 fewer apprentices than when this government came to power about four years ago. They are simply not doing enough and they are not doing it well across this space.

In the final two minutes, I will talk about the establishment of the trial of drug testing for jobseekers. It's been trialled just down the road from my electorate, in Logan, in the member for Rankin's electorate. Logan is very much like Ipswich. I feel for the people of Logan. I note the mayor of Logan, Luke Smith—who is not always a great supporter of the Labor Party, I might add, but I have a particular respect for him—pointed out that there was no consultation in the fact that they were imposing this on the people of Logan. He called the lack of consultation and the top-down approach 'a disgrace'. He was amazed by it. This won't work. This simply will not work. It's not about love, as the Prime Minister talked about. It's about punishment.

I recall a number of discussions I had when I was the forerunner to—we now call them hospital boards in Queensland—the Ipswich and West Moreton Hospital and Health Service council. We had a number of presentations to ask about what was happening in Ipswich and discussions about what was happening with the health plaza where people get ATODs assistance. But the advice that we got from experts—and this government doesn't seem to want to listen to experts very often—is that this type of approach doesn't and won't work. My colleagues have repeatedly outlined where it's failed overseas. I won't repeat what they have said, but I am deeply sceptical of what this government is doing. This is about demonising people. It's not about supporting them. If they were about supporting them, then they would have correspondingly a huge increase in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. They haven't, so my scepticism is very well-founded. I oppose the legislation and support the amendment by the member for Jagajaga.

Mr STEPHEN JONES (Whitlam) (13:03): There are a range of measures that are proposed in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. I only intend to speak on one of them—the issue of drug testing welfare recipients and the implications from that that certain penalties will be imposed in respect of these recipients. I also would like to say, if time permits, a few words about the things that aren't in the bill but absolutely should be if the government was truly focused on the challenge of welfare reform. I am absolutely certain that there is not a member in this place whose offices are not inundated on a daily basis by citizens who are trying to get their benefits processed by Centrelink and yet they are faced with delays. I am not talking about days; I am not talking about weeks; I am talking about months and months and months of delays. These are pensioners seeking to get access to a pension benefit. These are carers seeking to look after a loved one who cannot look after themselves and to access a benefit they are entitled to. The government has cut in excess of 1,200 jobs, frontline positions, and forced hundreds and hundreds of other jobs in Centrelink into casual working arrangements. Is it any wonder that there are constant delays and constant mistakes. I make no criticism of the hardworking staff of Centrelink. I make enormous criticism of the minister, who seems either ignorant or unwilling to do anything about it. And it is the citizens of our electorates who are paying the price.

Before I say more about that, can I talk about the drug-testing initiative. If ever there was a policy that was all about press release and not about outcome, it is this one. This is, indeed, a press release in search of an evidence base, in search of a policy prescription; it is entirely without substance. Many of my colleagues have spoken about the fact that similar measures introduced overseas have not worked; they have cost the taxpayers of other jurisdictions millions and millions of dollars with no perceivable benefit to either the individuals or the taxpayers as a whole. I will not go through that evidence because others have put it on the record. But I would like to have a look at the supposed objective of this measure. If the objective of the measure is to reduce the incidence of substance abuse in this community, there is not a member of this place who would not agree with it. There is not a member of this place who would not say we would be a much better country if we were able to reduce the incidence of substance abuse in our community. And I am not just talking about illicit drugs; I am talking about alcohol abuse as well. We know that the No. 1 drug of concern to people in the front line of substance abuse and rehabilitation is alcohol. There are problems with all the other illicit drugs but alcohol is the No. 1 drug of concern. It is present in just about all of the presentations that they see.

It might surprise people to know that Australia currently spends somewhere in excess of $1.7 billion combating illicit drugs. This, of course, includes police detection and arrest for drug crimes. It includes policing the borders of Australia for importation and prevention programs. It includes treatment programs and harm reduction strategies as well. If this bill before the House succeeds, it will be adding more to that annual bill and what we are spending on drug detection and prevention and combating illicit drugs. We do have to ask ourselves whether that money is well spent, because the results do not seem to suggest that it is. Of the total pot of $1.7 billion, almost 65 per cent is spent on what is known as supply reduction—basically, law enforcement. The bill before the House could in many respects be seen as an additional element in that—an enforcement activity. Just 22 per cent of that $1.7 billion is spent on treatment, 9.5 per cent is spent on prevention and about 2.2 per cent is spent on harm reduction.

The thing that hasn't been thought through by the government in relation to this policy is the fact that the treatment services that will be inundated as a result of this government's policy are already strapped. They cannot meet the current demands. The problem is greater in regional electorates like mine. I speak to the treatment centres down my way. There are not enough of them and they do not have the staff and the facilities to deal with the problems they are dealing with. There is already a waiting list in excess of six months for most of these sorts of services—not everywhere; there some exceptions. But on the whole there is already a waiting list of about six months. And for specialist services in NSW alone, there is one, maybe two, specialist services dealing specifically with women with a drug addiction problem—absolutely strapped. And if they are in need of residential care, even fewer places are available.

So I really do fear that not only has the government not thought through the policy and the resources that are going to be needed just to meet the current demand but whether this is going to have the result of pushing people out of the queue who are currently sticking up their hand and saying: 'I know that I've got a problem with substance abuse and I want to get treatment and turn my life around. I'm sticking my hand up and I want to turn my life around.' That person has willingly presented themselves to a treatment centre only to be told: 'Good on you for taking the first step. We're going to get back to you in months,' not weeks, 'because we don't have the residential services available to us at the moment.' My fear is that these people are going to get pushed back further down the queue because of the results of this ill-thought-through policy.

Is it any wonder that the Australian Medical Association, all of the expert drug and alcohol treatment services—through their peak bodies—and just about anybody who knows anything about how this sector works and what is going to work has said that this policy is nuts and is not going to work? A government that was moved by evidence, as opposed to ideology and a government that was moved by evidence and purity of purpose would take heed from the submissions that have been put through the Senate process—the very public submissions that have been made by many of the advocates—and then say: 'This isn't the right way to go. We're going to withdraw this provision from the bill.' They would have our full-bodied support if they were to do that.

Before I came into parliament I spent a lot of time as a community worker. I worked as a lawyer for many years and in those jobs I had a lot of face-to-face experience with the issues that this bill is purportedly attempting to tackle. It was clear to me then, as it is now, that what we're doing at the moment isn't working and that we need to build our policies on the best available evidence and the best research, not only from Australia but from around the globe, about what is likely to work—particularly when it comes to treatment and how we help people to turn their lives around. We do need to adopt a health based approach, and this bill is anything but that. We need to adopt a health based approach rather than relying on measures which will have the end result of filling our jails with people who have a health problem but which does very, very little to stem the supply of drugs or the harms caused. If those opposite were driven by evidence, not politics, they would direct resources towards the policies which were going to have the best result.

A few years ago I remember visiting the Solaris Therapeutic Community Program. It's a voluntary treatment initiative for adult males at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. For those who don't know it, it's the jail which is about five kilometres from where we are standing today. I had the opportunity to talk to a group of men who were, obviously, in jail and who were going through the program on a voluntary basis. I was talking to them about their substance abuse problems. I asked each of them: 'How old were you when you first saw your life going off the rails? How old were you when you first started substance abuse, whether it was alcohol or illicit drugs?' There were about 11 or 12 guys there. What struck me was that most of them didn't get to double digits. That is, most of them had not turned 10 before they had their first experience of an illicit drug. If those opposite dug deeper and asked what was going on in the household of that young person and in the lives of those young people—if they bothered to take the time to find out what was going on—they certainly wouldn't present the sort of bill which is before the House today.

I've visited lots of drug and alcohol treatment centres around the country over the time that I've been in parliament—I visited them in my professional capacity before I was a member of parliament. When you talk to people who are receiving treatment, one of the things you hear that are remarkable is that over 90 per cent of those people will tell you that there was some pre-existence, some underlying trauma, that set them on the path that they are now on, whether it was abuse in the family or the households that they grew up in; whether it was family violence; or whether it was, as is so often the case, that somebody had a horrific injury, took a course of opioids as part of the treatment process for that injury and went from a licit source of opioid use to an illicit source of opioid use. The stories were so common and so repeated as to allow us to draw the conclusion that in the majority of these instances there is an underlying trauma which causes or leads somebody into substance abuse. From that you can also draw the conclusion that, unless you deal with those underlying traumas, those underlying psychological, mental and physical health issues, you aren't going to be able to get to the root cause of the drug addiction and you certainly aren't going to be able to help those people turn their lives around.

You don't have to be a researcher in this area to know that we've got a lot of people in our prisons. I won't say it is the cause of the crime, but for a significant majority of the people in there—I wouldn't say the overwhelming majority, but a significant majority—drugs and alcohol are on board in a significant number of those criminal incidents. It's why people in the sector often refer to prisons as the rehabilitation service of last resort. At $300 a day, it is a very expensive way of dealing with a problem.

So my message, my heartfelt message, to the government today is this: if you are truly committed to doing more than grabbing a headline; if you are truly committed to doing more than making a cheap political point, than playing a populist card; if you are truly committed to doing something about the insidious problem of illicit and other drug abuse in this country; then you won't be introducing measures like the one before us. Instead, you will take the time to talk to the people whose lives have been affected. You will take time to talk to people who are attempting to turn their lives around or who have attempted to turn their lives around and have succeeded. You will take the time to talk to these people. You will invest in the most effective place, which is in treatment and prevention. If you do that then you will ensure that we go a long way towards reducing the problems that we have in our community.

These punitive measures have been tried overseas. We know they don't work. It is of the utmost arrogance for this government to believe that repeating the same mistakes that have been made overseas is going to have a different result in this country. I can support some measures in this bill, but not this one.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (13:18): I commend and support the comments of the member for Whitlam in respect of this legislation, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. The government's spin in respect of this bill is that it has been brought to the House as a measure that might help get people's lives back in order. The truth is that this bill is nothing more than a budget savings measure.

We know the government's deficit at the end of last year was $37.6 billion, and we know are they heading for another deficit of $30 billion or thereabouts this year—and that's if their figures can be relied on. To date they have proven that they cannot be relied on. We know full well that the net effect of this legislation is for the government to save some $370 million over the forward estimates. Out of that might come some money that they will require in order to pay for the drug-testing provisions that are contained within this bill. We don't know what those amounts are because the government won't tell us. But even when you allow for whatever costs they incur in respect of the drug testing, the fact remains that this is a measure that is going to save the government possibly $100 million a year.

Again, it is the vulnerable welfare recipients that have been targeted by this government. It has been become a characteristic of the coalition government to target the poor. It started with the Abbott-Hockey government, with their first budget in 2014, which was considered so harsh and so cruel that it was soundly rejected by just about everyone across the country, including most of the members of this parliament. We then had a change of Prime Minister and a change of Treasurer, but the same strategy continued. The same harsh measures continue to be seen in the legislation that comes before this House time and time again. If people's lives were truly the focus of this government's legislation, then the $370 million that will be saved would have been put into other welfare assistance programs that might actually have some real effect of helping those people's lives get back on track, but that is not the case. Were it the case, we might be looking at this legislation with a different perspective.

This is a government revenue measure. Whilst I accept that some of the 18 or 19 measures in this legislation are worth considering, I also know that many of them are indeed harsh and should not be supported. That is particularly the case with the drug-testing trial. I note that that trial has been criticised widely, not just by the usual welfare support groups but, indeed, by health professionals and drug rehabilitation specialists across the board. If the measures were going to help, I am sure that those people who have the most experience in helping people with a drug addiction change their lives would be supporting this measure, but they're not. Indeed, if the government were serious about helping those people, then the first groups they should have asked advice from are the very specialists in the field and the health professionals who have to deal with people who have a drug addiction each and every day. They should have sought advice from them, but it seems they didn't.

There will always be people who rort the welfare system, just as there are always people who rort the tax system or any other government initiative out there. That is a reality. Such people will always be found, because if a person has an intent of rorting whatever government system it is that they rort, they will find a way of doing so. We would not oppose any measure that genuinely sought to close down loopholes if they exist. But, again, this legislation is not about closing loopholes; it's simply about making it more difficult for welfare recipients to get the support they need and about denying them the payments they would otherwise receive. Regrettably, this legislation will punish far too many people for whom welfare support is not their choice—those whom, for reasons possibly beyond their control, find themselves in the situation that they are in. In the situation that they are in, they need some kind of welfare support.

When we talk about welfare support, we are not talking about even the minimum average weekly wage of $694 a week; we are talking, in most cases, of payments of around $268 a week. I wonder how many members opposite could live off that sort of money or have ever had to live off that sort of money. Perhaps if they had to walk in the shoes of the very people they are trying to make decisions about, they might see this legislation for what it is and perhaps they would not be so supportive of it.

People on welfare payments, in my experience, already feel as if they are being treated in a humiliating way and quite often find so much of their time wasted because of the hoops they have to jump through in order to get the payments that they are entitled to or that the government provides to them. Indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, I am sure that your office, just like the offices of most MPs in this place, would regularly have people that are seeking welfare support come to you for assistance out of sheer desperation, because they can't seem to navigate the demands that are put on them by the different agencies they have to deal with in order to get some meagre payment. It is a fact of life for most MPs' offices. Regrettably, it seems that MPs' offices have become nothing more than an extension of the Department of Human Services. From my experience in my office, on a regular basis we are trying to help people with their claims.

When we look at the employment situation in Australia, the reality is there are some two million people who are either unemployed or underemployed. That means there are simply not enough jobs out there right now for those people who are genuinely looking for work. So even if one was to accept that some people are not trying as hard as they could, the reality is that there are simply not enough jobs out there for them. Even if and when there are jobs, many of the people who have been unemployed for a long time—there are reasons, in most cases, that are beyond their control. The jobs that are out there are perhaps asking for skill levels that people who are unemployed simply don't have, or the jobs may be outside of the region from where these people come from. It may be there are serious transport difficulties for these people in order to get to the jobs available, or they simply don't have any work experience at all. At other times it might even be a case where there are personal family or health circumstances that are totally beyond their control that limit their ability to either travel or commit to a full-time job. At the end of next month, there will be even more people unemployed as a result of the ending of car making in this country, so it will be even more difficult. We are bringing in this legislation at a time when, as the government must surely know, it is going to become increasingly difficult for people to find work.

I have personally spoken with families and individuals who have been looking for work for months and, in some cases, years. I have no doubt whatsoever that these are genuine people who are looking for work and who are trying their hardest, and the reality is they simply cannot find a job because the jobs are not there. When they have found employment, sometimes it's been in a field totally outside of what they were qualified for or skilled in or they've had to move to a different region, and it's been months or years later. For them, in that intervening time, what were they supposed to do, other than what they have done? And yet we are now saying: 'We want you to do more because, if not, we're going to find ways to cut an additional week of payment to you. We'll find a way of cutting that out.' This legislation is indeed harsh.

I want to speak briefly about a couple of the matters within it. When we talk about people being on welfare, again, my experience is that most people who are on welfare payments would prefer not to be on welfare payments. They would prefer to be in paid employment, where they can perhaps achieve and have some of the things they have always aspired to have. I want to refer just briefly to the drug trial proposal in this legislation. As I said earlier: firstly, there is no evidence to support what the government wants to do and, secondly, it has been widely criticised. Again from my experience, and as the member for Whitlam said earlier, most people who are drug addicts would very much prefer not to be. For some it might be their choice, but I suspect that for most it is not a choice they would willingly make, and if they could get off the drugs they would. And yet we see nothing in this legislation that is truly going to assist them get off their drug addiction. That would be the best way to get them back into the workforce, not to say, 'If you don't pass a drug test you will be automatically taken off.' In addition, for those people who are not drug addicts to be called in and told, 'You are going to have to pass a drug test of some sort', it would be humiliating and embarrassing. Again, I believe it is totally uncalled for and unjustified.

There are other matters in this legislation that I briefly want to go to. One of them is the start date and another is the removal of intent to claim, which are both provisions within this legislation. Both of them have the effect of delaying the commencement time for a person to receive any payments. Both of them are miserly ways of cutting payments to them. When you look at the way it is intended to introduce these provisions, it simply says that when you make a claim or contact the office to make a claim, your payment won't start then. Your payment will start later, after you've jumped many other hoops and brought in forms and all the rest of it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): Order. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member for Makin will be given an opportunity to conclude his contribution at that time.

Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (15:15): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Economics, I present the committee's report entitled Review of the Reserve Bank of Australia annual report 2016 (second report), together with the minutes of proceedings, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

Mr COLEMAN: On 1 August 2017 the RBA decided to leave official interest rates on hold at 1.5 per cent. In making this decision, the governor commented that 'holding the stance of monetary policy unchanged at this meeting would be consistent with sustainable growth in the economy and achieving the inflation target over time'.

At the public hearing held before the committee on 11 August 2017, the governor noted that the global economy has strengthened and, as a result, the RBA expects domestic economic conditions to improve. The RBA forecasts Australia's GDP growth to rise above two per cent in late 2017, to 2¾ to 3¾ per cent over the year to December 2018. Continued growth is being supported by accommodative monetary policy, an increase in LNG exports, and employment growth.

Underlying inflation is somewhat higher than late last year, and the RBA forecasts that it will reach around two per cent over the second half of 2017, at the bottom end of the RBA's target. Headline inflation is expected to lie between two and three per cent over the year to December 2019, with the consumer price index (CPI) forecast to rise to around two percent by the end of 2017.

Since its low point in January 2016, the Australian dollar has appreciated considerably against the US dollar and on a trade-weighted basis. The governor stated that the current exchange rate will 'contribute to subdued price pressures in the economy'. The governor added that an appreciating exchange rate would be expected to result in slower economic growth and inflation than currently forecast, and the exchange rate is an issue which continues to be of great interest to the RBA and the committee.

Since the beginning of 2017, around 165,000 full-time jobs have been created in Australia, average hours worked have increased, and labour force participation has risen. The RBA expects that the recent strong growth in employment and increased household income will support consumption growth, moderated by high levels of household debt and lower wage growth.

Business investment in Australia is expected to increase gradually as growth in demand increases. The RBA noted that conditions are currently favourable for stronger growth in business investment, including low interest rates and reduced tax rates for small and medium sized businesses.

Overall, Australia's economic growth outlook, according to the Reserve Bank, is positive, with the transition to lower levels of mining investment almost complete—and indeed we've seen the impact of that in recent business investment figures. Increases in the production of LNG are expected to help to contribute to GDP growth in Australia of between two and three per cent for the year to the end of 2017.

On behalf of the committee, I thank the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Lowe, and his colleagues for appearing at the hearing before our committee in Melbourne on 11 August 2017.

I commend the report to the House.

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

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (15:18): by leave—I concur with the member for Banks in thanking the governor and various representatives of the Reserve Bank for once again appearing before the House economics committee. It was a wide-ranging discussion of issues associated with monetary policy, energy policy, income, inequality and banking.

I do wish to make a few comments regarding the situation with the banking sector in Australia and energy policy. These are all contained in the committee's comprehensive report, particularly at page 17 of the report, where we were having a discussion with the Reserve Bank governor regarding the situation in the banking sector in Australia, most notably the allegations against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia that have been levelled by AUSTRAC in respect of breaches of Australia's anti-money-laundering and terrorism financing laws.

The governor made three important points in respect of banking culture in Australia. First he said:

On trust, I think it's fair to say that trust in banking has been strained.

…   …   …

On service: I think it's fair to say that service has taken a back seat to sales.

…   …   …

… I think we can all identify examples where the desire for short-term profit has probably led to not enough attention to risk management issues. So the focus needs to be on rebuilding trust and delivering high-quality service to customers, and a strong focus on risk management. Those are the things that we need to focus on.

From Labor's perspective, we totally agree with the Governor of the Reserve Bank. It's our view and certainly the view of the people of Australia that the best way to do that is to establish a royal commission into the banking industry in Australia to get to the bottom of exactly what's going on in this industry; uncover some of the scandals, the rip-offs and the hurt and financial pain that it's caused for many Australians; and have an independent arbiter look at the issues and put together a set of recommendations that a government could adopt to improve confidence, trust, stability and those issues that the Reserve Bank governor mentioned: trust, service and risk management in the Australian banking industry.

In respect of energy policy, there was a wide-ranging conversation with the Reserve Bank representatives about the parlous state of Australia's energy sector and the fact that energy prices have been increasing for some years and are putting a lot of stress on household budgets. The Reserve Bank governor made the point that it's becoming quite dire. He made the point very well that the major focus, the major factor, that's causing the problems in the energy sector in Australia is the lack of certainty regarding business investment. He said:

There is uncertainty about the policy environment and that is delaying investment. That is not in dispute. The investment uncertainty is not just in electricity generation; it's affecting investment decisions in other parts of the economy, because businesses aren't sure about the future price of electricity, so it's another reason to wait.

…   …   …

The higher prices of electricity are also affecting household budgets, particularly for lower income households, who spend a disproportionately high share of their income on electricity. It's crimping their budgets and having an effect on consumption, and it's going to have an effect on the CPI as well. So investment uncertainty, spending decisions and the CPI are the perspectives that we're looking at this from.

He went on to say:

… providing some certainty about the future structure of the electricity generation industry would be useful for the country, for investment, on prices and on household budgets.

That's not the Labor Party speaking there; that's the Reserve Bank governor of Australia, in many respects the chief economist in this country. That's his view of what is going on in Australia at the moment.

The lack of certainty with respect to energy policy that has been created by the Turnbull government is having a serious effect on business investment, business profitability and household budgets in this country. It is the fact that this Turnbull government argues amongst itself and can't make up its mind on a clean energy target that is having a massive effect on energy reliability, on investment in the industry and, ultimately, on households' budgets. The ball is well and truly in the government's court. It needs to come to a decision on a clean energy target.

Finally, the governor made important points, most notably about inequality:

It's a legitimate issue, people are rightly worried about it, but on many measures we're doing better than some other countries.

The wages share of income in this country has been falling for some decades now. In the last 10 years, the incomes of those in the top 10 per cent of the income brackets have grown by 72 per cent, whereas the incomes in the bottom tenth of Australian household income earners have grown by only 23 per cent. That statistic alone says it all about the state of income inequality in this country. It's a very real issue, and I'm glad the RBA governor pointed this out. I commend the report to the House.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (15:25): To conclude my remarks on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017: what we've seen, in the measures that the government wants to introduce to delay payments to people who apply for welfare assistance, is a desperate move from a desperate government. Then we saw, in question time today, an answer from the minister which has outdone Chemical Ali during the war in Iraq, when he was denying what was happening there. Just as in the sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Black Knight was denying what was happening to him at the time, the minister, totally out of touch with reality, suggested that the process that people are going through with Centrelink at the moment has been improved and that there are no problems with it. Nothing could be further from the truth than that.

What the government is saying is: 'We're going to put you through an even more difficult process than you already go through right now. You won't get your payments commenced until the process is finished—not at the time you start—by a department that is totally either underresourced or overwhelmed with applications.' The government knows exactly what it's doing. It is deliberately and intentionally wanting to delay the start of the payments in order to save a few dollars so that it can then try and balance its budget. Nothing could be more unjust and unfair than what this government is proposing.

The last matter, as to the unfairness, goes to the treatment that this government wants to dish out to people who are 55 years and over, where it is now saying that you can no longer fulfil your commitment to society by volunteering in your community; you will have to, like the rest of the people looking for support payments, go through applying for jobs or be in paid employment. I made the point earlier, at the beginning of my remarks, that there simply are not jobs out there. When there are far more people looking for jobs than there are jobs available, employers will not give people who are 55 years and over much of a look-in at all. It is going to be incredibly difficult for them to get jobs which are simply not there. And yet, again, this government is saying to them: 'If you don't go through this process, we will also take away payments from you.'

It is getting about as low as it possibly can when it starts putting those sorts of pressures on people who are clearly depending on the welfare system not because they want to but because they have no choice. We will have more of those people over the coming months—particularly in the region that I represent, because of the closure of Holden—and, quite frankly, to bring in this legislation and make their life even more difficult than it currently is just shows the depths that this government will sink to in order to try and balance its budget.

For those reasons, of course, I will not be supporting this legislation and will be supporting the amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga. The government may well be trying to get the legislation through by saying that, amongst the 18 measures contained in this legislation, there are some good ones, but the bad ones clearly outnumber the good ones, and this legislation should not be supported.

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (15:28): I wish to join with my colleagues in rising to speak against the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 and condemning the actions of this government. There are many proposed measures contained in this legislation that those on our side cannot in good conscience support. These include the axing of the bereavement allowance—an especially callous and cruel part of this legislation. The bereavement payment is a very short-term payment offered to those whose partners have recently died. In addition to the axing of the bereavement payment, this legislation seeks to push the starting date for some participation payments to new roles. It removes the intent-to-claim provisions that have been longstanding in the Centrelink regime. It also looks at changes to what constitutes a reasonable excuse. Finally, of course, it seeks to introduce a proposed trial for drug testing of those on social security.

This legislation is wrong in so many ways, but I particularly want to focus today on the component of this legislation that goes to the drug-testing trial of the social security recipients. It is shameful that this government has attempted to frame this policy as some type of health measure—as if targeting and punishing vulnerable and addicted Australians is somehow in their best interests and, indeed, in the best interests of our community. This policy is nothing more than a crass savings measure, and not a very good one at that. This policy will, in all likelihood, end up costing taxpayers more and achieving very little. The proposed trial is far from good, evidence-based policy making. It runs against all expert advice. It is so poorly thought out that some experts warn that, if rolled out, it may actually increase crime and drug use in our community. This trial could also inadvertently impact the medical treatment and rehabilitation of people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction.

Mr Speaker, you will not find a single organisation working in the field of drug and alcohol rehabilitation that will support this punitive policy. What you will find, however, is a great number of medical experts, addiction specialists and widespread community groups who have strongly urged the government against introducing this policy. I want to list just some of those organisations that have spoken out against this proposed drug-testing trial, because it's important that their considered opinions are noted and their opposition is recorded as part of this debate. These respected organisations include: the Australian Medical Association; the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine; the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs; the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists; St Vincent's Health Australia; the Rural Doctors Association of Australia; Harm Reduction Australia; the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation; the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre; the Penington Institute; the Kirby Institute at UNSW; the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association; 360 Edge, a specialist alcohol and other drug consultancy; the Australian Council of Social Service; UnitingCare Australia; Homelessness Australia; the St Vincent de Paul Society; the Wayside Chapel; Anglicare; Catholic Social Services Australia; the National Social Security Rights Network; Community Mental Health Australia; the Public Health Association of Australia; the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services; and the Ted Noffs Foundation. There are others, but time does not allow me to continue the list.

Rest assured that you will not find one medical expert who has come out to defend this as sound drug and alcohol addiction policy. Why? Because it is not. Even the CEO of Jobs Australia, David Thompson, has slammed the policy, saying he thinks all it will do is stop people asking for help because 'they feel the whole process … is really quite demeaning and humiliating'. If the government is trying to pretend that this is somehow a policy justifiable on health grounds, they are deceiving both themselves and the Australian people. The government needs to listen to the experts. The experts have made it crystal clear that this drug-testing trial will not work.

A doctor in my electorate, in Newcastle, recently contacted me, pleading for this policy not to go ahead. She is a doctor who is a medical specialist trained in paediatrics, epidemiology and genetics, and has had considerable experience working with families damaged by Stolen Generation pain, violence and abuse. She has written to me saying:

Many of the children of these families, as well as children with learning difficulties, autistic traits and severe anxiety turn to self-medication with alcohol and drugs in adolescence, or adulthood.

The idea that stopping their pocket money will remove this need or prevent substance abuse is childish and petulant. How can we as a developed nation continue to let ourselves fall into these punitive and silly games to make our politicians look 'strong'.

That's what doctors in my electorate are saying.

Australians go to their doctors and listen to them for medical advice. It's time that Malcolm Turnbull did the same. Mr Turnbull needs to listen to a doctor like Dr Anna Kelly, a general practitioner working in my electorate of Newcastle, who has also written a powerful letter arguing for this policy not to go ahead. Dr Kelly writes:

As a General Practitioner working in Newcastle, I have treated hundreds of people with drug and alcohol problems.

They often come from very difficult backgrounds; have a history of trauma including sexual abuse and domestic violence. Many have grown up in homes where drug and alcohol abuse and violence has been the norm. They miss out on education due to their difficult circumstances, leave home early to escape the hardship and experimenting with drugs leads to a drug and alcohol addiction problem.

With time, support, effort, empathy and access to resources, I have seen many get through their problem and break the poverty/drug and alcohol/violence generational cycle. Unfortunately due to lack of resources, it is difficult to get the right help at the right time for many of them.

I also see the children and extended families of people affected with drug and alcohol problems. They are ready to get help/support, but can't do it alone.

If drug and alcohol addicted people are prevented from receiving their Centrelink payments they will be forced into crime. People may be wanting to stop their addiction, but may not be able to do it alone.

If we stop their income, crime will increase, and seeking help will be even more difficult.

The funds used to police such a program would be much better spent in drug and alcohol rehabilitation services and for services to help the children and families of drug and alcohol affected people. Leave the punitive activities to our police force and fund adequately the services to help people.

That's the message from doctors in my electorate of Newcastle. These are doctors and medical experts who deal with the problem of drug and alcohol addiction every day. They are lining up to denounce this cruel and misguided policy proposal.

Nobody doubts that we face significant problems with drug addiction in our community, but there is simply no evidence that this trial will work. The problem of drug addiction requires a medical response. A punitive approach where the government is pursuing people on welfare who may or may not have a drug issue is not a reasonable way to deal with this important matter of public health. There is not a single extra cent in the health budget for any of the proposed drug trial sites. Precious taxpayer dollars would be better spent investing in support and rehabilitation services for those living with drug and alcohol addictions and their families. Without extra funding for treatment this trial will likely put pressure on an already overstretched and under-resourced system with long waiting lists, displacing people seeking help and further exacerbating the problem.

If this government had done even the smallest amount of research, they would have seen that drug testing of income support recipients has been trialled many times in many other countries, with no evidence to suggest that it is an effective measure to treat drug use in any of them. I take just one example—from New Zealand, our closest neighbour. The New Zealand government introduced a drug-testing program amongst welfare recipients in 2015. Only 22 of the 8,001 participants tested returned a positive result for illicit drug use. Just 22; that is just 0.2 per cent, a very small minority.

The point I'm trying to make here is that this flawed policy is not new. It has been tried before, and each time the result has been the same: it has not detected many positive results, and it has been very costly to deliver, which goes some way to explain why this government is refusing to give an estimate of the program's cost. However, regardless of the as yet unknown costs of this program, it is very difficult to see from any of the international evidence that this is an effective use of precious taxpayers' dollars. What we see here is just a cheap, populist and lazy policy from a government that is so worried about its own jobs that it has given up on trying to help vulnerable Australians. The idea that you would test tens of thousands of people and a few people may be found to have a positive test for the use of illicit drugs is not an effective use of those taxpayers' dollars, and it certainly will not help those few people who have genuine substance abuse problems—the very people that we should be seeking to reach out to.

The government should be focusing its resources on helping vulnerable people seek treatment for drug addiction, not making tokenistic gestures to appear tough. Drug and alcohol addictions are complex public health problems, and they require a public health policy response. I wish to close with a quote from Dr Marianne Jauncey, from the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs, because I think it perfectly sums up just why this is such a bad policy. She says:

At a time when we desperately need money for frontline services—

this proposal means—

it's being spent in a way all the available evidence tells us won't work.

She goes on to say:

Doctors don't necessarily speak with a united voice—we're a very varied group of specialists and people with different backgrounds across the country, so when you do hear doctors speaking with a united voice I think people should listen.

I agree with Dr Jauncey. She is absolutely right.

Labor have listened to the expert advice from health professionals, and we oppose this drug-testing trial of social security recipients. It's time that the Turnbull government dumped this expensive trial that everyone says simply will not work. I stand with my Labor colleagues condemning this legislation, and I stand in support of the amendments moved by the member for Jagajaga.

Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (15:42): I think when it comes to the legislation before the House today, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017, what we've got is legislation that really reeks of politics. That's what this is about. If we cast our minds back to the budget night, where I think the Minister for Human Services was going to go down the sewer and collect human waste material and test it, it was, at that point, a very half-baked idea. Of course, it's months and months later, and now we finally see, after the government trying to play the politics around drug-testing trials for welfare recipients, legislation that really has a bit of politics in it, some administrative changes and elements that are deeply flawed.

There are a number of changes that Labor have been very clear that we're happy to support, if split from other measures in the bill—things like, for example, streamlining tax file number collection and aligning social security and disability discrimination law. They are sensible things and things that we would support. As I think the shadow minister said, they are hardly reform, hardly an amazing reforming government agenda, but they are sensible measures nonetheless.

But there are some really, really important aspects that we will not support. I'd like to draw the attention of the House to those. The first one I would like to bring the House's attention to is abolishing the wife pension. The wife pension is a non-activity-test payment that has been closed to new applicants since 1 July 1995. When you look at this measure, the majority—I understand—will be transferred onto the age pension and carer's payment with a small minority having a cut. I think it says about 2,900 women will be transferred onto the jobseeker payment. These are a number of women who have not worked for a long time. It is pretty mean-spirited of the government to take this very small group of women who have not worked for a long time and say, 'We're going to phase out this payment for you'. It's not a huge amount of money. It really shows this government's callous attitude to anyone receiving an income support payment.

Then we also have the other callous measure that has the potential to cut the payments of those receiving a bereavement allowance. This is for those who have lost their partners. It is a short-term payment of 14 weeks. This government has said, 'No, no, no'. It can be longer for a pregnant woman if they lose their partner. Now this government is going to snatch that away from them. Really, this is not welfare reform. This is just being mean-spirited.

The one that I really think is not just mean-spirited but shows how out of touch this government is with those looking for a job are the changes to the activity test for people 55 to 59. Currently, people in this age group have to fulfil their activity test to get their Newstart payment by looking for work or volunteering for 30 hours per fortnight. This government is going to say that recipients would need to fulfil their 30 hours per fortnight of activity, but only half of that can be voluntary work. The rest of the time, they've got to go out and look for work. That's a nice concept. If the government has ever spoken to anyone between the ages of 55 and 59, trying to find work out there, they would know that these are not bludgers. These are not people flouting the system and deliberately trying to escape their requirements.

I have spoken to so many who have found themselves in a situation where they've been made redundant, lost their job or been only able to achieve part-time work. They desperately want to work more and no-one will employ them. This comment comes to me time and time again. In fact, I have had older Australians looking for work say that they first put their resume in with their age and they get no interviews. So they think: 'Well, okay. I'm going to put my resume in without my age.' They get an interview but do not get the job. One could only suggest that it is down to what I believe is significant age discrimination when it comes to workplace employment.

This is the real life experience of those older Australians desperately looking for work. The government says, 'Go and retrain'. They go back and retrain and they still can't get work. This government says to them, 'Look, you're finding it difficult to get a job.' They may then find a voluntary organisation that they feel passionate about, giving them 30 hours a fortnight. The government says: 'No, that's not good enough for the activity test. You've got to go and put yourself through the ringer time and time again. You can only do half of that work voluntarily. For the other half, you've got to keep turning up to interviews and keep getting rejections over and over and over again.'

You know what? The government does not understand how demoralising that is for people—how demoralising it is for people just turning up and putting their resume in over and over again. All they can say is, 'I've got the skills, I've got the passion and I want to work, but guess what: they just won't employ me.' This is something I hear from older Australians over and over again. So this measure to ensure that 55- to 59-year-olds cannot achieve their activity test by volunteering, once again, is just so mean spirited. It really shows that the government does not understand what the reality is out there.

We are going to be facing this in South Australia soon. We have so many people that are going to find themselves redundant with the closure of Holden—not just those directly working at Holden but also those working in manufacturing and industries associated with the automotive industry. I tell you: some of those people have given 20, 30 or 40 years of loyal service, and they still want to work after this. But it is going to be hard for them to find jobs, and really this government, through this measure, just shows that it has no concept whatsoever of the age discrimination that older Australians face going back into the workforce.

Whether it's the bereavement allowance, the wife pension or cutting the number of voluntary hours that count for your activity test, this is not reform. This is just mean-spirited picking on vulnerable people and trying to make out that they are somehow stealing from the taxpayer when, indeed, what they are asking for is just a little bit of support, and you want to rip that away.

I will finish my comments with the drug trials proposed in this piece of legislation. This is to pick welfare recipients and put them through a trial of drug testing and then change their payments or their access to payments as a result. When it comes to legislation and good public policy, we know that, when you put in a policy, you should have an outcome in mind. One would assume that any policy around drug and alcohol testing would be designed to try and minimise drug and alcohol use. That's what you'd think the outcome would be. Well, we know the measure before the House today will do nothing whatsoever to tackle addiction in our community.

Drug and alcohol addiction is a powerful, powerful thing. It is a medical issue that needs to be tackled properly in a medical way. We also know that you need to be ready and have the capacity to deal with that addiction. Being made homeless and desperate is not going to put you in a frame of mind to tackle your addiction. It's not just me and it's not just Labor; there is a list of bodies, which many of my colleagues have gone through before, from the AMA to every addiction organisation to ACOSS, all saying that this measure will not work. It will not do what the government claims it will do—that is, reduce drug addiction and alcohol abuse.

I am the first one to want to tackle the scourge of addiction in our community. I am the first one to say, 'Let's make sure that we give all the support and resources to those that want to make their lives better by tackling their addiction and their drug and alcohol dependency.' But you don't do that with a punitive measure with no drug and alcohol treatment.

What I found astounding is the admission from the government that they hadn't even checked what services for drug and alcohol treatment were available in the trial sites. You would think that, if there were going to be some sort of program to tackle drug and alcohol addiction through cutting people's payments, they'd say, 'Well, let's do it in a place where there are actually some services where people who want to get help can get help.' But they did not even check that. They did not even look at that critical piece of information, which brings me back to the point where I started: this drug and alcohol trial is condemned by medical professionals. It's condemned by those representing many vulnerable and disadvantaged people. It hasn't worked overseas, and many of my colleagues have gone through that.

So there is a fundamental question before the House: why is this legislation being introduced when it's not going to work? The only answer I can come up with is politics. The government is divided and desperate. It has a weak Prime Minister. He is a Prime Minister who can barely hold his party together, who's being attacked by the Left and by the Right of his party. He is so fundamentally weak that he cannot do anything except play politics with vulnerable people.

I urge the government to rethink this damaging policy, this policy that will not work, this policy that's all about politics. Be a better government. Govern in the interest of Australians and not this rank political agenda that is desperately being used to try to hold the Right and the Left together.

Ms COLLINS (Franklin) (15:55): This so-called welfare reform bill, as we've just heard from the member for Kingston, is really about the government trying to play politics. It's really about the government trying to pick on vulnerable people. You would have thought that they'd had enough of that, because they have tried much of this before.

There are three measures in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 that I am particularly concerned about and that I want to talk about today. Similarly to the previous member, I am particularly concerned about the change in the activity test for 55- to 59-year olds. People would know that at the moment people over the age of 55 who are out of work and are receiving Newstart can go and volunteer for 30 hours per week. That's 30 hours per week in which they are going out in their own time—paying for it themselves, often with transport—to get to their volunteer posts out and about in the community, to do good things supporting other vulnerable people, and this government wants to penalise them. It is just astounding. You would think it would be a sensible measure if, indeed, there were jobs out there for over-55-year-olds but there aren't. We have heard from many on this side the concerns around that and age discrimination.

I've been holding forums around the country with older Australians as part of my shadow portfolio duties, and one of the things that are raised with me every single time is the discrimination that older Australians face when trying to get work. The report Willing to Work, put out by the former Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan, says:

The right to work, free from discrimination on any basis, is a fundamental human right. Too many older Australians … are denied this right and as a result are prevented from enjoying the independence, dignity and sense of purpose that work brings.

Sadly, in Australia today this is still true. The report is only a year and a half old. It clearly shows the discrimination that older Australians face when trying to seek work. Many of these older Australians have been employed for most of their life. Indeed, many of them have been made redundant after years and years of work in the same job and then need to reskill. First, those reskilling programs are not available for most people and, second, it is so hard for these people to re-enter the workforce, yet when they're out there volunteering, trying to support other members in the community, the government is trying to penalise them. I do not understand where the government is coming from on this. The age discrimination commissioner's report says their survey found:

… 27% of people over the age of 50 had recently experienced discrimination in the workplace. One third of the most recent episodes of discrimination reported occurred when applying for a job.

They go in, they put in their resumes and their CVs and they get knocked back. They continually get knocked back on the basis of their age, even though that is not what they are told. Many of them, as you heard from the member for Kingston, don't even put their age on their CVs or resumes anymore, because they know that they will be discriminated against because of their age. And this government wants to penalise them even further. So I am really concerned about this aspect of the bill.

The other part of the bill that I am concerned about is in regard to the demerit provisions for Newstart jobseekers and the way in which they will work. I am particularly concerned that the government has removed the ability of employment service providers and, indeed, Centrelink to use their discretion and to waive demerits when there are exceptional circumstances.

I have seen this government try to move this bill two or three times before, and we've had to knock it off two or three times before because, of course, we know that doing things like that only leads to more homelessness. It only leads to more issues in the community because the people that the government is talking about penalising are already extremely vulnerable. And the government has no evidence that cutting more people off welfare or Newstart payments is actually going to improve their ability to find a job. What it actually wants to do is disengage people and not use its discretion for waivers when people are really vulnerable. I'm really concerned that this will actually have adverse impacts on those vulnerable members of our community.

The third part of the bill that I wanted to talk about today is of course the one that has been raised so many times in this place, and that is about the drug testing of welfare recipients in those trial sites. We've heard from so many experts, from the AMA to ACOSS, that this will not work. We've got no evidence from the government that this will work and, indeed, all the evidence from overseas would suggest that it won't work. We've also heard, unfortunately, that the government yet again hasn't done its homework. The government hasn't done its homework in terms of what services are available for those people whose tests do come up positive to say that, yes, there is alcohol or drug addiction. Indeed, has this government actually put in more support services in those trial sites? What are the waiting lists already for those people in those trial sites when it comes to seeking support for their addictions today?

Quite unusually for the government, they of course are making a hash of this just like they do everything else. They cannot implement any policy without mucking it up. We see it time and time again. We see it with this welfare reform bill; we saw it with the NBN; we saw it with the census; and we're going to see it, no doubt, with the household survey. They cannot organise anything. We've had minister after minister come in here and try to do more and more welfare reform that just leaves more and more people vulnerable. Quite frankly, I've had enough of it and my constituents have enough of it. It's about time the government stopped picking on vulnerable people and actually got on and did their job properly, because people out there in our communities know that there are not enough jobs for every jobseeker. They've got to stop picking on vulnerable jobseekers, go out there and create more jobs with less underemployment and less casualisation of the labour force. They need to improve wages growth. Indeed, they've got a lot of work to do, and this welfare reform bill doesn't do any of that. All it does is continually pick on vulnerable people.

Mr PORTER (Pearce—Minister for Social Services) (16:02): I thank all the members, including those opposite, for their contributions to the debate on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. By way of summing up the second reading debate, I note that the bill simplifies the welfare system. It strengthens conditionality for jobseekers, particularly those with drug and alcohol issues, and it introduces a new targeted and workable compliance framework. The point of the simplification—and I do note that the member for Jagajaga is here, thank her for her presence and also note that in her Growing Together manifesto it was said by Labor that consideration should be given to simplifying the working-age payment system. Of course, that wasn't done under the period of the previous government, but now we have before parliament a plan which is to simplify the welfare system in a very substantive way. I might deal with those three issues—complexity, mutual obligation and the compliance framework—separately.

With respect to complexity, we know we have a very complex welfare system. This bill seeks to turn seven payments into one to create a new jobseeker payment, so from 20 March 2020 the bill would introduce a new single jobseeker payment which would replace the seven existing payments as the main payment for people of working age. These changes would ensure a single set of rules and rates for people of working age with the capacity to work and aim to firmly entrench employment as the desired outcome for Australians who seek the jobseeker payment. That is a very significant simplification reform. In fact, given its scale, it's interesting that only two issues really have been raised with respect to consolidating seven payments into one. Those relate to two payments: bereavement allowance and the wife pension.

I'd like to thank the member for Mayo. In her speech on the second reading she did raise a genuine issue with respect to the potential for pregnant women receiving bereavement allowance to spend longer than 14 weeks on the payment and therefore be financially worse off under the proposed arrangements. Again I thank her for raising that issue and speaking to me separately about it. We realise that that's a special category and will continue to work with her and the Nick Xenophon Team on that particular issue.

The second issue relates to what are effectively 200 wife pensioners who reside overseas and would no longer be eligible for the wife pension from a future point in time. Those individuals are presently aged between 45 and 62. Where they don't reside in a country with an international agreement, like every single other person in the welfare system that is able to work they would not be eligible to be continually funded by the taxpayer while they're overseas. That payment as it presently exists simply does not reflect community values, and it shouldn't be continued after 22 years so that we support able Australians to live overseas and never look for work even though they are of working age. That would maintain a range of existing inequities in the social security system. It reinforces outdated social norms and it would do a huge disservice to the taxpayer.

With respect to the issue of mutual obligations, again this is very significant reform. Most complaints from members opposite related to the changes to the activity test for persons aged between 55 and 59. The bill will also strengthen the employment focus of mutual obligations and better target mature-aged jobseekers with the labour market. Labor's criticism of the measure to increase the activity requirements for those aged between 55 and 59 is twofold. There are two criticisms: first, somehow this change is unfair or not in the best interests of those people aged between 55 and 59, and, second, it could affect rates of volunteering.

The truth of the situation is that neither of those criticisms is correct. There is a central question of principle here. As a government, we take the view that jobseekers aged between 55 and 59 are not going to benefit from being totally excused from any effort to prepare for or search for work. In fact, the contrary idea—that it is actually in a person's interest to be in a system that requires some effort to search for work—is supported by many sources. The Department of Employment's data shows that, in the year ending December 2016, over all age groups, 32.4 per cent of jobseekers who participated in voluntary work were in employment three months later. Comparatively, 48.5 per cent of jobseekers who participated in jobactive were in employment three months later. Reputable data also exists to show that mature-aged people are 13 times more likely to find work when actively looking for it. Critically, alongside this reform is the fact that the government is investing over $110 million in mature-aged re-skilling packages to help older Australians retain and find work.

The government also rejects the argument that the reforms for the 55 to 59 age bracket would see volunteer groups somehow lose volunteers. In claiming a negative impact on volunteering, members opposite continually and conveniently ignore the fact that, of the 40,000 jobseekers aged 55 to 59, only around 7½ thousand presently use volunteering alone to meet their 30 hours of activity. Also, of course, members opposite ignored the fact that our reforms will, for the first time, require that 45,000 jobseekers aged over 60 will have some mutual obligations, where at present there are none, and be required to undertake 10 hours of activity per fortnight, all of which could be met through volunteering. That means a boost to the volunteering sector by providing a net increase of up to 337,000 volunteering hours a fortnight. How can it be considered a disadvantage to volunteering groups when it could provide up to 337,000 hours more volunteering a fortnight?

This bill also contains changes for faster connection to employment services. From 1 January 2018, the bill will encourage jobseekers to connect more quickly with their employment service providers. Some members opposite have raised concerns on how this measure would impact on jobseekers in rural and remote areas. Again, the fact is that, under current arrangements, jobseekers in regional areas are exempt from RapidConnect where transport would not allow attendance at their initial appointment in a timely manner, and that safeguard remains.

Some issues were raised with respect to the removal of intent-to-claim provisions. Under this bill, the social security claimants would receive payments from the date they provide all material necessary to be assessed that is within their control, rather than from the date of first contact with the Department of Human Services expressing an intention to claim. That is opposed by Labor, but the fact is that, at present, an applicant can provide only their name and the payment which they intend to claim and be back paid to the date that they first made contact with the department. This arrangement simply does not align with community expectations and, again, does a massive disservice to the taxpayer. It is simply not an unreasonable request for applicants to provide the very basic required information when lodging a claim. This measure will improve the integrity and administrative complexity of the welfare system, and, again, adequate provisions and exemptions exist for people who do not have the ability to provide all relevant documents, including those who may be disabled or live in remote areas and those who are homeless or affected by domestic violence.

The bill, under the heading of strengthening mutual obligation requirements, deals with a range of substance abuse measures. It introduces three measures to strengthen requirements for jobseekers with substance abuse issues and provides improved pathways for them to pursue appropriate treatment.

Firstly, the bill establishes a two-year trial of drug testing for 5,000 recipients of Newstart and youth allowance from 1 January 2018. Members opposite oppose this trial, doing so on the basis that they say there is no evidence that it's guaranteed to work. Of course, the first point is that this position ignores the fact that it is a trial, designed to determine whether the welfare system can be effectively used to compel people into treatment. Further, that is the same argument that has been run against the cashless welfare card and against the No Jab, No Pay immunisation policy to link vaccination to family tax benefit payments, and yet both of those policies have proven very substantial and successful in changing behaviours and improving individual lives.

The exact reason that there is no evidentiary guarantee for a trial like this, or that it will work, is that it has never been done before in the way that we are doing it. Despite multiple false statements by members opposite, this trial will not cut people off from income support if they test positive for drugs. It is very different in that respect to the trials that have been conducted overseas. Instead, after a first test, our trial will limit the amount of income support that is provided in cash and, following a second positive test, it refers the individual to a doctor for an assessment on what treatment may be required.

I think the member for Barton typified the opposition's position in opposing this in her second reading contribution. She said that the trial won't work because, 'this requires a medical response'. Of course, a medical response is exactly what we are proposing. Every decision regarding treatment will be made by a qualified medical professional, paid for and provided by the government. The member for Barton also gave Labor's objection to the trial on the basis that income management was described as not being an effective tool to help people with substance abuse problems. Indeed, what I think was revealed in several contributions from members opposite was an equal opposition to the trial as to the consequences of a positive drug test being income management.

I must say to the member for Jagajaga that I share her views where she noted that income management is a useful and important tool for protecting vulnerable people—particularly for protecting children. It makes sure that welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life—things like food, clothing and rent—and not on alcohol or drugs. The Labor position also conveniently ignores the considerable body of evidence that exists around the effectiveness of compelling people into drug treatment.

The reason for trialling a new approach where there is not an evidentiary guarantee of success is to trial, test and learn. Equally, the fact that there may not be a guarantee of success is distinct from a lack of evidence to suggest that the trial of a new approach could reasonably be considered worthwhile. I worked in drug courts and, in fact, much of what we have done is based on the process there. Drug courts, of course, effectively mandate treatment and they have been very successful in mandating treatment for drug and alcohol problems. The data and evidence shows that this type of compulsion for treatment can be very effective. The Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment Program—the MERIT Program—in New South Wales has resulted in the number of people in employment rising from 20 per cent at program entry to 27.5 per cent at exit. The Victorian Drug Court had a study which showed that 79 per cent of people appearing before it were unemployed. It showed that the benefits of the drug treatment compulsory order program included improved health and wellbeing, reductions in drug and alcohol risk and enhanced employment prospects and overarching life skills.

A 2008 study published by the Crime and Misconduct Commission in Queensland examined the issue of mandatory versus voluntary treatment for drug and alcohol problems. It concluded as follows:

Our findings do not support the current treatment philosophy of waiting for people with drug and/or alcohol abuse problems to get themselves psychologically motivated and prove their readiness to receive treatment. On the contrary, the findings indicate that mandatory treatment seems a promising option to help offenders with drug and alcohol abuse problems.

This trial has been developed to test whether the welfare system can be used in a similar way to drug courts. If it does not work, of course there will be a need to try something else. If it does work, we will have improved the lives of people with those drug problems.

Two other measures in this bill also ensure that jobseekers with substance abuse issues remain actively engaged in appropriate activities, including treatment to address their barriers to work rather than being exempt from all mutual obligation requirements. From 1 January 2018, jobseekers will no longer be exempt from their mutual obligation or participation requirements if the reason they are unable to meet their obligations is predominantly due to drug or alcohol dependency. From 1 January 2018, the government will also tighten the reasonable excuse rules to allow for the closing of a loophole so that alcohol and drug dependency will not be accepted as a reasonable excuse for not meeting obligations when the jobseekers are not also actively engaged in treatment.

Again, Labor sought to characterise these changes as punitive, but what they failed to point out or to mention is that this change is accompanied by, and will run parallel to, one of the most important changes in this reform package—that is that for the first time all jobseekers will be able to have drug and alcohol treatment efforts count towards their mutual obligation requirements.

The fundamental principle the government reforms embody is simply this: citizens who are receiving taxpayer funds in the form of welfare benefits should not be able to claim drug and alcohol abuse as a reason for failing to undertake critical mutual obligations like turning up to job interviews unless they are also making reasonable efforts to undertake treatment or support for the problem. The system as it currently stands fails to detect people with drug problems and simply allows those it does not know about to be exempt from all mutual obligations. The purpose of all these measures is to ensure that, when people have substance abuse issues that are acting as a barrier to their employment, they are compelled into appropriate treatment.

With respect to the compliance framework, from 1 July 2018, a new jobseeker compliance framework will provide more support to those who are genuinely trying to meet their obligations whilst also introducing fairer and more contemporary penalties for the very small number of jobseekers who persistently and deliberately do not meet their requirements. The Labor Party called for the reinstatement of waivers and provider discretion, but that is the exact reason the present system is failing. The failure of the current waiver arrangements and the inconsistency in the use of discretion has made our proposed changes completely necessary. Under the framework, at present, 93 per cent of penalties for serious or persistent noncompliance are waived. This means there is no consequence for the overwhelming majority of jobseekers who repeatedly fail to meet their requirements or who refuse an offer of suitable work. Penalties only apply to those who repeatedly fail, with multiple barrier assessments and warnings before this could occur. Reasonable excuse provisions will of course continue to apply.

With respect to information management, I would also note briefly that the bill eliminates the requirement for the Department of Human Services to obtain information twice. It streamlines prosecution processes and reduces the administrative burden of criminal investigations. These changes do align with the Department of Human Services information-gathering powers and align it with that of other agencies at the Commonwealth and state and territory levels. The changes retain the common-law right to silence, preventing use of information or documents against the person that provided them other than in proceedings for the provision of false information. This exception is consistent with the guide to framing Commonwealth offences, infringement notices and enforcement that states that the privilege against self-incrimination does not apply where it is alleged a person has given false or misleading information.

In summary, it is critical to ensure that our welfare system is efficient, effective and sustainable into the future. We simply cannot afford a set-and-forget approach to the welfare system. It is for those reasons that I commend the bill to the House.

The SPEAKER: The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Jagajaga has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

The SPEAKER (16:31): The question now is that the bill be now read a second time.

Mr PORTER (Pearce—Minister for Social Services) (16:35): I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill, and I ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) to (22) as circulated together.

Leave granted.

Mr PORTER: I move government amendments (1) to (22) as circulated together:

(1) Schedule 10, page 170 (before line 4), insert:

Social Security Act 1991

1A Paragraph 549CA(2) (a)

Omit "clause 5", substitute "clauses 4A and 5".

(2) Schedule 10, page 170, after proposed item 1A, insert:

1B Subsection 549CB(1)

Omit "clause 5", substitute "clauses 4A and 5".

1C Paragraph 549CB(2) (b)

Omit "clause 5", substitute "clauses 4A and 5".

(3) Schedule 10, page 170, after proposed item 1C, insert:

1D Paragraph 620(1) (a)

Omit "clause 5", substitute "clauses 4A and 5".

(4) Schedule 10, page 170, after proposed item 1D, insert:

1E Subsection 621(1)

Omit "clause 5", substitute "clauses 4A and 5".

1F Paragraph 621(3) (b)

Omit "clause 5", substitute "clauses 4A and 5".

(5) Schedule 12, item 1, page 176 (lines 1 and 2), omit paragraph (d) of the definition of drug test trial pool member in subsection 23(1).

(6) Schedule 12, item 24, page 187 (line 30), omit "may", substitute "must".

(7) Schedule 12, item 24, page 188 (lines 1 and 2), omit "consider whether to make a determination under subsection (1C)", substitute "inquire into whether a person being subject to the income management regime under subsection (1A) poses a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing".

(8) Schedule 16, item 1, page 222 (line 16), after "seniors health card", insert ", or a health care card that is income‑tested for the request recipient".

(9) Schedule 16, item 1, page 222 (line 17), after "seniors health card", insert ", or a health care card that is income‑tested for the request recipient".

(10) Schedule 16, item 1, page 223 (lines 10 and 11), omit paragraph 75(4) (a), substitute:

(a) the request recipient:

   (i) is making, or has made, a claim for a social security payment; or

   (ii) is receiving a social security payment; and

(11) Schedule 16, item 1, page 223 (line 14), omit "request recipient's".

(12) Schedule 16, item 1, page 224 (lines 5 and 6), omit "for a social security payment or a seniors health card", substitute "described in paragraph 75(1) (a) or (c)".

(13) Schedule 16, item 1, page 224 (line 8), after "(b)", insert "of this section".

(14) Schedule 16, item 1, page 225 (table item 2), after "seniors health card", insert ", or a health care card that is income‑tested for the person".

(15) Schedule 16, item 1, page 225 (table item 4), after "seniors health card", insert ", or a health care card that is income‑tested for the person".

(16) Schedule 16, item 1, page 226 (line 20), after "seniors health card", insert ", or a health care card that is income‑tested for the request recipient".

(17) Schedule 16, Part 1, page 226 (after line 35), at the end of the Part, add:

1A After paragraph 204A(2) (b)

Insert:

(ba) to verify, in respect of persons who have made claims under the social security law for seniors health cards, or health care cards that are income‑tested for those persons, the qualification of those persons for those cards;

(18) Schedule 16, page 227 (before line 3), before item 2, insert:

1B Subsection 6A(1)

Insert:

income ‑tested: a health care card is income ‑tested for a person if the person is required by paragraph 1061ZO(2) (d), (3) (e) or (4) (d) to satisfy the health care card income test in order to qualify for the health care card.

(19) Schedule 16, page 227, after proposed item 1B, insert:

1C Subsection 23(1)

Insert:

income ‑tested in relation to a health care card: see subsection 6A(1).

(20) Schedule 16, item 3, page 227 (lines 6 and 7), omit the item, substitute:

3 Subsection 37(8) (note)

Repeal the note, substitute:

Note: In some cases, the Secretary must not make a determination granting a claim for a seniors health card or an income‑tested health care card if the Secretary makes a request under subsection 75(2) or (3) of the claimant (about providing tax file numbers): see subsection 77(1).

(21) Schedule 16, item 4, page 227 (lines 8 and 9), omit the item, substitute:

4 Subsection 86(1) (note)

Repeal the note, substitute:

Note: In some cases, the Secretary must cancel a seniors health card or an income‑tested health care card if the Secretary makes a request under subsection 75(2) or (3) of the holder (about providing tax file numbers): see subsections 77(1) and (3).

(22) Schedule 16, item 5, page 227 (line 12), after "seniors health card", insert ", or a health care card that is income‑tested for a person,".

The briefest explanation that I can provide with respect to those amendments, of which there are 22, is they are technical but that they amend schedules 10, 12 and 16 of the bill.

The amendments to schedule 10, which deals with the work first component of the bill, are designed to ensure that the ordinary waiting period will apply in the same way to jobseekers who are subject to RapidConnect as to jobseekers who are not subject to RapidConnect.

The amendments that apply to schedule 12, which deals with the drug-testing trial, are designed to refine the definition of 'drug test trial pool member' and give greater support to jobseekers referred to income management for whom the regime could pose any risk to their wellbeing.

The third group of amendments applies to schedule 16 and relates to the streamlining of tax file number issues. These amendments would allow for the request for tax file number provisions in the social security law to apply to a relevant third party as part of a person's claim for social security payment and to an income-tested healthcare card or seniors health card.

Question agreed to.

The SPEAKER: The question now is that this bill, as amended, be agreed to.

Mr PORTER (Pearce—Minister for Social Services) (16:45): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (16:49): I rise to speak on the Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017. Labor will support the bill in the House. We understand the government will make an amendment as agreed with Labor. The immigration and border force portfolio is a very complex and dynamic remit with many areas integral to the integrity, security, prosperity and safety of this country. It includes stronger borders, preventing people smugglers and stopping deaths at sea—areas of policy Labor is strongly committed to—as well as the visa system, skilled migration, customs, the administration and collection of tariffs, travel, tourism and many more.

Given these broad portfolio matters, the issue of transparency and accountability in the work undertaken by the department, staff, contractors and service providers is absolutely critical. It is especially important to the trust that Australians have in the integrity of our immigration and humanitarian programs. The Department of Immigration and the Australian Customs and Border and Protection Service merged in 2015 to become the current department with its operational arm being the Australian Border Force. Given this merger, the secrecy and disclosure provisions in part 6 of the legislation then covering Border Force were adapted from the now repealed Customs Administration Act into the new legislation. At the time, Labor supported the ABF Act, inclusive of part 6. Since 2015, there has been both confusion and criticism with part 6 of the ABF Act—about what information is protected and what information can be disclosed.

The ABF Act, as currently written, essentially protects all information, which has led to a lack of disclosure of information by concerned individuals and stakeholders. Some stakeholders refer to the 'chilling effect' the act has on the public disclosure of information. The appropriateness of this, and concerns raised by stakeholders about an inability to disclose any information, was one of the main driving forces behind Labor including an examination of part 6 of the act in the terms of reference of the recent Senate inquiry into serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in the Nauru regional processing centre and similar allegations in the Manus regional processing centre.

It is important to clarify any real or perceived confusion about whether information is or is not protected. Labor agrees people should have the right to disclose non-sensitive information where appropriate and when required. Given this, we welcome the legislation before the chamber today. The practical application of this bill is to more narrowly define information that is protected from disclosure. This narrowing of the definition clarifies people's capacity to disclose non-protected information. It is also important to clarify the matter, given instances in which this information could lead to actions against an individual.

The bill adds three new permitted purposes for which personal information can be disclosed under the legislation. This includes matters of intercountry adoption, the protection of national security and defence of the country and the location of missing persons, all measures which Labor is very committed to and supports. The legislation amends the ABF Act 2015 in a number of ways. As per the current act, protected information is currently defined as 'information that was obtained by a person in the person's capacity as an entrusted person'. It is a very broad definition and covers all information obtained in the capacity of entrusted person. Under the legislation, that person could be the secretary of the department, the Australian Border Force Commissioner or an Immigration and Border Force Protection worker.

The proposed amendments narrow the scope and change the protected information to a new definition called 'Immigration and Border Protection information'. Subsection 1 of section 4 of the Immigration and Border Protection information includes disclosure that could reasonably be expected to prejudice security, defence or the international relations of Australia such as high-level data and information on human trafficking exchanged with other countries. The next subsection talks about the need to prevent detection and investigation of or conduct of proceedings relating to an offence or a contravention of a civil penalty provision, including information obtained by the interception of communications under a warrant. The next subsection talks about the protection of public health or endangering the life or safety of an individual or group of individuals such as through revealing the biographical details of individuals in witness protection programs. The next subsection deals with disclosure of information 'which would or could reasonably be expected to found an action by a person (other than the Commonwealth) for breach of a duty of confidence'. For example, details of aviation operations which are commercial-in-confidence. The next one talks about disclosure which could cause competitive detriment to a person, including commercially sensitive information about commercial entities such as names of suppliers, prices paid for goods and, finally, anything prescribed under information of a kind prescribed in instrument under subsection (7), which I will refer to later on. In this amendment, the narrowing, I think, is beneficial for public trust and integrity in the system. Of course there are some offences associated with the legislation as well, including unauthorised disclosure of information carrying imprisonment as a punishment for up to two years.

The executive memorandum of this bill argues that the amendments are made in terms of these provisions because they are ineffective and reduce operational administrative inefficiencies. Subsection (1) creates a new definition of duty of confidence, immigration and border protection information and intelligence agencies. That is subsection (1) of section 4. The amendments make a difference to public integrity and trust in the system. The new subsection 4(7) I mentioned before creates new powers for the secretary of the department to prescribe the kind of information to be defined as immigration and border protection information by way of a legislative instrument. That legislative instrument is disallowable, and we would agree with that—that is, if the secretary is satisfied that disclosure of the information could reasonably be expected to prejudice the effective work of the department or otherwise harm public interest. Given the complexities of the immigration and border protection portfolio, it is reasonable that issues may arise because of unforeseen changes in circumstances which make it necessary for information to be protected from disclosure and for that action to be taken quickly.

Labor is not convinced that this power should rest with an unelected public official, albeit someone of the standing of the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. This is a concern that was shared by the chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry, Ian Macdonald, who, in the public hearing into this bill said that he felt 'uncomfortable with this power resting with the secretary'. Labor is strongly of the view that the minister should be personally responsible and accountable for any decision to protect from disclosure any additional information that should be covered by this legislation, and which is certainly not covered by the definition. If they are going to add additional information, it should be the minister and not an unelected secretary of the department.

Labor anticipates that the minister will move an amendment to the legislation before the House today to transfer this responsibility from the secretary to the minister, and Labor will support that amendment. This is not a decision that should be delegated to the department. Labor supports transparency and accountability in immigration and border protection decision-making. The minister should always be accountable and willing to justify any decision to protect from disclosure additional immigration and border protection information.

Part 1 of schedule 1 of the bill will have a retrospective application backdated to 1 July 2015 which should give some comfort to stakeholders and advocates who have spoken about the Turnbull government's failure to manage the immigration and border protection portfolio. This clarifies that only information that would cause identifiable harm if disclosed is to be protected under the ABF Act. The new narrower definition of immigration and border protection information will, I think, reassure individuals who may otherwise erroneously believe that they have committed an offence. I also note that there have been no prosecutions under the current ABF Act for release of protected information. The ABF Act also makes amendments to the Customs legislation and other types of legislation.

Unlike the current government in their failures to consult or welcome scrutiny, Labor will always consult with relevant stakeholders, advocates, experts and others when developing policy and legislation, given the potential legislative impact those changes may have on people. With that in mind, we referred this particular bill to a Senate inquiry in relation to it. The Senate inquiry is due to report on 12 September, before the Senate looks at it but after the House will deal with this legislation. Whilst awaiting the final report, we note the 13 submissions that have been received by that Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill. A public hearing was held last Friday.

Submissions made to the Senate inquiry generally welcomed the proposed amendments to the ABF Act to narrow the scope of information which could be protected and to offer greater clarity about the types of information that can be publicly disclosed. The Refugee Advice and Casework Service, commonly known as RACS, confirmed in their submission their support for the bill and said that the bill:

… would bring a greater degree of transparency to the immigration detention system.

The submission also said:

By substituting 'protected information' with 'Immigration and Border Protection Information', the Bill decriminalises the disclosure of a range of information that may be crucial for avoiding harm.

The Law Council of Australia stated in its submission that it:

… welcomes any attempt at ameliorating the secrecy provisions in the Act in order to address concerns over the encroachments on freedom of speech.

The Human Rights Commission expressed a view that the proposed amendments are better than the current ABF Act, stating:

When compared to the current law, it strikes a better balance between recognising the need to protect sensitive government information and the importance of allowing legitimate public scrutiny.

Additionally, during the public hearing on Friday, 8 September, Doctors for Refugees provided testimony stating their support for the intent of the bill, despite serious reservation about the provision of health care provided to asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru. This includes the willingness of Australian based medical practitioners to speak out about the availability and provision of medical care.

I note concerns raised by submitters, including concerns as to the power of the secretary of the department, as I referred to before, and the processes of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in marking information with appropriate security classifications; and questions as to why the department would have the need to protect the information. In particular, I draw the House's attention to a submission made by the Australian Information Commissioner which recommends:

… that the Department undertake a Privacy Impact Assessment … on this proposed change if one has not been undertaken.

During the public hearing on this bill, the department confirmed that, in preparing this bill, they did not undertake a privacy impact assessment. This is despite the Information Commissioner, in his submission, arguing:

Conducting a PIA would assist in identifying any privacy impacts associated with the handling of the relevant personal information due to the change in definition.

According to the commissioner, a privacy impact statement would also:

… provide an opportunity to undertake proactive steps to mitigate any potential impacts.

I urge the government to undertake such steps in the future.

Regrettably, the Australian public is all too aware of the failings of this government with respect to the operation of the Immigration and Border Force portfolio. The failures are not different. As in other areas of health and education, there has been report after report from the Auditor-General in relation to the dismal handling of this portfolio in terms of offshore processing and the mismanagement of the department by the current minister and the previous minister. There has been mismanagement of offshore processing and of welfare and garrison support contracts, the subject of two scathing ANAO reports. The government sat on its hands as to negotiating third-country arrangements, particularly for Australian-funded offshore processing centres.

We support the US refugee resettlement deal. We want all eligible refugees to have the opportunity to resettle, including refugees who are currently in Australia for ongoing medical treatment. The government seem to have put all their eggs in one basket with the US resettlement deal, and we urge them to look elsewhere for other third-country arrangements. We have consistently called on the government—in the interests of accountability and transparency, on which they seem to have had a change of heart here—to release details of the US refugee agreement and any side agreement they had in relation to the Costa Rica arrangements. The government have come to the party here. They've made changes in terms of protected information. We urge them to show the same degree of transparency and accountability on the US refugee resettlement deal and the Costa Rica arrangements that the current Prime Minister came to with then President Obama.

We want refugees off Manus and Nauru and into third countries as soon as possible, but we will hold the government to account in terms of transparency in the onshore as well as the offshore immigration system. When it comes to their handling of this, the minister and the secretary of the department should always be able to account for and should account for inaction. And that's what happened. The subject of this legislation before the chamber was looked at by the Senate inquiry which I referred to earlier. In September 2016, Labor initiated that inquiry because of the failure of the Turnbull government to act on serious allegations raised in the Nauru files aired by The Guardian. The chair's report, conclusions and recommendations from that Senate inquiry were handed down on 21 April this year. It's been 155 days and counting of complete and utter inaction on those recommendations. During those 155 days, we've seen more and more examples of failure by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to manage his secretary and the department

It seems to me that a 'tick and flick' approach is simply not good enough. I saw that exposed last week with reports that about 2,000 departmental staff were overpaid for leave, and this went unnoticed by the minister for immigration for two years. The minister blamed a systems error for the overpayments while forcing staff into an inflexible repayment scheme owing to his own failure to manage the department. This occurred while morale within the department is said to have collapsed and workers and their representatives, the unions, are still locked in a dispute with the Turnbull government over pay and conditions that's lasted for four years.

Labor is increasingly concerned about the Turnbull government's failure to manage offshore processing centres and to treat asylum seekers fairly and with dignity. Recently the immigration minister callously cut financial support and housing for asylum seekers transferred from Manus Island and Nauru for medical treatment. There are up to 400 people, potentially, who could be caught up in this decision. The cuts began without warning two weeks ago. In the interests of transparency and accountability and in the spirit of this particular legislation that we've got today, we ask the government not to purposely make people destitute and homeless. The government can only exacerbate health conditions of asylum seekers who were originally transferred to Australia for treatment. The immigration minister has completely failed to make a case as to why these people haven't been allowed to apply for resettlement in the United States while receiving medical treatment in Australia. The long-term issue of these people being in Australia could have been avoided entirely if these eligible refugees had been allowed to apply to be resettled as part of the US refugee resettlement arrangement whilst still living in Australia, as recommended by that Senate inquiry I've referred to.

Labor is committed to holding the government to account and to increasing transparency in onshore immigration detention and offshore immigration processing. The bill before the House today eases some of our concerns in relation to these issues, but it's simply not good enough. The government needs to do better—certainly in terms of the provision of medical care to refugees who need it on Manus and Nauru. There've been a number of medical reports of asylum seekers and refugees in regional processing centres experiencing significant delays in the medical transfer process or having their recommended procedures being unavailable on Manus and Nauru. I wrote to the immigration minister to seek an assurance that medical transfers would be available when recommended by medical professionals, including women's rights to reproductive assistance. My letter drew the attention of the minister to recommendations 1 and 2 of that Senate inquiry. I will read them for the record. Recommendation 1 is:

The committee recommends that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, as a matter of urgency, commission an external review of its medical transfer procedures in offshore processing centres.

Recommendation 2 is:

The committee recommends that the Australian Government undertake to seek advice in relation to whether improvements are required to the medical treatment options available to asylum seekers and refugees in the Republic of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, particularly mental health services.

Today I again remind the House that the Turnbull government has yet to respond to these recommendations, and I urge the minister to respond to the Senate recommendations and to read the report and act on those recommendations.

Pending an anticipated amendment, Labor will support the bill before the House. Labor is committed to improving transparency and accountability, and we want to make sure that appropriate information is protected but that there be adequate disclosure provisions there. It's critical to the trust Australians have in the integrity of our immigration and border protection policies. Given this, we would welcome the amendments we anticipate today, including the narrowing of the definition of information that is protected from disclosure. We will continue to hold the government to account, and I urge the government to respond to the Nauru files Senate inquiry's recommendations and to my letter as soon as possible.

Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (17:09): I welcome the Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017. I welcome it alongside the legal, medical and aid organisations and an organisation in my own community, the Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group, who are looking forward to the improvements it will bring to existing law relating to the transparency that we have in Australia's offshore detention system.

As a former journalist, I've been particularly concerned with the Turnbull government's lack of transparency in the operation of offshore detention centres. My community has always been an extremely outspoken one when it comes to issues of refugees and asylum seekers. I've received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters protesting not only the conditions of Australia's offshore detention centres but also the secrecy that the Australian offshore detention regime has been shrouded in.

I'm pleased to see that this parliament is taking bipartisan steps—albeit modest ones, by the Law Council's assessment—towards ensuring that Australians know what is happening in offshore detention, that refugees and asylum seekers are afforded freedom of political communication in line with the common and international law that we operate under and that individuals working on Manus and Nauru are able to more freely speak about what they see. This bill tangibly means that individuals who've been involved in Australia's offshore detention system as contractors or employees of the DIBP, such as Save the Children, social workers, psychologists, doctors and lawyers, will generally be able to speak more freely about their experiences and what they've seen with less fear of prosecution.

The bill narrows the type of information which, if recorded or disclosed, would make a person liable to prosecution under section 42 of the act. It repeals a very broad phrase, 'protected information', and gives a more precise and specific definition. For instance, it defines that 'information the disclosure of which would or could reasonably be expected to prejudice the security, defence or international relations of Australia'—such as high-level data and information on human trafficking exchanged with other countries—is covered. It specifies that information 'which would or could reasonably expected to cause competitive detriment to a person', including commercially sensitive information about commercial entities, such as names of suppliers or prices paid for goods, is now defined.

This bill begins to stop the government's total suppression of so-called whistleblowers and staff speaking out about Australia's offshore detention regime, and that is a good thing. The Chairperson of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, Malcolm Evans, said:

This is why we think independent monitoring is so important—transparency is one of the greatest protections here. Where there's a lack of transparency, naturally there will be concerns things are not as they ought.

As a former reporter, I would say transparency is vital, and this is a good step at improving the level of transparency in offshore detention. Under the current legislation, you can't guarantee that whistleblowers would have been spared from retaliation. I'm particularly pleased that the bill has a retrospective commencement date, meaning that those who've spoken out in the past may well fall under the concessions in this bill.

The Turnbull government's mismanagement of offshore processing centres and welfare and support contracts has been the subject of two scathing Australian National Audit Office reports, so, clearly, greater transparency is very welcome. My community was outraged, rightly so, at the release of the Nauru files, where 26 former Save the Children workers on Manus and Nauru detailed what they saw and described allegations of sexual assault and self-harm in the Nauru detention centre. One of the workers stated:

You feel you can't talk about it even though you know you should talk about it.

The files, which the government shrouded in secrecy, included reports of genital mutilation against young women, people sewing their lips shut, self-immolation, sexual violence and gross mishandling of incidents by private contractors.

In September 2016, Labor initiated a Senate inquiry to investigate these allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect, because the Turnbull government had failed to act. The government's total inaction for the past 3½ months on the chair's report conclusions and recommendations is extremely disappointing. Let's remember the Australian Border Force Act has previously been used by the Abbott government to attempt to prosecute Save the Children staff after they revealed serious allegations of abuse of women and children. In future, with this amendment, I hope this means that can't happen again.

In looking at the bill before us today, I note that in total, there were 13 submissions to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee Senate inquiry into the bill, generally welcoming the amendments to narrow the scope of information which should be protected and offer greater clarity about the types of information that can be publicly disclosed, a belated step but certainly a step in the right direction.

I would like to take a moment to talk about the anticipated amendment that has been foreshadowed by the shadow minister—that is, the minister, not the secretary of the department, should have the power to prescribe which information is protected. It should certainly be the case that the minister should be personally responsible and accountable for any decision to protect from disclosure any additional immigration and border protection information not already covered by the definition. We certainly look forward to that amendment being moved and we would support that amendment.

Having said those things about the bill, there are other things that this issue raises. We must not forget that this government has systematically maligned asylum seekers and refugees and mismanaged offshore processing in Manus Island and Nauru. Whether we liked it or not at the time Manus Island and Nauru were set up as regional transit processing facilities. They were never meant to be what they've become, a place of indefinite detention, because the government failed to secure third-country resettlement options. No-one in this chamber can possibly feel that people should still be on Nauru and Manus Island four years on. The Prime Minister and immigration minister should be exploring every possible alternative.

I note that New Zealand Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern, will renew the country's offer to take refugees from Manus Island if she is successful in the election later this month. It is not enough to assume that the US agreement is the sole answer, but this minister has tried to shirk responsibility wherever he can. This is, after all, the minister who said that Australia is 'not responsible' for the hundreds of asylum seekers on Manus Island after the Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island is illegal. The minister needs to listen to the UNHCR, which last month said that PNG and Nauru remain unsuitable as places of resettlement, not least because of the lack of medical and psychological services. In fact, it is the provision of medical services that goes to the heart of the concerns my community raises with me—the impact that indefinite detention is having on people. The Blue Mountains branch of Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children have been extremely vocal in fighting for fairness and humanity in our offshore detention centre, as have Justice For Children. I have with me a petition of more than 600 signatures that has gone to the Prime Minister, collected mainly in the Blue Mountains, but from as far afield as Dubbo and Bondi. These grandmothers remind the government that we are signatories to international agreements which need to be respected.

Another group in my electorate wanting to see more humane treatment of people is the Uniting Church. Members of the Springwood Uniting Church last week sent me a petition addressed to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, expressing their outrage at the minister's decision to withdraw income and accommodation support from up to 370 babies, children, women and male asylum seekers brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus Island on medical grounds. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our community, with more than 20 of the women victims of sexual assault. The minister is making their struggle and their recovery worse by now impoverishing them and making them destitute and homeless. The government's decision to cut financial support and housing to these asylum seekers is a new low, even for them. By purposefully making people destitute, making them homeless, the Turnbull government can only be exacerbating the very health conditions they were originally transferred to Australia to be treated for. I can't fathom why these same people have not been allowed to apply for resettlement in the US. why have they deliberately being excluded from that agreement? The minister has failed to really explain why.

I encourage the congregation of Springwood Uniting to keep raising issues like these. The Blue Mountains branches of GetUp! and Amnesty International have also communicated their concerns and have joined the chorus of almost a thousand of my constituents who have taken the time to personally contact me about the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. In fact, the only other issue that has garnered more correspondence in my electorate is the government's mishandling of the National Broadband Network—that speaks volumes for how appalled so many in the community are.

People and groups in my community, such as the Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group, have been at the forefront of providing assistance to asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Australia. They welcome this amendment to the Australian Border Force Act. The Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group is a group made up of grassroots members of my community who provide practical assistance to those in detention at Villawood and those who are released from detention. They provide financial support to asylum seekers and refugees in our community. They find employment for asylum seekers and they help them find homes. When people are given work rights they often get a job through the Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group. They rely on the goodwill of people in the community to assist them to furnish the homes that they find. They provide English lessons and tutors, and they provide friendship and support for a group of people who are often demonised and isolated. They provide lifts to medical appointments, they help them navigate complex government bureaucracy and much more.

There is also a refugee cricket team, Oceans 12. One of their matches earlier this year was on Anzac Day, with the Navy cricket team. The comment from the captain of Oceans 12 was that it was strange to be playing cricket against a Defence Force team as most of the players were more used to being afraid of defence forces in their own countries rather than being seen as equals. This is the sort of community building that the Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group does, and I'm proud to be a member of it. I will always consult them about amendments to bills and gauge their response.

The Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group has welcomed this bill as a good first step in increasing transparency in Australia's offshore detention system. They will continue to fight for fair and humane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, and I will stand alongside them.

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (17:22): I welcome the comments from the member for Macquarie and thank her for the work that she is doing in this parliament. The purpose of the Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017 is to introduce amendments to the 2015 Australian Border Force Act, legislation that sought to stop the unauthorised disclosure of information that could harm the national or public interest.

I support this bill. The minister and, in turn, the government are showing that they are listening to the concerns raised by the community and by professionals working in the sector. And they have responded in a positive way to those concerns by addressing the problems raised. I acknowledge the work of the government in doing this and say thank you.

However, there are still problem areas, and I ask the minister and the government to bring this same approach to the issues raised in a number of submissions made to the recent Senate inquiry. These issues include that the power to make a legislative instrument should rest with the minister, rather than with the department secretary. I understand that we'll have an amendment to that effect shortly. I note that the government is this afternoon circulating further amendments to the bill, and that these amendments will provide for the minister to make this legislative instrument; I acknowledge that.

There are other recommendations that new provisions and powers introduced in the bill could be used in a way that negates this purpose of distinguishing between information that does or does not need to be kept secret. There is also a provision for an external or independent arbitrator for complaints and breaches of offshore and onshore operations. Later in this speech I will share with this parliament some of the emails from my constituents responding to the pending closure of the regional processing centre in Manus Island in October, and particularly in response to the government's announcement of new visa conditions for those asylum seekers who have been brought to Australia and have been living in the community.

But first I would like to talk briefly to some of the work of Save the Children Australia. They made a number of submissions to the inquiry. Save the Children consider this bill a step in the right direction in decriminalising certain public interest disclosures pertaining to immigration regulation. Save the Children was contracted by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection from August 2013 to October 2015 to provide education, recreation, child protection and welfare services to asylum seekers and refugees in Nauru. In the course of providing these services, Save the Children and its employees were subject to the Australian Border Force Act as well as other legislation, such as section 70 of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, that criminalise certain disclosures by those contracted to government.

Save the Children Australia welcomes proposed amendments to the act to allow for lawful disclosure of information in the public interest in Australia. It says it is appropriate for the government to extend confidentiality requirements to organisations contracted to provide services on its behalf. It notes the need for a careful balance between the maintenance of confidential information on the one hand and disclosures where the public interest demand it on the other.

Save the Children Australia's note of caution is that the bill introduces some new powers and provisions that could be used in a way that negates their stated purpose of distinguishing between information that does and does not need to be kept secret for legitimate governmental reasons. In particular, it says the delegation of power to the departmental secretary to make an instrument should rest with the minister instead. It argues this broad discretion should be used to prevent the lawful disclosure of a wide range of information, so I welcome the minister's attention to that.

I also refer to the submission made by Rural Australians for Refugees—RAR. Rural Australians for Refugees is a network of groups. They describe themselves as 'everyday people throughout regional Australia aiming to bring about change to the way Australia treats refugees and those seeking asylum'. RAR was formed in 2001 and currently consists of more than 70 groups across all the states and territories. Groups develop activities that suit the strengths of their members and their communities. Some are focused on providing support to newly arrived refugees, as the member for Macquarie has just outlined. Some have chosen community education and awareness programs, while others advocate their concerns to government and the public. Many of the groups do all three.

The RAR national president, Marie Sellstrom, is from Mansfield in my electorate. Indeed, there is a strong connection between Indi and the RAR national executive, with the vice president, Ruth Fluhr, coming from the Strathbogie Tableland in North-East Victoria and the secretary, Penny Egan-Vine, coming from Albury-Wodonga. I meet with representatives from local RAR branches and associated networks in Indi on a regular basis, including the convenor of the north-east refugee support network, Freida Andrews, of Benalla, and I thank them all for their ongoing work and representations to my office on behalf of their communities. They are a voice of conscience in my electorate. They call for better communication from the government and immigration authorities. They call for mercy for those who find themselves in such an untenable situation as to need to ask for asylum.

Network members will make a visit to Canberra later this year to plead their case for the support of refugees, and discuss how regional communities can provide their support. I also note that executive members of Rural Australians for Refugees will be in Canberra at Parliament House later this week, and I will be meeting with Marie Sellstrom and RAR national treasurer, Margaret Rasa, on Wednesday morning.

Since its inception, RAR members have been increasingly concerned about what they perceive to be a retraction and diminution of accountability by government in the operation of refugees and asylum policies. They note that over the past 15 years members' legitimate questions have been ignored or met with obstruction and/or outright obfuscation in the name of 'security' or 'privacy' or 'client confidentiality' or 'commercial in confidence'. RAR members have also noted an unwillingness on the part of government to account to taxpayers and the ongoing lack of transparency in response to legitimate questions about the conduct and the costs of private contractors. Why do legitimate questions and attempts to obtain information and access sometimes meet with attack?

RAR says it fully supports the need for special and heightened arrangements to protect Australia's security; however, it does not support the merging of security and secrecy as a means of avoiding security of routine and non-sensitive operational and administrative arrangements. RAR argues that the same standards of accountability that apply generally to the government within our democracy should apply to the operations of refugee and asylum policy.

RAR welcomes the government's amendments to the Australian Border Force Act that it says will remove elements unduly constraining democratic access. RAR seeks a strong amendment that would objectively and specifically support improved capacity for external security of Border Force operations. It suggests specific provision for an external and independent arbitrator for complaints and breaches about the onshore and offshore operations conducted by Australian Border Force. RAR also calls for the removal of the special clause providing protection of commercial interests, believing this consideration is unnecessary and instead may lead to perceptions that Border Force operations belong outside of or above normal government commercial arrangements.

I join with both Save the Children and RAR in supporting the amendments before the House tonight. I welcome greater transparency and accountability in an area that, for too long, has been shrouded in secrecy. It is this secrecy and the lack of information about the treatment of asylum seekers that my constituents find so distressing—and, as a member of parliament, I too find it distressing. I have spoken previously about how important our laws are, but equally important is recognition that we are a compassionate nation and that we show mercy to those in the most dire of circumstances. Tonight, I call upon the government to show this mercy to the most vulnerable asylum seekers caught up in the crackdown on those who have been brought to Australia from Manus Island and Nauru. The government tells us this is a simple policy designed to stop government payments going to those who don't need them. It says these individuals, assessed on a case-by-case basis by the department, are now on a final departure bridging visa with work rights. I am told it applies only to those well enough to live in the community. But I have had dozens—more than dozens—of emails from constituents who say these asylum seekers and refugees face increasing despair and destitution, as the government attempts to force them back to Manus, Nauru or where they have fled from.

I continue to receive feedback from constituents concerned about the closure of Manus Island's regional processing centre at the end of October. To bring one particular example to light, Jill Morton of Bright, who visited Manus and Port Moresby in March, writes: 'Someone needs to stop Australia from dumping these men in PNG. It has become much more unsafe.' She also refers to the recent visit by Senator Nick McKim, and his social media post highlighting the growing number of detainees being transferred from Manus Island to Port Moresby with the understanding that they will not be returned to the detention centre and will be stuck in Port Moresby.

Two of my constituents are regular visitors to those detained at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation at Broadmeadows. I specifically refer to Marg and Delfina. They have recently taken fresh fruit to detainees—fresh fruit. From today, 11 September, a new set of guidelines prohibits this. The department says the new rules aim to reduce the risk associated with visitors bringing in food that could compromise safety, security and good order of the immigration facilities. Food must be commercially packaged. It must be consumed during the visiting period and any leftover food must be disposed of at the end of the visit. No-one disagrees with the need for rules, but surely those rules are absolutely extreme. My constituent Marg asks: 'Why is this being done? It appears to be another cruel twist in how these people are being treated.' I agree. I ask the government representative at the table to particularly investigate those rules, follow them through and see if we can do something about making sure fresh food is able to be eaten, distributed and kept.

I am heartened, I have to say, by a response in my electorate from the work of the Northern Victoria Refugee Support Network, who have prepared a submission to the inquiry into regional development and decentralisation. They provide arguments, supported by evidence, for decentralising detention, establishing processing centres in rural and regional Australia, developing a coordinated control agency at a statewide level, locating it in a region or a regional area, and successfully integrating refugee communities into rural and regional areas. There's such willingness, there's such a want, and there are such good case studies of refugees coming to rural and regional Australia.

I look forward to continuing to see my community putting their hands up to be part of the solution, and I will not let this issue go. My community will not allow me to let it go. We need to do better, and we must do better. Time is of the essence. I am very pleased that this legislation shows the government has the capacity to change and to do things better. My constituents are telling me that parliament must show leadership. We must represent our regional and rural communities around Australia, and we must bring to parliament their voices, saying: 'Can we demonstrate compassion and support? Can we show how refugee communities can be successfully integrated to build stronger, more resilient communities, particularly in rural areas?'

In closing, I will continue to advocate for a compassionate and sustainable response by this parliament. In November last year I brought a similar speech to a conclusion by quoting Pope Francis, who noted, 'Frightened citizens build walls on one side and exclude people on the other.' This is not the time for fear and punishment. It is the time for mercy, courage and justice.

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (17:36): I'd like to follow on from the member for Indi and thank her for her contribution in this debate. The support for the Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017 is broad across the parliament because everybody is concerned about making sure that we are a country that accepts people on the legitimacy of their refugee application and that everybody is treated in a just way.

The provisions included in this bill that narrow the provisions in the Australian Border Force Act are extremely important in making sure that we get the measures in the law necessary to protect people—particularly vulnerable people at vulnerable stages of life, held in custody or detention by Australian agencies or offshore—and that the policy intent of the provisions set out in the original act are fully realised. They do this by narrowing the provisions to ensure that there are protections and that secrecy or privacy of individuals who are detained is properly protected. But at the same time—as I have raised in a previous public capacity—it is to ensure that information that should be available in the public sphere, particularly around the protection of people and if there are issues around criminal behaviour against individuals, can be properly reported as part of a process to make sure the government, no matter who is in charge and no matter what instrument it is, can be held properly to account.

The provisions in this piece of legislation are relatively straightforward. They narrow the basis of the provisions within sections of the existing act to make sure that it is focused primarily on immigration and border protection information rather than simply protected information, particularly around the conduct of entrusted persons. I think everybody in this place would agree with the broad thrust and focus of this bill for that reason, because it seeks to achieve the original intention of the legislation, rather than going off and doing something different, and to address the concerns that many Australians have and have had in the past. These concerns can now be addressed by narrowing the scope and definition within the legislation.

It fits within a much broader package of making sure that this government and this nation meet their expectations and responsibilities around making sure we treat in a fair and just manner people who are seeking protection as a consequence of facing persecution elsewhere in the world. We face a difficult challenge as a consequence of people seeking asylum in Australia, particularly when they arrive through means that aren't the traditional routes recommended to us by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We have to maintain and protect a clear and consistent approach, which allows people to be accepted on the basis of their need and the legitimacy of their application, not on the method or means for their arrival into Australia. At different stages that has been, broadly speaking, a bipartisan approach.

I understand that at the moment the opposition is continuing to support the government. At other points in recent past they have not done so. I hope they continue to do so, because it is in the best interests of Australians and also because it is in the best interests of those people seeking protection. It is so that they know the direct, honest and straightforward pathway to make it into Australia, rather than trying to circumvent processes to get into Australia by other means.

Having spent a lot of time in detention centres as well as refugee camps across the world, I have seen the very real and human consequences of what happens when people seek to arrive in another country through processes and means that may not be consistent with the country that they are seeking to enter, and with which they are prepared to accept. In the end, there are millions of people all around the world who are either displaced or seeking refugee protection as a consequence of the circumstances outside of their control.

We are one of many countries that takes this issue very seriously. There is a need to be able to provide people with protection as a consequence of those circumstances. We need to have a process and a system that people have confidence in. In countries, particularly in countries like ours, they need to have confidence that people are being accepted on the basis of need and the very real risk of persecution, rather than simply the way they self-identify or make their means or process to get to the country. It must be a just system to continue to preserve confidence so that we can accept people into Australia as refugees. This simple bill around refining the content and the detail within the Australian Border Force Act seeks to achieve that.

To follow on from the previous member, I've also had a number of constituents who have continued to raise concerns with me around the operation of Manus Island and the Nauru detention centre and around the conditions that people face. They aim to make sure that they are treated in a fair and just manner. I consistently raise those issues, both in my former capacity and in my current capacity, to make sure people are treated with dignity and respect. I want to stress to all the constituents of the good electorate of Goldstein that this is something that is very much at the fore of the government's mind: making sure that people are treated with dignity and respect, and, in addition, making sure their time in detention is reduced.

That is why the deal with the United States, to get people off Manus Island and Nauru, has been secured: to try and minimise the time people are held in offshore detention. Those people are able to move on with their lives. It's obviously in their interests, because it gives them the opportunity to realise what they were always seeking—to live a life free from persecution—and then to be able to go on and do it in an environment where they are able to live out their hopes and their dreams. This provides the opportunity for the formation of a family and to be able to secure work and opportunity. That should always be the objective when people are facing persecution: not just to protect them and make them safe but to provide them with foundations and opportunity for them to be able to get on with their lives, as we would hope for our fellow citizens.

This has been a long and difficult process, but it continues to be the objective of this government. In addition, it is very much in our national interest to do so. While we are being very supportive and generous to tens of thousands of people who come to Australia as refugees by providing them with support and assistance, there is no national interest on our part in holding people in detention any longer than necessary. When it comes down to it, we need people to move on with their lives as part of the package to maintain a strong protection for border security that the Australian people and the government have confidence in. We equally want people who are in detention centres to spend as little time there as possible. It's obviously financially beneficial to everybody but, more importantly, it's about people being able to move on with their lives.

If there are problems associated with that, we must be free, within the context and while respecting the privacy of individual people, to provide information that's appropriate in the public domain, because the government always needs to be held to account. As someone who has had a longstanding advocacy in this space, as well as holding government to account more generally, I am always cautious about any measure that limits the capacity for information to be reported about government. That's not a partisan point, whether the Liberals, Labor or anyone else is in office. That's a point of principle—in fact, it goes to one of the core reasons I am a Liberal. Whenever you have centralised power, no matter who is in the position to exercise it, we pose the risk that people may choose to limit the information that is freely available to the advancement and the protection of the interests of those in positions of power and responsibility. In many cases, that's at the core of why people flee from countries—because they experience persecution in the first place. That's why this bill and this provision seeks to clarify what has been longstanding practice under the existing bill—to clarify it for everybody so it will continue to operate into the future.

The Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017 is one that seeks to be a realisation of government aspiration and policy around refugees, and at the same time makes sure that government can be appropriately held to account for its conduct, no matter who is in office, so that all Australians can look to their government with confidence that they are doing the best, the noble and the humanitarian thing.

Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (17:46): It is a pleasure to follow the member for Goldstein in this debate on the Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017. National security—the defence of a nation's borders and the protection of its citizens—has been a core responsibility of sovereign governments since the rise of nation states. Even earlier, the protection of peoples and the resources that sustained them was a cornerstone responsibility for those forms of government that preceded the modern state. And so it remains for the Turnbull government—this national government—in this extraordinary era of sweeping change and global turbulence.

Today, the task of maintaining our national security is even more complex and more demanding of vigilance and specialist skills than ever before. There are more people on the move right now, globally, across national borders, searching for everything from permanent resettlement either with or without controlled parameters to travel for brief periods for business, for pleasure and maybe even for mischief, than at any other time in human history. Technological change is speeding up every aspect of that intermingling, together with the immense tensions it creates. This is one of the great global challenges of the 21st century, and we have to keep up. We have to be prepared and we have to ensure that, as new challenges emerge, we are alert enough and flexible enough to reorganise and refine our capability and systems to keep Australia safe.

That's why this bill, the Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017, is before the House today. It is also why the Turnbull government is undertaking the most significant reform of Australia's national intelligence and domestic security arrangements in 40 years, as announced by the Prime Minister, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice just two months ago, following a review of Australia's intelligence community ordered by the Prime Minister only last year. This review is a big part of that process of keeping up with an ever-changing security landscape and is so desperately important if we are to take the protection of our citizens and defence of our way of life seriously as a first priority.

The review highlighted how changing security threats and technologies are driving the need for closer cooperation and improved vigilance between and by our domestic security and law enforcement agencies, against a backdrop, it needs to be emphasised, of stellar performance from all of those agencies to date in maintaining our national security. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have successfully intercepted 12 imminent terrorist risks since September 2014. Operation Sovereign Borders has prevented successful people-smuggling ventures for nearly three years. Yet the government remains deeply mindful of the need to reorganise and to refine our efforts whenever compelling advice suggests it is needed to maintain our security at levels that meet the needs and expectations of Australians. Another major result of that review has been the decision to establish an Office of National Intelligence and to transform the Australian Signals Directorate into a statutory agency within the Defence portfolio.

The government will also, as part of the same batch of reforms, establish a home affairs portfolio—a portfolio of immigration, border protection and domestic security and law enforcement agencies—such that there will be an effective federation of agencies, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

Earlier in the year, in the May budget, the government announced a program worth nearly $60 million to enhance technology that stores biometric data—involving, especially, facial recognition and fingerprints—so that security at points of entry to Australia, especially at our international airports is enhanced. This is crucial national security work, given that an extraordinary 700,000 people arrive in and depart from Australia every week. Yet another major investment is almost $100 million, announced in the 2016 budget, to enhance, again principally through investment in technology, our visa application processes to provide us with enhanced risk assessment of applicants.

A major and very important challenge in this ongoing and evolving effort to keep the country safe is, of course, to ensure that measures are fair and reasonable in their impact and application on the vast majority of decent, honest, law-abiding people. People who cherish the rule of law and the rights we all enjoy, people who hope to enjoy those rights and freedoms by joining our Australian community or people simply visiting Australia from overseas for legitimate business or pleasure—they all deserve to be treated civilly and fairly by our laws and those who enforce them. This is a finely tuned and seriously considered balancing act, where individual freedoms are respected while at the same time our national security regime is robust, innovative and capable, and as comprehensively alert to all threats as it can be.

Information gathering by our security agencies—from individuals, from industry, from other sectors of government, from foreign agencies, from partners—to ensure mutual national security is obviously a key factor, a central factor, in enabling those agencies to keep us safe. Some of that information is highly sensitive and must be carefully managed. We have to ensure that it is only used or disclosed for legitimate purposes. The danger inherent in the mishandling or the leaking of information with the potential for significant damage to our national security, public safety and law enforcement is obvious. In the act being amended here, the penalty for that sort of breach was two years in prison.

On a more personal level, individuals can obviously suffer serious detriment where personal and sensitive information is inappropriately disclosed. Other information may be less sensitive and more appropriate to disclose in an open, democratic society while at the same time we deal effectively with critical threats. The Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017 clarifies the secrecy and disclosure provisions in the Australian Border Protection Act 2015 with retrospective application to reflect the policy intent of those provisions which was, and is, to prevent the unauthorised disclosure of information that could cause harm to the national or public interest—what is known as 'identifiable harm'. The bill makes clear that the definition of information to be protected includes only certain kinds of information such as that relating to the security, defence and international relations of Australia; the prevention, detection and investigation of offences; the protection of public health and safety; or sensitive personal and commercial matters. This narrowing of the definition with retrospectivity will reassure individuals who may otherwise erroneously believe they have committed an offence.

The bill maintains provisions making it an offence to record or disclose information obtained by a person in their capacity as an entrusted person. That includes people employed by the department either directly or via some form of contracted service. The unauthorised disclosure of information by these people will continue to be punishable by two years imprisonment.

These provisions were originally adapted from the model in place for the former Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, which were reflected in the Customs Administration Act 1985, but that model has not kept pace with developments that have so deeply influenced the increasingly complex and interconnected world we now live in. There was no internet then. Terrorism existed, but on nowhere near the scale that we see today. Freedom of rapid movement around the globe, especially of air travel, was in its relative infancy, given the vast numbers travelling today. There were millions of refugees, but their numbers were nowhere close to those of today, which measure in the tens of millions—managing that flood has been a significant border security issue here and for many other countries and, indeed, whole continents around the world. It was certainly a very different world in 1985.

These provisions are reasonable, necessary and proportionate for providing assurance to the Australian public, to business, to industry and to government partners in Australia and abroad that information provided to Australian authorities will be appropriately handled, to ensure a strong border protection regime. That is in the interest of all Australians and it is also in the interest of the many visitors to our shores. It is for that reason that I am happy to commend the bill to the House.

Mr LAUNDY (Reid—Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) (17:56): I rise to sum up the bill and, in doing so, note and thank members on both sides for their contributions. I acknowledge the shadow minister for immigration and border protection, Mr Neumann, who has joined me at the table, and his contribution to the debate.

The Australian Border Force Act 2015 provides an important regime in administering the secrecy and disclosure of information set out in part 6. The Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017 clarifies part 6 and related provisions to reflect the original intent of the legislation, which was to prevent the unauthorised disclosure of information that could cause harm to the national or public interest. The aim of the measure in this bill is to ensure that immigration and border protection information is provided with the necessary level of protection in a targeted manner but also is able to be disclosed went it is appropriate to do so. This bill provides assurances for the Australian public, business, government and foreign partners that sensitive information provided to the department of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection will be appropriately protected without unnecessarily restricting informed public debate. The retrospective application of the bill, back to the date of the Australian Border Force Act that was enacted in 2015, will provide the necessary certainty that only information which would harm the national public interest if disclosed is to be protected and will be regarded as ever having been protected under the ABF Act.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr LAUNDY (Reid—Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) (17:58): I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and seek leave to move government amendments (1) and (2) together.

Leave granted.

Mr LAUNDY: I move government amendments (1) and (2):

(1) Schedule 1, item 5, page 5 (line 1), omit "The Secretary", substitute "The Minister".

(2) Schedule 1, item 5, page 5 (line 4), omit "the Secretary", substitute "the Minister".

The Australian Border Force Act 2015 provides the regime administering the secrecy and disclosure of information set out in part 6. The Australian Border Force Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2017 updates these secrecy and disclosure provisions. In particular, it proposes to repeal the definition of 'protected information', which currently covers any information obtained in a person's capacity as an entrusted person, and to substitute a new definition of 'immigration and border protection information'. Under the new definition of 'immigration and border protection information', only specific kinds of information would be covered by the secrecy and disclosure regime. It would be an offence to disclosure or make a record of such information, which is punishable by imprisonment for two years, but which may be identified in the future and which may require protection.

Such information may require protection more quickly than an amendment to the Australian Border Force Act 2015 would permit. Therefore, the bill includes a new power that would enable the secretary of the department to prescribe additional kinds of 'immigration and border protection information' by legislative instrument. This would enable a swift response to the need to protect information that is not one of the other kinds of information set out in the new definition.

The bill is currently the subject of an inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. Questions have been raised in submissions to this inquiry and at the public hearing on the bill in relation to the secretary's power to prescribe additional kinds of information. As this has the potential to widen the application of the offence provision concerns have been raised that this power should not be exercised by an unelected public official. To address these concerns, the government proposes to amend this power so that it can only be exercised by the minister, and not the secretary. As the instrument prescribing new kinds of information is a legislative instrument, it will be subject to scrutiny by both houses of parliament and may be subject to disallowance.

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (18:01): We thank the government for this amendment. We think this is a sensible amendment. We do think the minister should be accountable to both houses of parliament. It's not the sort of information which we think a secretary of department or any public servant should be dealing with, no matter how honest, full of integrity and capable they are. This is something an elected person, a minister of the crown, should be dealing with and we thank the government for the amendment.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Mr LAUNDY (Reid—Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) (18:02): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (18:03): Here we have a government, which lectures the Australian people about the need for budget repair. They used to talk about a debt and deficit disaster and a budget emergency. Here we have a government bringing to this house legislation which is the single biggest hit to the budget bottom line we have seen in this term or in the last term. This government is proposing to the House a measure which will materially, significantly and structurally damage the federal budget.

This is the government's corporate tax cut. We know that this is an expensive piece of legislation because we asked about it in parliament earlier this year, and we would have thought the Prime Minister knew how much this measure would cost over the decade, but it took some considerable effort to get it out of the government. Remember 12 months ago when they announced this; they announced a big 10-year corporate tax cut plan but they couldn't tell us the 10 year cost. But 12 months later it was deja vu all over again, because we asked the Prime Minister in question time what was the new 10-year cost, given that we're in a new fiscal year, and in scenes which were reminiscent of a farce, the government engaged in four different figures in the space of just four answers in question time. We had $24 billion, $26 billion, $36 billion and $56 billion. Eventually we got the right answer and the Treasurer replied with $65.4 billion. I did say to the Leader of the Opposition: 'Stop asking the question, because it's getting more expensive every time. The nation can't afford this!' The nation can't afford this hit to the budget bottom line that this government is so intent on producing.

We know that the government's mantra is jobs and growth. They say this is the key part of their economic plan, even though it's being introduced now, some considerable time after it was first announced. In fact, it was introduced in May in this House and is only being debated now. But, of course, they are a one-trick pony. When it comes to economic growth, this is all they've got. Their one shot in the locker is the corporate tax cut. It's what they've got. It's all they've got. It's a one-point plan.

What does that one-point plan deliver? It delivers a one per cent bigger economy in 20 years time—by their own figures, not by my figures, not by analysis or by any other independent commentator. It is a one per cent increase in 20 years time and a $2-a-day increase in wages in 20 years time. At a time when wages growth has flatlined at record lows and in real terms has gone backwards, the government's big idea is a wage increase in 20 years time of $2 a day.

The economic data recently released showed that living standards continued to decline and went backwards in the last quarter. This, again, is the government's big answer to the cocktail of rising costs, electricity prices, stalling wages growth and record underemployment. They say: 'It's okay. We have a plan. It'll work in 20 years time.' We also have a government which is supporting cuts to penalty rates from 1 July this year.

And, of course, this is despite all the lecturing about tax cuts and the Treasurer getting himself in a lather, getting himself very angry every question time, I must say, about Labor's plans on tax. This is a government which is actually proposing in separate legislation to increase the tax burden on every working Australian who earns more than $21,000. So this isn't a government which believes in lower tax; it's a government which believes in different tax. It's a government which believes in lower tax for big business but higher tax for working Australians. There are two pieces of legislation before the House as we speak. The minister at the table says, 'We want lower taxes.' You are trying to increase them. You are trying to increase them on working Australians who earn more than $21,000, and we oppose that.

We actually would support legislation which would see a proper approach to these matters, but we've got the government lecturing people about tax when they are increasing the tax rate on working Australians. Every single Australian who earns more than $21,000 will pay more in tax if this government gets its way. A worker on $55,000 will pay $275 a year. For somebody on $80,000 it's an extra $400. So this is not a government which believes in lower tax; it is a government which believes in different tax.

And of course we need to have a view to the competitiveness of our tax rates. The tax rates are one thing which goes into investment decisions. The United States Congressional Budget Office put out a paper earlier this year stating that the corporate statutory rate is one of the many features of the tax system which influence corporate behaviour and we need to look at the average tax rates. We do have a headline tax rate in Australia of 30 per cent, but the average tax rate for Australia in 2012, which these figures were based on, was 17 per cent, and there was an effective tax rate of 10.4 per cent. Of course, in Australia we have dividend imputation—a great Labor reform—which means that every domestic payer of corporate tax in effect gets it back. We actually refund our corporate tax to our domestic investors, something which is quite unique around the world and often gets lost in this debate. If we are going to compare apples with apples, let's have a proper debate. Let's see our corporate tax rates being compared on a proper basis with our competitors around the world.

The other thing which goes to competitiveness is, of course, consistency of policy and we see very little of it from this government. We see the Treasurer falling over himself trying to make political points and trying to accuse this side of the House of being high taxing when in fact it is them who are increasing taxes on every working Australian earning more than $21,000. They are being opposed by us. The Treasurer is quite obsessed with this. If you do a search of his speeches and his transcripts, Bill Shorten and Labor get mentioned a whole lot more than Liberal, the government or any other government policy. The Treasurer is obsessed with those who sit opposite him—a Treasurer completely devoid of any of his own strategy or policy.

We saw this particularly a few weeks ago with the Treasurer. He thought he was very clever. He added up all the policies that the Labor Party had announced and threw in a few others the Labor Party hadn't announced and said that it amounted to $160 billion worth of tax rises. He told people that the Parliamentary Budget Office had done this work. I thought that was unusual. I would have thought if the Parliamentary Budget Office had done work like this I would be aware of it. I thought that this was a highly unusual course of events. But my mind was put to rest shortly afterwards when the Parliamentary Budget Officer Jenny Wilkinson said:

References in the media this morning to modelling being released today by the Parliamentary Budget Office are incorrect.…The analysis reported in the media this morning was not conducted by the PBO.

The Treasurer had said this was PBO modelling. Government ministers were out there saying it was PBO modelling, and they were caught out. It was not PBO modelling. It just goes to show how desperate this government is to say and do anything when it comes to the economic debate. Labor will continue to lead that economic debate. We will continue to make our announcements which the government can either follow or not follow, and we've seen this consistently.

Again, the government lectures us about tax. Labor took the difficult decision of dealing with tobacco tax in the last term. The government said that this was a tax grab and didn't approve of it at all. Then of course, they adopted it in the budget. We announced our superannuation tax measures. The now Treasurer, who was Minister for Social Services at the time, personally led the campaign against our reform. He said, 'Labor is going to touch your superannuation. Hands off super. This government won't touch your super.' Then of course he became Treasurer and adopted large measures of Labor's policy despite all the rhetoric that he had previously adopted. He didn't do it very competently. He got some of the details wrong, but nevertheless, he did at least realise that something had to give.

Then came the negative gearing and capital gains tax. Again, Labor led this debate and announced a detailed policy. The government thought about a scare campaign which went flat at its first outing, and has not taken off at all. We know, perhaps why that's the case, because later on, we read that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer actually support negative gearing reform but got rolled in the cabinet, so their hearts are not in the scare campaign. Maybe that's why it hasn't worked. And then of course Labor has announced our very important plans to deal with tax minimisation through a minimum 30 per cent tax on discretionary trusts. Again, Labor was leading the debate, doing things which had been in the too-hard basket for 30 years.

Mr Sukkar: Small family businesses.

Mr BOWEN: The minister at the table says small family businesses. Peter Costello tried this and failed. Joe Hockey tried this and failed. Out of all the last Liberal treasurers, the only one who doesn't believe in dealing with family trusts is the incumbent. John Howard dealt with it when he was Treasurer. He had the courage to stand up to vested interests. John Howard had the courage to deal with family trusts. He applied a minimum tax rate to distributions for minors, but he did not apply it to adults. That was the unfinished business that John Howard left when he was Treasurer. I give him credit for at least attempting against the vested interests which were rampant in the Liberal Party at the time. He showed considerable courage in doing that. Then Peter Costello tried to deal with family trusts. In fact, Peter Costello wrote a letter to the Labor Party promising to deal with family trusts as part of the arrangements at that time. He was forced to renege on that agreement by his party room. Then we had Joe Hockey, when he held my role as shadow Treasurer, giving a speech saying that discretionary trusts needed to be dealt with. The policy was junked the next day. All of these Liberal treasurers have recognised that family trusts needed to be dealt with, but they have not had the courage or conviction to follow it through. Again, this is Labor continuing to lead the economic and policy debate.

I mentioned, before, the matter of competence, which is something that leaves the Labor Party plenty to talk about when it comes to the incompetence of this government. In relation specifically to corporate tax and the legislation before the House, we have seen very considerable confusion over recent weeks about the government's approach: which businesses are eligible; the contrasts between active trading businesses; companies holding passive investments. You would have thought that, on the centrepiece of economic policy which was announced in last year's budget, the government could've got the detail right. But here we have, in this case, the minister for revenue playing desperate catch-up, saying: 'Oh, no, you've misunderstood the law. That's not what we mean.' Well, there are plenty of experts out there who will point out that the legislation, in their reading of it, has a different impact from the one that the minister for revenue and the government would assert it has. So it goes to the heart of the competence of the government—let alone their wrong priorities—that they have not been able to get that policy detail right.

When it comes down to it, this is a government with the wrong priorities—a government determined to reduce the tax on businesses, and big businesses in particular, while, at the same time, increasing the tax on working Australians. I've made the point elsewhere that, in technical terms, in detail terms, this is an unfunded corporate tax cut, because it is. There is no funding plan to pay for this. This is what Paul Keating, for example, has pointed out—that this is an unfunded corporate tax cut, quite different from what he did when he was Treasurer, which was to broaden the base, go after loopholes and deal with the inequities in the tax system. He was paying for his policies. This Treasurer has a thought bubble and says: 'Well, we're in political difficulty. We know what we'll do. We will give away $65 billion, completely unfunded.'

But in another sense it is funded, because it's funded by tax increases on working Australians. We know that the tax burden on PAYG taxpayers will increase in coming years, and it will increase partly because this government is increasing the tax rate through the increase in the Medicare levy. This is very different from what the Treasurer told us would be his approach when he took his current office. He said he was passionate about personal income tax cuts.

I saw the member for Reid on Lateline with the member for Chifley a few weeks ago. They are very fine entertainers, the pair of them. The member for Chifley towelled up the member for Reid, in fairness. But I saw the member for Reid say, 'We support lower personal tax'. The trouble is: he's going to vote for higher personal tax when he votes for the increase in the Medicare levy, and he's going to do that to fund the corporate tax cut. There was a small hole in the member for Reid's argument—just a little, small hole: that the lower personal tax that he believes in will not be delivered by increasing tax rates. There is a little tip for the member for Reid. The member for Reid has maybe forgotten that policy, but I don't hold it against him. He can't be blamed for it because he looks to his leadership—he looks to the Treasurer—and he gets very mixed signals from the leadership in the government, because the Treasurer told us he was passionate about personal income tax cuts. He told us that it was something that was a priority for him and that he was going to introduce big, swingeing personal tax cuts. He told us that it was a key goal and that bracket creep was an inflation tax and that he was passionate about dealing with it.

He did deliver a modest degree of personal income tax cuts in his first budget. He announced that, from 1 July 2016, the tax threshold would rise from $80,000 to $87,000, as some tax relief to middle Australia, and the Labor Party supported that. But he has taken it all back—and more—a year later with the Medicare levy increase, which actually raises more than the tax cut that he delivered the year before, but actually applies to different people, because the tax cut that he delivered only applies to people earning more than $80,000, but the tax rise that he wants to deliver applies to all those earning more than $21,000, and that is clearly linked to the legislation which is before us today, which is the $65 billion corporate tax cut, because they have to fund it somehow. The way they're funding it is: an increase in the pressure on PAYG earners, despite what the Treasurer and the government told us would be their approach. Their approach is the complete opposite of what they said that they would do.

We actually want to ensure that the PAYG taxpayer gets a fair go, which is why we've worked so hard to announce policies which are dealing with those tax concessions which aren't available or aren't used primarily by your average PAYG taxpayer. The average PAYG taxpayer—maybe a nurse or a teacher or any number of occupations—can't, for example, start a family trust and distribute the income they've made through the PAYG system to members of their family on a lower tax rate. They can't say to their university-aged child, 'Look, you're under the tax-free threshold; we're going to give you $18,000 so that you don't have to pay any tax on that.' They can't say to their parents, 'You don't pay tax, so therefore we'll distribute some income to you to minimise your tax.' They can't do that. Only people who have access to family trusts can do that. How is it fair that some people can do that and other people can't? The fact of the matter is that we've looked at that and said, 'Well, this is about making the tax system fairer,' but we actually carry through with what we say about the tax system.

The Treasurer makes outlandish claims and sweeping promises that he's going to massively reduce personal income tax and deliver tax cuts and do this and do that, and then he does the exact opposite. What the Labor Party has done is lay out the challenges and problems that we see in the tax system and then deliver detailed policy prescriptions which follow through on that.

Mr Sukkar: And they all result in higher taxes.

Mr BOWEN: The minister at the table is at it again! He can't help himself—'Mr Comprehensive Housing Plan' over here. He has been sitting at the feet of the Treasurer learning from him, hasn't he? He's been doing it too, because he told us there would be a comprehensive, sweeping housing affordability plan in the budget. That's what he told us. The minister said: 'You are going to be blown away! It's going to be so big, it's going to be the biggest housing plan since Chifley.' We were told it was going to be just ginormous. Expectation management isn't your strong point, Sport! You've got to do better at expectations management, because what we saw was a damp squib from the minister at the table—a complete grab-bag of little measures, some of which are counterproductive and others which don't amount to two-fifths of zero when it comes to housing affordability.

We see the government again talking a big game. They are talking a big game, saying: 'We're going to deliver housing affordability. We're going to deliver big personal income tax cuts.'

Mr Sukkar: Name one of your reforms that resulted in lower taxes!

Mr BOWEN: The minister now asks me to name one area where the Labor Party stands for low taxes. We stand for lower taxes on low-income earners, and you stand for higher taxes. You want to increase taxes on every working Australian. That's what this government wants to do. Minister, go out to the Australian people, go out to your electors and explain why you want to increase the taxes on people who earn more than $21,000. That's what you want to do. You stand for higher taxes. The government stands for higher taxes on working Australians. This minister at the table is proud of it. He supports higher taxes on working Australians because he supports an increase in their personal tax rate which this side of the House will oppose and stand against in this chamber and in the other chamber.

We will say that those Australians who are dealing with low wages growth and negative real wages growth, who are dealing with the loss of their penalty rates and who are dealing with electricity prices going through the roof on this government's watch as a direct result of the policy uncertainty that this government is delivering, that what this government is doing is increasing their tax rates. This side of the House will stand against that. This side of the House will stand against their proposals to reduce corporate tax because they are a hit on the budget. They are a hit on the budget which will make budget repair impossible.

This nation and the governments of the day have a choice: you can have budget repair and a return to budget balance or you can have a corporate tax cut, but you cannot have both. This government has chosen corporate tax over budget repair. I say to the government: go out and say so. Fess up! Why don't you just be honest with the Australian people and say you've given up on budget repair? You no longer think it's necessary. You no longer think it's important to return to budget balance. The government thinks: 'Actually, we thought it was important, but now it's no longer important. We actually now think a corporate tax cut is more important.' Fair enough. If that's your argument, make it.

The government won't admit that they can't deliver a balanced budget and they can't deliver budget repair because they are prioritising the corporate tax cut. You simply can't have the situation where you believe in budget repair and you believe in returning the budget to balance, but at the same time you can just give away $65 billion in a corporate tax cut, which is unaffordable and unfunded. And so it is appropriate that the House expresses its view to the government by carrying a second reading amendment. I move:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House declines to give this bill a second reading as:

(1) this significant structural deterioration in the Budget is unaffordable;

(2) the Government has prioritised giving millionaires and big business tax cuts, and raising income taxes on workers earning above $21,000, over saving penalty rates; and

(3) the Government has failed to deliver any economic leadership".

The economic leadership point is an important one, because there is a very important anniversary later in the week. There are a couple, actually. The House will be interested to know—the member for Werriwa I notice is taking a keen interest—there are a couple of milestones for the Prime Minister later in the week. First, he will overtake Tony Abbott's record as Prime Minister. He will have been Prime Minister for longer than Tony Abbott. He's managed to hold on longer, by his fingernails, in the party room.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr BOWEN: That's right: I am making a supposition that he lasts until Thursday, but I think I'm on reasonable grounds. Next week I couldn't be so sure, but I think this week he's going to make it. And then, later in the week, he will have been Prime Minister for two years. Remember he promised two things. The first was to turn around Newspoll. I make no comment on Newspoll; that's for others to judge. He pointed out that there were 30 negative Newspolls and he said he would turn that around, but that's for others to judge. He also promised new economic leadership. Now, the new economic leadership that he is proposing for the Australian people is a tax rise for those who earn more than $21,000, taking away the penalty rates for Australians who commit no crime other than working on a weekend, and increased electricity prices as a result of the policy uncertainty and instability at the heart of this government.

This is a government that commissioned a report by the Chief Scientist. The Chief Scientist has told it that the best way you can put downward pressure on electricity prices is a clean energy target. We on this side of House have said, 'Well, okay, that's not our preferred policy option, but we'll go with it if that puts downward pressure on prices and delivers that policy certainty and stability.' But there is a government here that cannot deliver its own policy. It commissioned a report and now its members are at war with each other about whether it should be adopted or not. Well, this side of the House is here to help. It's extended a hand of bipartisanship, but there's no hand on the other side!

This 'new economic leadership' goes to all the wrong priorities incompetently delivered, and that is not new economic leadership; that is a shame for the Australian people. We have had to put up with these two years of false starts, wrong priorities and a government that told us that they wanted to give income tax powers to the states, for example, and reduce all federal funding from education. That was 'new economic leadership'. They are a government that told us that they'd have an increase in the GST and then they wouldn't have an increase in the GST. They are a government that told us they would have big personal income tax cuts and are increasing tax through the Medicare levy. They are a government that told us they would have a corporate tax cut, which is entirely unfunded and is a massive hit to the budget bottom line over the next decade. They are a government which told us they understood the cost-of-living pressures on the Australian people but are reducing penalty rates for those who work on weekends. And they are a government that, of course, have seen the debt blow out on their watch. They are a government that told us there was a debt and deficit disaster, but they have added more debt onto the national accounts or onto the government's figures than was added under the previous Labor government. In their time in office, in their fifth year in office, they've added more debt than was added under the previous Labor administration.

This is the lack of leadership we see from the government. We see an approach that is fundamentally out of keeping with the priorities that the Australian people so desperately want to see from their government. However, the opposition has taken the opportunity to lead the economic debate and will continue to do so. And, when we contest the next election, we'll seek a mandate to do those big and important things, which this government has so blatantly failed to do.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Husic: It would be my great pleasure. I second the amendment.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member. The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for McMahon has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. 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 LAUNDY (Reid—Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) (18:30): I rise to speak in support of the original motion—that the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017 be now read a second time—and against the amendment that was moved. I think in the last half-hour—a half-hour of my life that I definitely will never get back—you have seen the absolute capitulation of the once great New South Wales Right of the Labor Party. The man that was seen for a long time as the future of that has basically put his hands up in the air and surrendered, rolling over to those in the populist Left of his party in search of votes and, at the same time, walking away from everything that he actually believes and espousing absolute rubbish about the fiscal priorities of this country.

Why do I say that? Because you don't have to look back too far. He said back in 2014—the shadow Treasurer's words, not mine:

… Keating knew that the corporate tax rate needed to be cut to make Australia competitive, that capital and investment would flow to tax-competitive nations and that this was an important job-creation move. Today capital is even more mobile than it was then and it is important that our corporate tax rate is competitive.

You know what? He was right. The significance of what he had to say then and what he's just espoused in this chamber shows you that some politicians are prepared to turn their back on what they believe for their own advancement over that of the general public. This is something we see far too much in modern politics. But it didn't stop there. Again, these are the Shadow Treasurer's words:

… it's a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax, because it promotes investment, creates jobs and drives growth.

He was right then; he's wrong now. He kept going. He kept giving us cannon fodder:

… the United Kingdom, facing a much tougher fiscal situation than Australia's, cut its company tax rate to 23 per cent in April 2013, to be reduced further to 21 per cent in April 2014.

What you see being espoused on a daily basis both in this chamber and in public by those opposite is their latest iteration of a war on business and a war on investment. The two go hand in hand. They do not have one policy that will create one job. They are about politics, not policy. You go through what the shadow Treasurer has to say on negative gearing, a historic reform if you believe the Shadow Treasurer.

Mr Feeney: I do.

Mr LAUNDY: The member for Batman yells out, 'I do.' I'll leave it there, David. I won't bite. I won't say what I should.

What do you say to the people in Perth? I was there last week. In suburbs in outer Perth, prices have decreased between 15 and 25 per cent in the last 12 months, not only on investment properties but on all properties. The shadow Treasurer, the alternative Treasurer of this country, will be, if elected, the Treasurer for every postcode in this country—not just those in Western Sydney and western Melbourne, where there are marginal seats that he wants to win, but in places like suburban Perth, where, if it weren't for the fact that banks in Australia have an Australia-wide loan book, you would have right now a subprime crisis. You have people who have bought into that market in the last five years who have negative equity in their homes. You have record numbers in mortgage stress around the country. Darwin is suffering from the lack of fly-in fly-out workers, with house prices down seven per cent year on year—and the shadow Treasurer thinks negative-gearing changes there would be a good move! You will rip the guts out of the housing market in places that can't afford it. In Perth, you will deadset have tumbleweeds rolling down the street. You have 25 per cent decreases in people's homes. A lot of people find themselves in a situation of negative equity.

With negative-gearing changes in those places, rural Australia included—in Western Sydney and western Perth, we have an issue, yes. However, you have seen on the front page of today's TheAustralian that changes by APRA to the ways banks lend to investment, coupled with clampdowns on foreign investment in this market, have seen declines. Harry Triguboff came out and stated that in New South Wales and south-east Queensland—the Reserve Bank governor adding south-east Queensland last week—you have the lag of supply following demand. But the sad part is that the measures that have been taken in the last 12 to 18 months have now curtailed demand. You will now see that glut hit the market, and that will be an issue for the broader market in its entirety.

But the war on business is not limited to opposing these tax cuts; it is a war on investment across the board, be it capital gains tax—the shadow Treasurer spoke about family trusts. What he completely neglected to point out—and no-one has yet pointed it out in this debate—is that the global financial crisis saw a change in the way businesses in this country employ people. They needed flexibility. You saw two things happen. You saw a casualisation of the workforce and you also saw companies disband their workforce and hire them back as contractors. Guess what the contractors did? They had to set up as businesses themselves to contract back to the companies. So what did they do? They went to see their financial advisers.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mr LAUNDY: The member for Chifley yells out. I am explaining what the workers did. They would then set up their business with, usually, a proprietary limited company sitting out at the front of a family trust. Why? Because you have limited liability in the company and you distribute through the trust. The trust does not actually pay tax; it distribute to the beneficiaries, who pay top-up tax at their appropriate marginal rate. The growth that has occurred in trusts in the last five to seven years has been driven by how the workforce has evolved post GFC. Businesses are still shy. The economy is still soft. Underemployment sits at levels that are of great concern. Attacking business is not the answer; fostering business is the answer. Why? Because when businesses make greater profits—it has happened since Adam was a boy, and not just in Australia but worldwide—they reinvest in their business. What happens when they do that? They grow. What happens when businesses grow? They employ more people. We see it with small and medium-sized businesses all the time. They are interested in reinvesting in their business.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mr LAUNDY: The member for Chifley yells out, 'What about the sacrifices the workers make?' SME operators through that GFC period—I have known many of them since before politics for me—paid their workers first and themselves last.

If they lost their job, they would most likely lose their home. They put their family home on the line every day. What do they do at the back of it? They employ workers. I can tell you this, coming from a family business background, and I have been lucky enough to have met with some success along the way. My family owns a number of assets. However, the most important asset that my family has at its disposal is our amazing workforce, our staff. Why? Because we can't open the doors without them, as all small and family businesses can't. I grew up going to staff weddings, staff christening and staff funerals. Why? Because the staff were part of the family. That's how it happens in small and medium-sized family businesses. That's the reality of what we're talking about here. That's what those opposite, sadly, don't understand, because they've never actually done it.

What we're talking about is fostering entrepreneurial flair, backing people who take risks, backing people who put their homes on the line to start small and medium-sized businesses that grow to be big businesses. The principle doesn't change, irrespective of the size of the business. If you reduce company taxation—and we have a policy that we're talking about today to do that—you will incentivise business to invest.

As the shadow Treasurer said in 2013, in today's highly competitive, mobile-capital world, you need to be competitive internationally. The shadow Treasurer, in his additions or amendments to the bill, spoke about tax cuts also for millionaires. Since when did $180,001 become a millionaire? They selectively choose the number they want, because it makes a nice political slogan. They want the top marginal tax rate in this country to be at 49½c in the dollar. That's not internationally competitive. You will lose people to places like Singapore and all through south-eastern Asia, where the tax rates are far lower and human capital is mobile.

He spoke about penalty rates and the fact that the Fair Work Commission has come up with a decision that we won't stand in the way of. However, last Saturday I worked on council elections—another day of my life I might not get back—and I stopped at a McDonald's on the way there to grab a coffee. As the barista was making the coffee, there was a young boy there sweeping the floor. The barista said to him, 'Are you new?' He said, 'Yes, I started last week.' I looked at him and I said to him, 'What's your name, mate?' He said, 'Shaun.' I said: 'Mate, what shifts do you work? What are you doing? You're at school, obviously.' He said, 'Yes, I am.' He said, 'I work six hours on a Wednesday after school; I work six hours on a Saturday and six hours on a Sunday.' Under the EBA that the SDA union has done with McDonald's—which is starting to come out in the Senate inquiry that is going on into this—Shaun will be short paid. He'll be paid $27 less this week than he would if he was on the award. That's 1,350 bucks a year that the union movement has ripped off a 15-year-old schoolkid. That's the hypocrisy of what we're talking about opposite. The SDA union, which has given $10 million—

Mr Husic: Come on, Craig! Lay the blame at McDonald's.

Mr LAUNDY: And I'm blaming McDonald's. Big business and big unions have combined together through the EBA process. It does not pass the BOOT test—your own test, Member for Chifley. Under the BOOT test, every person—

Mr Husic: It didn't fail the BOOT test?

Mr LAUNDY: I'll tell you how it doesn't pass the BOOT test.

An honourable member interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Order! The member for Reid has the call.

Mr LAUNDY: The Coles 2014 EBA was struck out by Fair Work. It reverts then to 2011—that's the way the system works. It was struck out because it didn't fail the BOOT test.

An honourable member: It didn't fail?

Mr LAUNDY: Sorry, it failed the BOOT test. Under the BOOT test—Labor's test, not ours—every worker must be better off.

Mr Husic: Better off overall.

Mr LAUNDY: Better off overall. Fifty-six per cent of the workers, according to an Ernst & Young report, were worse off under the Coles EBA. The union official that signed the stat dec and lodged it as passing the EBA is on record in the Fair Work inquiry as signing it knowing that it was wrong. The process—

Mr Husic: You just said McDonald's.

Mr LAUNDY: No, I've gone to Coles to show you it's not just unique to McDonald's. It's Coles. It's Woolworths. It's McDonald's. It's KFC. It is big business combining with big unions, at the expense of low-income earners, to have a superior wage outcome for their own business. The kickbacks that happen for the SDA union are then funnelled back into the Labor Party, amounting to $10 million over the last seven years. This is the hypocrisy, this is the popularity, of those opposite.

The story here is simple. This is the latest in Labor's attacks on business. If you attack business and investment you are ultimately attacking its employees. The question for Australians between now and the next election is: if you are employed, particularly by an SME, in this country and your boss is attacked or doesn't get these cuts or they don't flow through, what might ultimately be at risk in order to cut costs moving forward? Your job. That's what might ultimately be at risk. That should never be the case. You should never attack business, because businesses employ people. The shadow Treasurer understood it in 2013. Sadly, he has put his hands up and capitulated—as have others on the shadow front bench. It's sad, because it goes against everything economic he has written. The original bill should be supported.