The SPEAKER (09:31): I present report No. 27 of the Selection Committee relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday, 13 August 2018. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today, and the committee's determinations will appear on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed at the table.

The report read as follows—

Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business

1. The committee met in private session on Tuesday, 26 June 2018.

2. The Committee deliberated on items of committee and delegation business that had been notified, private Members' business items listed on the Notice Paper and notices lodged on Tuesday, 26 June 2018, and determined the order of precedence and times on Monday, 13 August 2018, as follows:

Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices

1 MR KATTER: To present a Bill for an Act to improve accountability in relation to the Inland Rail project, and for related purposes. (Inland Rail Project (Improving Accountability) Bill 2018)

   (Notice given 25 June 2018.)

Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.

Orders of the day

1 Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018 ( Mr Shorten ): Second reading—Resumption of debate ( from 25 June 2018 ).:

Time allotted—50 minutes.

Speech time limits—

All Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Notices—continued

2 MR VASTA: To move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the fantastic contribution that volunteers make to the community of Bonner, and to Australia in general;

(2) notes there are 8.7 million volunteers around Australia in organisations like sports clubs, charities and schools;

(3) congratulates the Government for allocating $20 million in funding to support volunteering; and

(4) notes that volunteering efforts make an estimated annual economic and social contribution of $290 billion.

   (Notice given 26 June 2018.)

Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 12 noon

Speech time limits—

Mr Vasta—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Items for Federation Chamber (11 am to 1.30 pm)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices

1 MR HILL: To move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges:

(a) the Prime Minister's persistent failure to resolve the ever growing gas crisis in Australia;

(b) that this gas crisis is hurting Australian households and threatening manufacturing jobs all over the nation, especially in Victoria, NSW and Queensland;

(c) that manufacturing companies around the nation have experienced:

(i) between a tripling and quadrupling of the price they pay for Australian gas; and

(ii) upwards of a 200 per cent increase in the price they pay for electricity;

(d) that cost increases are seriously impacting on the ability of manufacturing companies to continue operations; and

(e) that manufacturing companies around the nation are still unable to secure affordable gas supply contracts despite the Prime Minister's handshake agreement with the gas companies in September 2017;

(2) condemns the Prime Minister for failing to pull the export control trigger by November 2017 to ensure that Australian households and manufacturers are not being charged exorbitant prices for Australian gas;

(3) recognises that the responsibility for every job lost in the manufacturing industry due to the skyrocketing price of Australian gas falls squarely with the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Energy; and

(4) calls on the Government to act decisively now and find a solution to the gas crisis which is threatening jobs in the electoral division of Bruce and countless others around the nation.

   (Notice given 26 February 2018.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Hill—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

2 MR WALLACE: To move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that mental health is a crucial area that needs attention;

(2) notes that the Government has made mental health a priority and is a key pillar of the National Long Term Health Plan with a record investment of $4.3 billion;

(3) further notes that Australians with severe mental health illness will now receive more support services in their communities following an agreement between the Australian and state governments; and

(4) congratulates the Government for investing $160 million in the new national psychosocial support measure.

   (Notice given 26 June 2018.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Wallace—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

3 MS MCGOWAN: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Government last year released draft legislation concerning pay day lending which would have capped the maximum amount a consumer could repay on a small loan of less than $2,000 at 10 per cent of their net income;

(b) the draft legislation also called for pay day lenders to be barred from making continued offers of credit to vulnerable borrowers;

(c) there is no legislation before Parliament despite the Government in late 2016 flagging new laws to protect consumers and releasing draft legislation;

(d) people continue to get into financial difficulty because of high-interest contracts;

(e) the 2016 Review of the Small Amount Credit Contract laws found payday loans were being inappropriately handed to low-income and vulnerable Australians—the high-interest, high-fee cash advances continue to trap people in cycles of debt; and

(f) Good Shepherd, St Stephens and other consumer advocates are concerned about the impact of the delay in presenting this legislation to the Parliament; and

(2) calls on the Government to bring the draft legislation before the Parliament as soon as possible in order to give consumer advocates an assurance that legislative change will be considered to address the increasing number of vulnerable borrowers impacted by these lending practices.

   (Notice given 26 June 2018.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Ms McGowan—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

4 MR MORTON: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) funding is available in the 2018-19 federal budget for the Australian Government's contribution to the construction of the Roe 8 and 9 extensions to complete the Perth Freight Link (PFL), despite the decision of the Western Australian Government to not proceed with the project; and

(b) the Australian Government will provide $1.2 billion to the first Western Australian Government willing to build the PFL by constructing the Roe 8 and 9 extensions and is therefore recording this commitment as a contingent liability in the federal budget;

(2) acknowledges the real benefits of these projects including 15 sets of traffic lights bypassed, 7,000 trucks and 74,000 cars off local roads each day, freeway access and travel time savings and a reduction of 450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions;

(3) welcomes strong community support for Roe 8 and 9;

(4) condemns the Western Australian Government for not accessing the federal funding and building this critical infrastructure that will improve freight efficiency, make local roads safer and create local jobs in Western Australia;

(5) calls on the Western Australian Government to:

(a) consider all options that allow Roe 8 and 9 to proceed, like a longer bridge over the wetlands or a longer tunnel; and

(b) immediately access the $1.2 billion available in the federal budget and build this critical infrastructure; and

(6) calls on the federal Opposition to explain if it will keep or remove this critical funding from the federal budget if elected.

   (Notice given 26 June 2018.)

Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 1.30 pm

Speech time limits—

Mr Morton—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Orders of the day

1   Live Sheep Long Haul Export Prohibition Bill 2018 (Ms Ley): Second reading—Resumption of debate (from26June2018).

Time allotted—15 minutes.

Speech time limits—

All Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 3 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Notices—continued

5 MRS MARINO: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) 1,000,000 jobs have been created since the election of the Government in 2013; and

(b) the creation of jobs can only occur when the Government sets the right economic framework;

(2) congratulates the Government on its strong economic management and its plans to reduce the tax burden on individuals and business; and

(3) acknowledges that the Opposition Leader's policies of higher taxation on individuals, businesses, retirees and pensioners would severely jeopardise further job creation in Australia.

   (Notice given 29 May 2018.)

Time allotted—50 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mrs Marino—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Orders of the day—continued

2 Home care packages: Resumption of debate (from 18 June 2018) on the motion of Mr Hart—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) there are almost 300 older Australians who have waited more than two years for their approved home care package, without any care;

(b) a further 636 older Australians have waited more than a year for care and they currently have no care at all and there are thousands more getting less care than they need;

(c) the latest waiting list for home care packages indicates that more than 100,000 older Australians are waiting for the package they have been approved for; and

(d) the latest figures show that the waiting list grew by more than 20,000 between 1 July and December 2017 and it is likely to continue growing without funding for the release of more packages;

(2) recognises the Government's response in its budget of 14,000 home care packages is woefully inadequate;

(3) condemns the Government for the aged care crisis it has made on its watch; and

(4) calls on the Government to immediately invest in fixing the home care package waiting list and properly address this growing crisis.

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

All Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

3 Great Barrier Reef: Resumption of debate (from 18 June 2018) on the motion of Ms M. L. Landry—That this House:

(1) notes that the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef is the planet's greatest living wonder;

(2) further notes that it supports 64,000 jobs and contributes an estimated $6.4 billion to our economy; and

(3) welcomes the Government's record $500 million boost for Reef protection which will:

(a) invest in a $444 million partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation;

(b) spark new and innovative investment in Reef protection measures;

(c) deliver on projects which are proven to boost the health of the Reef;

(d) improve water quality;

(e) tackle the crown-of-thorns starfish; and

(f) work with traditional owners on this vital project.

Time allotted—20 minutes.

Speech time limits—

All Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

4 Universities funding: Resumption of debate (from 26 February 2018) on the motion of Ms T. M. Butler—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Government's short-sighted $2.2 billion in cuts to universities are equivalent to more than 9,500 Australians missing out on a university place in 2018, and again in 2019;

(b) across the country this month, students will be attending university, with orientation periods beginning, and that these students are faced with more uncertainty about how the cuts will affect their student experience; and

(c) the Government's short-sighted cuts will hurt regional and outer metropolitan universities and their students the most; and

(2) calls on the Government to reverse its short-sighted, unfair cuts to universities, which are closing the door of opportunity to thousands of Australians.

Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 7.30 pm

Speech time limits—

All Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

The SPEAKER (09:31): I have received a message from the Senate informing the House that Senator Whish-Wilson has been discharged from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and that Senator Rhiannon has been appointed a member of that committee.

Mr TAYLOR (Hume—Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security) (09:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2018 contains a number of amendments to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to assist Australian businesses and consumers and further enhance the operation of the act.

Firstly, the bill will make amendments consistent with Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2018, providing a 'free' rate of duty for imports of Indonesian insecticides and herbicides under the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. This proposal implements an early outcome of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that commenced on 20 September 2017 as announced by my colleague, the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Hon Steven Ciobo. This early outcome benefits Australian businesses and farmers by reducing their costs and improving access to the Indonesian market for Australian sugar exporters. It both reduces the cost of insecticides and pesticides for Australia's farmers, adding important margin to their businesses, enabling them to make further investments in their farms, in their businesses, but at the same giving greater access for Australian sugar producers into the Indonesian market, a large and fast-growing market for sugar.

Secondly, the bill will make amendments consistent with Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2) 2018, which will remove the duty payable on eligible blinded clinical trial kits and placebos imported for use in clinical trials. This measure was announced in the 2018-19 budget and complements the government's efforts on making Australia an attractive destination for international clinical trials. The measure makes the importation of these goods into Australia cheaper through the removal of customs duty while also simplifying the import process and reducing red tape.

Finally, the bill will make a technical amendment to schedule 12 which covers the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. This amendment removes a redundant item from the schedule, realigning it with the other schedules to the Customs Tariff Act.

In combination, this bill provides further support for the government's strong focus on reducing red tape, finding access to new markets and reducing costs for Australian businesses in everything they do. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

The SPEAKER (09:35): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Hunter has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Mr GEE (Calare) (09:36): As I said in my address to the House on the Farm Household Support Amendment Bill 2018 last night, there is not a local government area in the Calare electorate that is not being affected by drought, from Lithgow to Blayney and through to the Wellington area. There is immense stress and immense pain amongst the farming communities. That's why I was so pleased to see the extension of the farm household allowance, because it delivers real help on the ground, where people need it.

I was also pleased to see that the Regional Investment Corporation is moving ahead. Last week we had board members, including the chair and acting CEO, visit Orange to help launch the Regional Investment Corporation and to source office premises in Orange. This is important because one of the key functions of the Regional Investment Corporation is to deliver concessional loans for drought-affected farmers. It's a really important facility for country Australia. It's also going to deliver $2 billion in water infrastructure finance and loans. It is basically an organisation with $4 billion in its loan books, but it exists to help country communities, to assist farmers when they need it most and to build stronger country communities.

It has, therefore, been very surprising to experience the negative attitudes from the member for Hunter over the development of the Regional Investment Corporation, because folks out in country Australia get decentralisation and its importance. We've had some big hits on our local areas right across the central west in terms of jobs in recent years, including the closure of Electrolux, Australia's last fridge manufacturing plant, which took more 550 jobs. So people are dumbfounded, I think, in country areas when you have politicians coming out and saying we shouldn't have decentralisation. In fact, out in our neck of the woods, the member for Hunter is known as the shadow minister for recentralisation. He comes out and says that the Regional Investment Corporation will be torn apart if the opposition get in. It's going to be very interesting to see how the opposition campaigns on taking jobs away from the central west during the next election. I'm going to watch that development with great interest because that's essentially what they're saying.

It totally ignores the fact that the whole reason the Regional Investment Corporation exists is to help farmers through concessional loans. To date, there have been $834 million in concessional loans approved. This is making a real difference on the ground to farmers. That's why the RIC, as it's known to its many friends, is so important to keep that work going and to expand that good work.

I give immense credit to the member for New England for his work in putting the RIC together, and also to the minister for agriculture, who has been very supportive of the RIC's development as well. It's part of a suite of drought-relief policies that the federal government has implemented, including the Farm Management Deposits Scheme, which allows eligible primary producers to set aside pre-tax income from primary production in years of high income which can be drawn on in future years. Under that scheme, they can deposit up to $800,000. They can access their FMD early without losing their claimed taxation concessions if they are affected by drought, and they can offset the interest costs on primary production business debt, subject to banks offering FMD loan offset accounts. So there are a suite of measures available at the moment, but I think it's really important that the Australian government looks at the situation on the ground and ramps up the response as the conditions worsen.

The Aussie farmer is one of the iconic images of our nation. Farmers have been a powerhouse of economic growth in recent years, but we can't take them for granted. Australian farmers are resilient, but I think there's also a feeling that Aussie farmers will always be there. Well, that's not necessarily the case. They're humans and they are suffering immense stress at the moment—about how they're going to feed their stock, where their stock are going to go, what's going to happen to their farms, how they're going to get fodder in, whether they're going to have any breeding stock left and whether they're going to be able to rebuild their paddocks. As I said, some paddocks in the central west at the moment resemble moonscapes. How are they going to be able to rebuild the dams? How are they going to rebuild the genetics in their herds? All of these issues are causing immense strain and stress and are taking a toll. It has to be said: it's taking an immense toll.

They need our help, and we as a nation need to answer that call. This bill does answer that call, but the conditions are so bad and the outlook is so grim that more will be needed. Unless some decent rains come soon, more help is going to be needed. We are going to have to keep ramping up the support and the assistance as the conditions worsen. I urge all Australians, particularly those in cities, to support our farmers and to remember that our farmers are the ones who actually put food on the table for the nation. People in cities, I think, go into the supermarket and take for granted that that food just appears. But it doesn't just appear; that food comes from our Australian farmers in electorates across our nation. They are our fellow Australians and we can't take them for granted.

I commend this bill to the House. I congratulate the minister for agriculture on his work. I thank him for visiting the central west in recent times and hearing firsthand about how the drought is affecting farmers in our area. I also am very happy with the work that's been put into the Regional Investment Corporation. But, again, as the conditions worsen, the response has to be ramped up. Our Australian farmers have helped power our national economy in recent times. We have relied on them for our nation's wealth and prosperity, and now we as a nation need to be there for them. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr JOYCE (New England) (09:44): I'd like to continue on with the comments from the member for Calare and just note how the economics of our nation work. Mr Speaker, I look across the chamber and see that you're a strikingly good-looking man. I was looking at the tie that you got on there, and I bet you that tie is not made in Australia. Neither is your suit. Neither is your shirt. I don't know about your shoes—probably not. The car you drove—

The SPEAKER: They're RM Williams.

Mr JOYCE: RM Williams—owned by a French company but made in Australia, no doubt about that. I bet the car you drive, Mr Speaker, is from overseas. Certainly the fuel inside it is from overseas . I imagine you've got a phone in your pocket there.

The SPEAKER: No.

Mr JOYCE: You haven't? Well, if you did, it wouldn't have been made in Australia. There are two screens in front of you. Neither of them are from Australia. If I went into your house, Mr Speaker, I bet you cook on a Bosch stove because you like that German style of engineering. And no doubt the television you watch would probably be a Samsung—no, you'd be above a Samsung. You'd have a Japanese television, I imagine—something pretty flash!

Everything in your life, Mr Speaker, has basically come in on a boat from overseas. And the only reason it comes in on a boat from overseas is that somebody somewhere must be sending something in the other direction. And guess who those people are. It's all those terrible live cattle producers, terrible beef producers, shocking live sheep producers, all those wool producers and those terrible people in the irrigation industry. All are earning export dollars for our nation. What about those terrible miners, terrible coalminers out there earning a dollar for our nation? All are earning export dollars so we can have the expectation of the standard of living which is so present and so manifest in everything we do at the moment and in how we live.

We have to support these people. It's not just a form of charity. We've got to support these people to support ourselves. We have to support people through drought because they live with the vagaries of the climate. They live with the vagaries of the climate in such a form that they make money if it rains. If the season goes with them, if luck goes with them, they can make the export dollars to support our standard of living. When a drought happens, it quite obviously is a disaster not only for them but for the whole economy. The agricultural economy was the fastest-growing sector in recent times in our nation. I'm happy with the work this government has done, now and when I was the minister, to make sure that came about.

We are always going to have to manage droughts, but to manage droughts we must make sure that there is dignity maintained in the household so that, if hard times come, they can pay their chemist bill, they can pay their grocery bill and they can pay for their fuel. That is why we needed the farm household allowance. When we started, when we came to government, 367 people had got it off Labor. Now it's getting close to 8,000 people because we changed the criteria so that we could keep that dignity in the house, keep that dignity at the kitchen table. The lady of the house or the fellow or lady if they are by themselves know that there is at least some money coming in so they could pay some of those bills. Otherwise, they had nothing. It is not like they had social security in the cities if they lost their job; these people had nothing. They literally had to go without all. That is not respecting the dignity of the people on the land.

Now, with this further extension, I want to commend the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. The extension for a further year means we've got four years. This is vitally important because a lot of people are coming to the end of the three-year period and were going to run out. They were going to be left in an invidious position, because they would have nothing. On top of that, we're heading towards a billion dollars worth of concessional loans. I think it's about $850 million worth of concessional loans. I might remind the House that, when we came to government, the Labor Party had knocked eight concessional loans out the door.

We're making sure we maintain that. We set up the Regional Investment Corporation so we would have an ongoing institution to properly manage this and to have a capacity to increase its mandate to look after the people on the land because they're looking after us. Just like the coalminers, the bauxite miners and the iron ore miners, so are the sorghum producers, the wheat producers, the beef producers, the sheep producers and the wool producers—they are looking after us, so we must look after them.

It's disappointing every time I listen to the Labor Party—they're supposed to have a strong social conscience, which is one of the vestiges of the Labor Party—because all they talk about is tearing these things down. They're going to dismantle the Regional Investment Corporation. I've never heard what they're going to put in its place—not once. They want to move APVMA from Armidale back down to Canberra. Why? Because they don't believe in decentralisation. They don't have a vision for regional Australia. They have no money on the table for the inland rail. They have none. We listened to their story. There is no money on the table for inland rail from the Labor Party. They have no vision for a greater regional Australia—none. We believe that we have to stand behind the dignity of these people and to drive their economies forward.

What we've expended on the Farm Household Allowance so far is approaching a quarter of a billion dollars—$230 million. I commended the New South Wales state government the other day for their $50,000 seven-year interest-free loan. I had a look at some of the conditions on it. I think it's going to be a tough one to get your hands on.

I say once more that when the state asks, 'What have we done?' We've got close to a quarter of a billion dollars now that we've paid out in the Farm Household Allowance. The New South Wales government has to put their hand in their pockets for freight subsidies. They must do that. That's their role. That's their job. I commend them for what they announced the other day with the Malpas pipeline at Armidale. It's about $12½ million. Good luck to them. Well done. We were fighting for it as well, but you've paid for it. Well done. It is very important during the drought to get pipelines in.

But most important now, during this drought what people are asking for, what farmers are asking for, are freight subsidies for fodder, for the movement of cattle, for the movement of sheep and for the movement of water. I had to bring in fodder myself the other day—I've got a couple of blocks—and it came from Gatton in Queensland. It cost thousands and thousands of dollars to move fodder. You've just got to do it. Buying cotton seed is important, as is trying to keep the basis of the herd together. God willing, a few showers are going over at the moment, but even if they go over and even if it rains it's the middle of winter, so you're not going to get a lot of fodder growth out of that. You'll start to get some subsoil moisture. Around about August you'll start to get some growth. Then, of course, you've got to wait for the place to pasture back up again so that you can start improving conditions for cattle.

If you sell your cows now you're going to get nothing for them. No-one wants old cows in drought as that's not how you make money. You've got to be able to get your hands on the money to support those stock, to support your herd, to get to the other end of the drought, so you can get a cash flow up and running again.

This is all part and parcel of what a caring government does. What we need is as we have articulated—a clear vision on this side of the House with 100 per cent write-off on water reticulation and 100 per cent write-off on fencing, and write-off over three years for fodder storage for your silos and for your hay sheds.

We took farm management deposits from $400,000 to $800,000. I was trying for a million. I got $800,000. We passed the legislation that you could have a write-off against the money you owe the bank. If you owe the bank $1 million and you have $800,000 in farm management deposits, the bank should just charge you interest on the $200,000 difference. We've done that.

There is a banking royal commission on at the moment and the banks are saying they're doing a fair job and there's nothing to see here. They've got a few problems but they're trying to defend their position. But I'll put something to you: the banks should immediately, all of them—not just the rural banks—should now be processing the capacity, so that if you have a farm management deposit and you have money owed to the bank, these things can be netted out and you only pay the interest bill on the difference. That's what's supposed to happen. I'll tell you what they're doing. It can work like this: the bank says, 'Okay, you've got $800,000 in farm management deposits to help you through a drought. We'll give you three per cent on that. Then we're going to lend you the money you need, the million dollars you need, at seven per cent or eight per cent with an overdraft, so you'll probably have a four per cent differential.' A four per cent differential on $800,000—four eights are 32—means they're touching for $32,000 a year. I don't know whether anybody said anything up at the royal commission about that, but they should. This is something that should be happening right now to show their support during the drought.

What we've clearly showed is we support people during the drought not because it's charity but because it's an economic necessity. It's an economic necessity that we continue to maintain our export dollars if we want to maintain our standard of living that is so apparent in everything we do in our lives. The people in towns are usually pretty good. It is the people in the cities who have to understand. They have to look into their lives and say, 'How much of my life was actually produced in this nation? My shoes, my shirt, my socks, my car, my phone—most of it's produced overseas.' We have to support the people who put things on the boat and send it in the other direction. That is one of the reasons why we have to support people through drought: they are one of the key people who do it.

The other thing is if you allow the collapse of farming families during a drought—because they're the people most likely to be hurt—then you'll slowly, piece by piece, get a greater progression of the corporatisation of the Australian landscape. I don't want that. I want to make sure that we have Australian mums and dads as the predominant owners of the Australian asset, just like how we have Australian mums and dads as the predominant owner of the house in the suburb. As I've said before, I don't know what economic theorem it complies with—probably none—but what it does comply with is our sense of patriotism and national purpose. For that to happen, we must support them when things are tough. We must support them at times of drought.

People on the land do not live with a widget factory. They do not have a predictable income stream. They live on one of the most vague income streams you can imagine. People on the land are so often driven to this not so much by economic principles but by an almost religious passion to be on the land, to earn their living from the land. We show our compassion to them at this point in time because, if you look deeply into exactly what they do, they do this: they live in one of the noblest of pursuits. Their job is to feed and clothe people. They don't exploit them through their weaknesses. They don't exploit them through addictions. They don't conjure up ways to swindle money out of people's pockets with things they don't need. They deliver back to humanity food and clothes. People who make it their lifetime pursuit to feed and clothe people are people who are the most deserving of our support in times of drought.

Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) (09:58): Can I firstly acknowledge the member for New England, my predecessor as the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. In fact, a lot of the environment that we've put around the agriculture sector with respect to drought policy comes from his leadership. The Agricultural competitiveness white paper also built that resilience and environment around our agriculture sector. It was ahead of its time. This parliament and this nation owe a lot of gratitude to member for New England.

This government, since coming into power, has invested over a billion dollars around drought assistance not only for farmers but also for small communities. It's not just the farmers that hurt during drought; it's the small businesses that support those farmers, those small communities. It's important that we acknowledge that and ensure that our policy settings not only support the resilience of our farming sector but also go to supporting those small regional communities. We've done that through a number of ways.

One is that we're about to pass some legislation to extend the farm household allowance to give dignity to those farmers who are doing it tough so that they will be able to put bread and butter on the table and put fuel in the car to take the kids to sport on the weekend. But we've also been able to ensure we have a concessional loan piece that now we'll be able to put through the Regional Investment Corporation. There is also the Drought Communities Program, which is putting $35 million into small regional communities to allow them to build projects that'll use local contractors. In any electorate of Maranoa I can assure you there are little communities like Quilpie and Cunnamulla that have been able to do new projects, such as for their racecourse, using local contractors and keeping them busy. The farm household allowance, that $538.80 a fortnight, also goes into the local supermarket, keeping employment in those communities alive and well during the tough times.

We have also made sure that we have made an investment in controlling pests and weeds. In my own electorate in Queensland, we've put $13 million into wild-dog fencing. It has lifted the lambing rates from around seven per cent to 85 per cent. What that does is build resilience so that, when it does rain, our primary producers are able to take advantage of the commodity prices that are there because of the trade agreements we put in place. It also allows them to recover. We have also seen the environmental benefits of this dog fencing. We're seeing a large increase in small marsupials, brolgas and even koalas coming back because of the investment that we have made in partnership with the primary producer to ensure that we build resilience to get them through the drought and prepare them for the next drought but ensure that they take advantage of the great commodity prices that we've put in place. Our drought investment in regional communities and in farmers is not just about keeping them alive and going through a drought. It's going beyond that. It's looking towards building that resilience so that when it does rain they can take advantage and when they go through the next drought they're not as reliant on the Commonwealth. That is an important piece that we've put together. It's a strategic piece. The member for New England was at the fore of that and needs to be acknowledged for all his work on that.

There were some comments made in the speech by the member for Hunter when moving his amendments around particularly the intergovernmental agreement on drought with the states. Sadly, again, he was trying to score cheap political points without understanding the facts. It will not end on 1 July. In fact, AGMIN agreed that it will continue on. It will be finalised by September. But instead of mentioning that, the member for Hunter made a cheap political point, politicalising drought and hardship. It would be good if the member for Hunter got out of Newcastle and came and sat, as the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and I have done, at farmers' kitchen tables. He hasn't sat at a farmer's kitchen table in the last 12 months—I would put money on that—to listen to the reality and listen to the stories to be able to understand the policy settings that we are putting in place. That's what we as a government do. That's what the Prime Minister did.

I challenge the Leader of the Opposition. Not one brass razoo did he commit to agriculture in his budget reply speech.

Mr Tehan: Did he mention it?

Mr LITTLEPROUD: Only in passing did he mention it. He's made two significant national addresses. One was to the National Press Club. Not once did he use the word 'agriculture'. The Leader of the Opposition didn't even utter the word 'agriculture'. He wouldn't use the 'a' word. In passing, he talked about it, but he didn't commit even one extra dollar under an alternative government to agriculture. That's an indictment of those opposite. They don't understand agriculture and they don't care about agriculture.

We are making sure that we are making those strategic investments. Those opposite come in here and talk about the Regional Investment Corporation and say it doesn't have a CEO and hasn't been set up. Well, the only reason the Regional Investment Corporation didn't come into effect was because of the sabotage of the Labor Party in not allowing it to get through the Senate. I blew their world away with my first parliamentary win in my first parliamentary week as the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. I was able to convince—

Mr Husic: Oh, talk yourself up!

Mr LITTLEPROUD: Yes, it rocked your world. I was able to get the crossbenchers to change their minds and allow the Regional Investment Corporation to get through. That had Senator Wong and the member for Hunter scrambling all over the place, wondering who on the crossbench had changed their mind. We got it through. It's ready to start giving concessional loans. It's ready to roll on 1 July. Again we see the politicisation of trying to stop a piece of infrastructure—an investment in drought concessional loans. They're politicising drought and the hardship of these people. We are better than that. The member for Hunter is better than that—he is. He genuinely gets it. Unfortunately, he's decided to score cheap political points rather than come on the journey of trying to make a difference in those people's lives. In regional and rural Australia they're doing it tough at the moment. There's a way forward, and this parliament can find that. I know the member for Hunter can do that. The reality is that we are putting that framework in place.

The piece that I'm most excited about with what we are doing for farm household assistance is that we're not just handing out money every fortnight; we're allocating a case worker to each one of these people. So it's not just a handout—they'll sit down with them. We've invested an extra $20 million in rural financial counsellors: that's going to secure their services to 2020, and around $3½ million of that will go to increased services for demand. So we'll have someone that's going to sit around the kitchen table with people, get under the bonnet of their business and have the tough conversations. We've got to be honest. Some people are going to have to make some tough decisions about what their future is, but that needs to be done in a calm and decisive way. They need time, and by extending the farm household assistance by a year, we give them that time and we let them have those conversations with dignity and respect. They'll have those conversations with the experts. They'll sit down and have the conversation about whether they should continue or not. This is about making sure the right decisions are made with the right mindset.

While we were out in western Queensland and western New South Wales, we also made an additional commitment of $2 million towards online psychological services. People in drought-affected areas are fatigued and hurting, particularly in parts of my electorate that have been drought-affected for up to seven years. They need some help and they need the help in an emotional sense. Being able to reach out, and having the ability to do it from the privacy of their own home, is important to them. It's important that we all agree—I know those opposite join me—that the stigma of mental health should never be such that someone would never ask for help. We live in a great country. This investment is about allowing people to reach out. I ask everybody, whether you're okay or not, to reach out to someone near you and ask whether they are okay. I have seen firsthand the emotional torment that some people are going through after seven years without an income—seven years without seeing what their blood, sweat and toil could become. It's heartbreaking.

It's important that we make those investments, not only in a financial sense but in an emotional sense. That's why what this government has done with respect to farm household assistance and other drought assistance packages is to make sure it's a whole measure—around emotional and financial support, and making sure we're investing in the resilience of regional and rural Australia and of our farmers. I'm proud to say that the farm household assistance will give our farmers that dignity, and the opportunity to reflect and to be able to work through the issues they need to work through to ensure they can make the right decisions for themselves, their families and their communities. I commend the bill to the House.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) (10:10): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (10:10): Australia's Copyright Act originally dates right back to 1968. It was developed before man set foot on the moon, it was developed during the Vietnam War, it was developed during the Cold War, it was developed before the election of the great Gough Whitlam, it was developed before colour television, before digital, before the internet and before feminism. So, given that it's 50 years old, amendments to it to ensure that it keeps up to date with developments of the 21st century are welcome—amendments, of course, that are developed in close consultation with the stakeholders that are affected, that are inclusive and that respond to the needs of stakeholders.

This bill extends the operation of the safe-harbour scheme set out in the Copyright Act 1968 to a broader range of service providers. The existing safe-harbour scheme protects carriage service providers, in particular internet service providers such as Telstra and Optus, from the civil liability they could otherwise be exposed to for hosting or communicating material that infringes copyright. To be able to rely on a legal safe harbour created by the Copyright Act, the carriage service provider needs to demonstrate that they operate a scheme for removing copyright-infringing material if they are notified of such material by a rights holder.

The bill has broad support across many stakeholder groups and it's consistent with Labor's longstanding position on the issue, as communicated to those stakeholders when we had consultations with them. It's generally supported by rights holders and their peak groups also, because it provides a social good without undermining the commercial interests of content creators or their capacity to negotiate effectively with commercial enterprises for the distribution of their copyright materials. As mentioned, there's been extensive consultation on this bill. There's been consultation through a Senate inquiry, through a series of round tables that were conducted by the Department of Communications and the Arts, and through a range of consultation papers on the issue.

The point of what we are discussing today is the fact that we need to ensure that our legislation keeps up to date with the latest developments—that it keeps up to date with the 21st century. That's particularly the case with regard to copyright. One of my concerns—and I've expressed it many, many times in this parliament and elsewhere at conferences—is that I do not believe the government's work on critical infrastructure, particularly the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, is keeping up to date with the latest developments. When you look at what's happening overseas, particularly in the US, with the protection and cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, it becomes incredibly stark that the government is not serious about protecting our critical infrastructure. The government really does need to lift its game when it comes to critical infrastructure and the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure in this country.

Australia has eight sectors that are deemed critical infrastructure—that is, eight sectors that are vitally important to Australia's social cohesion, its economic prosperity and its public safety. These are banking and finance, communication, energy, food and grocery, health, transport, water services, and Commonwealth government. If you compare that with what's happening overseas, we are very, very underdone in this area. In the United States, they've identified 16 sectors that are vital to their social cohesion, economic prosperity and public safety. In the United Kingdom, they've identified 13 sectors. In Canada, they've identified 10 sectors. In Singapore, they've identified 11 sectors. The sectors recognised by these nations but not currently included in the framework that governs our critical infrastructure include emergency services, information technology infrastructure, chemicals, manufacturing and, in the case of the US, electoral systems. Again, I've been pressing the government to start seriously thinking about including electoral systems in our critical infrastructure framework. We've seen what's happened overseas. We've seen what happened in the US. We've seen what happened in France. It is vitally important that we start taking this seriously not only in those eight sectors but also in expanding our sectors to include electoral systems.

We are so behind in terms of what's happening internationally on critical infrastructure, and I do believe that the government are not focusing enough attention on this, as I've said many, many times. They're not focusing enough attention on getting those sectors updated and broadened, but they also have this spaghetti junction of infrastructure supporting critical infrastructure and also cybersecurity. We've got the Australian Cyber Security Centre looking after cybersecurity, we've got Home Affairs looking after cybersecurity and we've got a Critical Infrastructure Centre looking after critical infrastructure—but, when they were pressed on whether they could include a closer examination of cybersecurity in the context of critical infrastructure and also whether they could broaden out those critical infrastructure sectors, we were told at a conference last year that they're under-resourced.

So here we are, with a government that talks a good game on cybersecurity and comes up with all these dazzling strategies. There's a lot of activity, but the outcomes are very hard to see, particularly in terms of the consolidation of the management of cybersecurity in this country. It's a complete dog's breakfast. It is all over the place, and the government have not consolidated the management of it; they've actually fractured it by having some of it being managed in Home Affairs, some of it being managed in ACSC and some of it being managed in various other parts of government. Trying to get a sense of who's actually managing what in cybersecurity in Australia in 2018 is a very challenging exercise. This government, I fear, has just allowed cybersecurity to be dictated by the personalities of its ministers: 'Okay, I want a bit of that,' 'I want a bit of that,' and, 'I want a bit of that.' That is why it's spread throughout government agencies.

That makes it very challenging when it comes to crises. We saw that with WannaCry. We saw that with NotPetya. In fact, we just celebrated—or not celebrated but went through—the anniversary of NotPetya, and the anniversary of WannaCry was about a month ago. When WannaCry hit, it was the Mother's Day weekend here. It hit the UK, and we were the next phase in terms of the time zone. And what happened here in Australia? I've taken up this point with the minister who had the responsibility for cybersecurity. In terms of communication, I woke up on Saturday morning and heard on the radio that WannaCry had hit. It had taken out the NHS in the UK. It had taken out companies throughout the world and had a significant impact on those private outfits as well as the NHS, the health system in the UK. And what happened? There was just a deafening silence from the government that Saturday when WannaCry hit. You turn on the radio. You hear about this. You think: 'Okay, what should I do? I'm a small business operating from home. What do I do to protect myself? What do I do to get a sense of what this means for me?'

And there's nothing—just a deafening silence from the government. The cyber czar at the time was doing the occasional tweet and the occasional media interview, but in terms of a consolidated communication, a consolidated message, out to the broader Australian community, no-one knew what was going to happen. We'd seen what happened on EHS. We'd seen what had happened to these big multinationals right throughout the word, and here we are in Australia, hearing all this news, wondering, again, 'If it's my small business or my company, what do I do?' and there was nothing—there was nothing from the government. As I said, the cyber czar, Alastair MacGibbon, was out there doing a bit of a tweet and a few media interviews here in Canberra, but that was about the extent of it. I've made this point repeatedly, but the government is not listening. We have got to improve the way that we communicate about cybersecurity in this country and we also need to improve the mechanisms we have in the event there's a cyber threat right throughout the nation.

At the moment, there is no crisis centre. At the moment, there is no one place to call. There is no one-stop shop for someone like a small business sitting here in Canberra, getting up, hearing that news on the Saturday morning and saying: 'What do I do? Where do I go?' There's nowhere to go. There are about five different sites you can go to. You can spend your morning trawling from one site to another. But even then the information that came out didn't really come out in terms of what people should be doing in terms of patching and backing up. It didn't come out till two days later, because everyone was off celebrating—and of course they would do that—with their mothers on Mother's Day. But this was potentially a crisis. No-one knew how this was going to play out in Australia. And the response by the government was underwhelming in the sense that there was really no response.

And so again I encourage this government, I implore this government to start taking communication about cybersecurity seriously and to consolidate the communication so that a small business sitting in Canberra, on a Saturday morning, has one location, one point of truth to go to in the event that there is a cyber crisis—one point of truth, one message that is clear on telling me what I need to do, and when I need to do it by.

With WannaCry we heard about 18 individuals and companies that were affected here in Australia, but that's just what we know about in terms of the reporting. We don't know how badly this affected Australia. Most of those were small businesses. And where did they go for information on it? They went to about 10 different sites if they knew how to navigate their way around the labyrinth that is the cybersecurity governance that this government has set up.

I go back to the critical infrastructure. I again implore the government to do something and start taking the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure seriously. As I said, we are way underdone in terms of the sectors covered in our framework, way underdone by international standards and also way underdone in terms of the cybersecurity management of that critical infrastructure. In the US each sector actually has a guiding council of experts from industry and from government. Say it's the electricity sector. They've got a guiding council of industry experts, government and peak associations who together work out the cybersecurity standards that need to be applied to the electricity sector. They work it out collectively, they come to an agreement, they look at international standards, they look at national standards and they work out what cybersecurity standards should be applied to, say, the electricity sector. We have none of that here. There's work being done on telecommunications, but that's it. We've still got those seven other sectors. As I said, we need to broaden those sectors as well if we are truly to keep up to date about what is happening internationally. There are 16 in the United States, 13 in the United Kingdom, 10 in Canada and 11 in Singapore. And the US also has it for electoral systems, which we should seriously be considering given what has happened internationally.

In terms of this copyright bill, amendments to ensure that legislation keeps up to date with the technology that is around, and keeps up to date with modern values, mores and developments, are vitally important. This is an iterative amendment. There has been consultation with a range of stakeholders, and we do need to ensure that copyright, particularly, keeps up to date with the latest technology.

But I also implore the government to ensure that its treatment of critical infrastructure keeps up to date with the latest developments. I implore the government to start taking the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure seriously: start broadening out the sectors, start implementing some sort of framework for standards in critical infrastructure and drag the critical infrastructure management of this nation into the 21st century, in keeping with the Five Eyes community and other nations in our region.

Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (10:26): I was going to say it is a pleasure speaking on the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill 2017, but it really isn't, because what we're talking about here is doing the easy part of reform in an area that really demands a lot more. The Minister for Communications has presented something that he knows—after 10 years of debate about what we do on safe harbours within copyright—has failed. In fact, we should probably name this bill not the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill but the 'copyright amendment (Fifield night sweats) bill', because the communications minister is so fearful of undertaking reform in this space and so unable to get agreement on the need for reform, which he knows needs to happen in this area, that all he'll do is promise another review, make a commitment for something to happen down the track and just hope that, when that point down the track arrives at the present day, he's nowhere near it. He's hoping that, by kicking the can for reform down the road, we can avoid all this.

This legislation does the right stuff. It promotes, obviously, the extension of safe harbours to educational institutions, libraries, archives, key cultural institutions and those organisations assisting persons with a disability. So it's all good stuff. Most of the entities I've just mentioned take a very conservative approach to ensure that there are copyright protections and that the right thing is done for rights holders. But it doesn't really go beyond that.

What does that mean? What it means is that there are a whole stack of Australian firms in this area that are confronted by the spectre of costly litigation and have no comfort extended to them through this bill. It was promised the last time this thing was debated in this place that we'd have a review, and I spoke strongly in favour of local firms that have that legal threat hanging over them. We had the promise of another review, yet again, after all the reviews—I think there have been nearly a dozen different ones—that have occurred over 12 years. And this is the best we got.

The whole issue of current safe harbours was introduced in the Australian context in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement in 2005. As the Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities—who is the Minister representing the Minister for Communications in this place—rightly outlined, the scheme in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement was intended to provide an alternative to court proceedings for copyright owners when infringing material is hosted, cached or linked by a service provider or where a provider's network services are used to infringe copyright. Even in that space of time, there has been massive change on the ground. Again, this was about providing an alternative to court proceedings for copyright owners, and I'll come back to this point. This was at a time when we did not see the emergence of cloud based platforms that are transforming the way we work right now—and not just what in we're talking about here but in a whole range of areas. This scheme is limited to service providers in a telco sense, but it does absolutely nothing in dealing with firms that are leveraging off cloud, are providing new services and, importantly, are providing incomes for a range of people. It brings them together and creates an income for them all and they are free from some concern that they will have infringed copyright in some way.

The rights holders keep screaming. The more extreme elements of them will always scream—although I do know there are people in the rights holder space who have recognised that times have moved on and that they need to have a much more nuanced and up-to-date view about how to manage this. This is the era of digital platforms. What used to be done in an analogue way is being replaced by digital platforms on a cloud based platform itself. This is changing the game, and we need to have some sort of protection.

There are some great firms here that are doing some important work in generating new income, be it for artists, manufacturers, printers or the like. They have no sense of comfort as a result of what the government has put forward today that they'll be looked after and that they will avoid the spectre of legal action against them. The one that I think of most, particularly on this day, is Redbubble. Redbubble's CEO, Martin Hosking, announced his retirement today after being with the firm since 2006. He has done some terrific work and should be celebrated for his contribution to the Australian economy. Redbubble is a platform that allows artists an alternative mechanism for income generation where they can team up with others. You can get something printed on a range of different material or media, so you're generating income not just for the artist but also others. It could be a printer in Perth, a textiles manufacturer in Melbourne and an artist in Adelaide all working and leveraging off a platform to create an income for them.

Redbubble was recently taken to court by Sony because it was claimed that Redbubble had, through their platform and through someone manipulating some artwork, infringed Sony's copyright of Pokemon. The judge that was ruling in the case declared in favour of Sony, of Pokemon. What was the cost? The cost of nominal damages to Redbubble was one dollar. The reason was that the judge found that Redbubble had been responsible for determining the content originated by artists through its processes, protocols and arrangements with artists. In finding indirect infringement, the judge found Redbubble had complete control over how its system operated and found that Redbubble 'had in place systems to monitor the steps taken by the users of the website' and 'could immediately have taken down or removed infringing material'. So Redbubble had been taking steps. The risk mitigation provided by Redbubble had been taken into consideration by the judge, which then provided for that nominal judgement to be made.

Redbubble made a submission to the bill as it was considered by the Senate. In January this year, they said:

Safe harbours recognise the realities for Australian platforms that host user generated content and provide a fair and effective process for managing infringement on user generated content platforms … Safe harbour protection is critical for the fostering of innovation in the Australian technology sector … safe harbour would promote collaboration between all parties … in the fight against infringement; and … The limited safe harbour extension in the Bill applying only to the education sector and NFP sector will be impracticable to administer.

They made all those points. It's worth noting that over 90 per cent of Redbubble's revenue—this Australian firm—is from customers outside Australia. An Australian firm provides a digital platform and is generating income where 90 per cent of the revenue is from outside Australia. Its website attracts over 20 million visitors per month. There are 10 million artworks and designs displayed on the website from over 600,000 artists. Artists have earned over $100 million from the site, with over 10 per cent of this going to Australian artists. The income they're earning is growing at around 50 per cent a year, a phenomenal growth rate. They're saying, 'If we have mechanisms in place to make sure we deal with copyright infringement quickly, and courts have looked at our process and, after considering what are argued infringements, issued nominal judgements of just a dollar because Redbubble has set itself up in that way, why do we still have the legal spectre hanging over us, the sword hanging over us?' It is because this bill doesn't provide protection for commercial activities that provide a platform for artists to get new forms of income along with a range of other businesses in this country.

Some of the extreme rights-holders argue, 'If Redbubble can't survive here, they can shove off and go overseas.' Is the 'jobs and growth' government going to allow this to happen? Redbubble and similar great Australian firms like Envato and 99designs—whose CEO, Patrick Llewelyn, shared a push-up competition with me in Oakland, California, but that's a story for another time—all could quite easily move offshore if we don't have a legal framework that allows businesses to operate here. People will say, 'They managed one legal challenge, they're fine; they'll just have to stump up to a court.' No, they should not have to face the prospect of funding legal challenges put to them by those who just want to run their businesses into the ground. There should be a legal framework here to protect them.

For those extreme rights-holders who say basically that, if Redbubble have to shut up shop in Australia, they can rack off overseas—this is crazy. As I said before, in an era of digital platforms using the cloud to provide these services Redbubble would move overseas and still provide the same services that rights-holders get upset with, but it would mean the platform's whole stack of technology based jobs here gets snuffed out straightaway. If Redbubble moves, we lose an onshore economic opportunity all because of the extreme purity of the rights-holders that say, 'We will maintain existing arrangements; no changes, no ifs or buts'—which is just nuts. I cannot believe we're at that stage in this country.

Some of those rights-holders say that I'm anti those copyright protections and want to stop artists, authors or whoever from earning income. That's rubbish. We need to find a sensible middle ground that doesn't just protect artists' income but gives them an opportunity to grow, so that they're not just reliant on grant schemes administered by government to survive but can find new avenues for income growth. Out of $100 million, 10 per cent is generated by Australian artists, with a growth rate of 50 per cent per year. That's huge. We have to not only protect Australian artists and find new incomes for them but also, if we are serious about promoting Australian innovation, provide an area with room to move for these firms to grow.

That absolutely should be the case. No-one who says they are pro-innovation can be timid or quiet in this debate. If you're arguing that you're pro the smarts of Australian industry, that those jobs should be created here more and more and that you want digitally-skilled people to apply their skills to help firms grow, and you are timid, meek or quiet in this argument, you are anti innovation. You are anti the notion of diversifying our economic base through the emergence of new, smarter firms, because you didn't have the guts to stand up against the fevered exclamations of some extreme rights-holders in this debate and you couldn't find the middle ground.

We've got to be pro artists and pro smarts in this debate. We've got to be pro smart firms that are providing opportunities for others to create an income. But, because the communications minister did not have the wit, the wherewithal or the courage in this debate to come up with an alternative way to extend safe harbour protections for great Australian firms, that's what we're missing out on. It's unacceptable, especially from those opposite, who harp on about jobs and growth like they have no other thought in their mind or no other argument that they can express. This should be completely different.

In the time I have left, I would like to say thank you to Martin Hosking for the fact that he has followed through on his vision with his firm. He has capable people taking over from him and exceptionally talented people in that firm in Melbourne that I visited. Martin Hosking is exactly the type of person we should be patting on the back for opening up opportunities for young Australians and creative Australians here in this country. I hope that at some point when he looks back on the successes that he has been able to achieve in this space he'll be able to savour a legislative success that will enable other firms like his to grow and to thrive in this country instead of offshore.

Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities) (10:41): I rise to sum up debate on the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill 2017, which is another important step in reforming Australia's copyright law to better facilitate the delivery of fundamental and important digital services to Australians. I should make it clear that this bill is not about cybersecurity issues, so the contribution from the member for Canberra was rather mystifying. Nor is it particularly clear why the shadow Attorney-General said that Labor supports this legislation while the member for Chifley criticised this legislation. In effect, the member for Chifley was saying what the technology and innovation sector wants to hear and the shadow Attorney-General was telling rights holders, such as those in the music industry, what they want to hear. This is typical Labor—walking both sides of the street, divided and confused on what their policy is.

What this bill does is extend the safe harbour scheme in the Copyright Act 1968 to institutions in the educational, cultural and disability sectors. The bill provides regulatory certainty for these institutions by setting out the steps they should take to prevent copyright infringements when they provide important digital services, such as internet access, directory services, hosting social media content or caching user services. It also ensures that these institutions receive protection from liability where these services are provided on the institution's behalf by a third party, such as a cloud service provider. Schools, universities, libraries, museums, archives and organisations assisting those with a disability will have a reduced risk of liability when individuals use their networks or services in a way that infringes copyright. These institutions will therefore have greater flexibility in the way they provide vital online services and support to Australians. For instance, the bill will help nearly 9,500 primary and secondary schools and 41 universities across Australia to more confidently provide digital services to 3½ million school students and over 1.3 million higher education students. It will assist just over 1,630 public libraries to provide essential services to millions of Australians with confidence.

I welcome the cooperation of the opposition and the crossbench in facilitating passage of this non-controversial bill. After nearly 15 years of debate on safe harbour reform, this bill represents the first attempt to push beyond the polarised views of stakeholders and will deliver much-needed and beneficial reform. I would like to thank all involved. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities) (10:44): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr KEOGH (Burt) (10:45): I stand to address the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing ASIC's Capabilities) Bill 2018, one of many pieces of legislation that we've been dealing with recently in respect of ASIC's capabilities. I stand to mention this bill in particular, because whilst it only makes in one part small textual changes to ASIC's legislation, it should have extensive ramifications. This minor change actually should've been introduced back in 2016, but I think it would serve as no surprise, as with the conduct of most of the legislation we've dealt with recently in respect of financial services, that it has, indeed, taken around 18 months for this bill to be presented to this place. In fact, it's consistent with the lack of any prompt action at all by this government when it comes to financial services regulation.

This bill seeks to amend the current Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act 2001 to require that ASIC will consider the effects and the performance of its functions, and the effects the exercise of its powers will have on competition in the financial services sector. At the moment, the ASIC Act includes the specific objects that ASIC must, of course, strive towards. These include:

Promote the confident and informed participation of investors and consumers in the financial system…maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial system and the entities within that system in the interests of commercial certainty, reducing business costs, and the efficiency and development of the economy…take whatever action it can take, and is necessary, in order to enforce and give effect to the laws of the Commonwealth that confer functions and powers on it…receive, process and store, efficiently and quickly, the information given to ASIC under the laws that confer functions and powers on it; and ensure that information is available as soon as practicable…and take whatever action it can …in order to enforce and give effect to the laws of the Commonwealth that confer functions and powers on it.

This bill will mean that without limiting any of those existing elements, ASIC must also consider the effects its functions and the exercise of its powers have on competition across the financial system.

How did we get to here? Members may recall way back to the heady days of this government in 2013 when it established the Financial System Inquiry to hold a root and branch examination of Australia's financial system. Recommendation 30 of that inquiry asked that ASIC's mandate be updated to include consideration of competition. In particular, it read:

Review the state of competition in the sector every three years, improve reporting of how regulators balance competition against their core objectives, identify barriers to cross-border provision of financial services and include consideration of competition in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's mandate.

In October 2015, the government accepted recommendation 30 of the inquiry, a mere 10 months after the release of that report. The government told us, in their response to the inquiry, that it will help deliver a financial system that is resilient, efficient and fair. That was 2015. It is now the middle of 2018. We now have the bill—finally.

The bill will mean that without limiting the existing elements of ASIC's powers and responsibilities, it will also have to consider the effect of competition. It'll mean it will have to take into account whether any decisions that it takes will create a competitive advantage for some over others, or industries overall. It will have to evaluate whether a decision that will improve a consumer's ability to exert demand-based competitive pressure in a market would be compromised. This may impact on competition in the financial system and will enable ASIC to favour one option over another because of the effects of competition. For example, ASIC could consider whether a decision will create regulatory advantages for some companies over others competing in the same sector across the industry as a whole. In addition to this, it will be able to evaluate whether a decision made by it will disproportionately impact smaller entities. This is particularly relevant in the current environment, where we're considering the regulation of our banks, and in a context where we are seeing the banking royal commission undertake its work and likely make further recommendations for not only legislative change but also the way in which the regulators undertake their work.

I have met with a number of smaller players in the financial services sector during my time in this place, in particular, with reference to the work of the House economics committee. Because of what has unfolded in the Australian financial services sector, we have the big four banks and a large number of much smaller players. One of the issues that is often raised in this respect is that, when regulatory changes come into place, the capacity of smaller players to respond is much less and much more hampered. Whilst there is some consideration of this by APRA, there's no specific reference to this in the way in which ASIC undertakes its work. If we want to maintain a competitive financial services system where we don't see power—in particular, market power—aggregate to just a few, it is important that the way in which regulation will impact upon those smaller players is continually taken into account. We need to be aware of the capacity for work in small financial institutions as opposed to just the big four. ASIC will need to ensure that those small businesses and others are not negatively affected by industry-wide crackdowns. We need to see appropriate regulation across these sectors.

The bill will see this change to ASIC's objects and make sure that ASIC is able to, and does, consider the issue of competition. Earlier this year, the Productivity Commission's draft report recommended that ASIC or the ACCC be designated as the competition champion for the financial sector. Their final report is due next month. However, the change in the bill now will appear to fall short of designating either body as a financial services competition champion, because it will still see a situation where the ACCC, as the competition regulator, has some oversight of competition at a general level, including for financial services, but ASIC is at least able to consider this in its mandate and what it does. There are clear gaps that develop because of this split in the regulatory framework. Effectively, though, what we will see is that this change in ASIC's objects will align it in a similar way to what we already see with APRA.

In relation to APRA, we see that its act provides that:

In performing and exercising its functions and powers, APRA is to balance the objectives of financial safety and efficiency, competition, contestability and competitive neutrality and, in balancing these objectives, is to promote financial system stability in Australia.

It will be interesting to see the extent to which the way in which competition is inserted into APRA's mandate—as opposed to the way in which it is being considered in ASIC's mandate—creates any difference. The changes in this bill are more modest, and simply require not that it be a function of ASIC but that it gives consideration to competition matters whilst performing its functions.

One of the aspects of having to now consider competition in the performance of its functions is that this bill contributes in an additional way to ASIC's remit. It effectively expands the things that ASIC has to do. Of course, this is at a time when ASIC already has more to do. Just this week we considered the legislation that is amending the fin-tech regulatory sandbox provisions that apply to ASIC, which means that there is work to do for ASIC in that space. We've recently considered updating legislation around crowdsourced equity funding, another area that ASIC has to control. Both of those are areas where ASIC needs to get up to speed, where it needs to increase its capability and where it needs to be able to provide services to the financial services sector. We also have the issue of initial coin offering—again, another situation where we see an intersection between ASIC and the ACCC—where some of these coin offerings may be regarded as financial products and some of them may be regarded merely as commodities. The issue being discussed between ASIC and the ACCC is how to best manage that so that we don't create regulatory gaps that put consumers at risk.

On top of all those things, we have the ongoing Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. What that means, of course, is that as that unfolds—as there are recommendations that come forward from the royal commission and revelations as to the further misconduct that has occurred in this sector—it will undoubtedly create additional work that ASIC, as the corporate watchdog, must perform. But over the years this government has displayed a complete indifference to the impact of the financial sector misconduct on ordinary Australians. Every time that ASIC is given another job or there is an increase in its remit or, as we are yet to deal with, there is an increase in the penalties ASIC may seek or a broadening of the powers that it can utilise in the financial services sector, how does this government reward ASIC when we talk about capability review? In 2014, the way the government rewarded ASIC in this area was to cut its funding by $120 million. Soon after those cuts were made, ASIC declared that their work would be severely impacted by those cuts. The chair of the day told a parliamentary committee hearing that ASIC would be required to rely on misconduct reports and complaints rather than being able to conduct its own supervision, due to those financial cutbacks in the budget. He said:

… our proactive surveillance will substantially reduce across the sectors we regulate and, in some cases, it will stop.

We've definitely seen the impact of that in recent years. We've seen, as a result of those cuts, a severe decline in the supervision of banks and financial institutions, with little or no proactive surveillance being undertaken. The decline has been so dire that we have seen further creation of the environment that has led to the pressure on this government—pressure that it continually resisted for over 600 days—to establish the royal commission into banking, which has heard about the many lives across this country that have been turned upside down by our banking sector and financial service providers, with people's homes and livelihoods torn away as a result. As I've said, this government was dragged kicking and screaming to holding that royal commission, because it cared more about a protection racket of the banks than about making sure that victims were protected or that those entities like ASIC which are there to make sure that those people are protected were properly resourced to make sure that these sorts of things don't happen.

Of course, we can't forget about the way in which the coalition opposed the Labor government's Future of Financial Advice laws and their attempt to hollow out their application as soon as they came to government. The current Minister for Revenue and Financial Services told the parliament back in 2012 that FOFA would increase administrative burdens and compliance costs and consequently decrease productivity. In actual fact, FOFA legislation gave ASIC important tools to regulate financial advice in this country and to be able to protect consumers. ASIC knew that. ASIC have said that. But what was the government's response even when those laws remained in place? It cut the funding to ASIC so that nothing could be done about it.

Amongst the critical aspects of FOFA which we have seen was the introduction of the best-interests test, a legal obligation on financial advisers to do the right thing by their customers—a novel approach, you would think. It also included the opt-in requirement so that financial advice clients would have to agree every two years to ongoing fee arrangements with their advisers. ASIC have told us that the requirements of FOFA, including this one, were essential to uncovering the massive fee-for-no-service scandal. This was a scandal in which big banks and others spent years charging clients for advice that they never provided. We've heard in the royal commission stories of clients being charged for no services. In fact, we've even heard that dying will not stop these entities from charging you a fee for doing literally nothing. In opposition, those now in government voted against FOFA. In government they tried to gut it—first by legislation, then by regulation and, of course, by defunding the entity that was responsible for enforcing it. Fortunately, Labor prevailed in the Senate, preventing the removal of those regulations.

Of course, there are more examples of this ilk. I'm sure many listening to me today will think: 'I've heard the member for Burt talk about these issues many times before. Why do we keep hearing about them again?' It's really an old ballad that we know well by now. It's the ballad of the government protecting its big bank buddies. I would like to point to another example of negligence by this government when it comes to financial services. Since 2016, this government has been promising to give ASIC important powers to crack down on dodgy payday-lending practices to help consumers and stop them from being ripped off. But to date this legislation still hasn't happened. In 2017, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services said the bill to implement these reforms would be introduced into the parliament at the earliest opportunity and that the reforms would pass that year. The sentiment was repeated by the Deputy Prime Minister last October. Well, 2017 came and went and the government had achieved diddly squat. In February, Treasury said they expected the legislation would be introduced in the autumn sittings. At the May budget estimates, Treasury officials, when pressed, told us that they couldn't provide an answer on when this vital legislation would be introduced, stating that it was 'a matter for government'. Yet here I stand, as we're about to go into the winter recess for 2018, and there is still no legislation in that area. I think what we are seeing is the bite-back on this government's agenda from the 'parliamentary friends of payday lending' sitting on the government backbench. They're almost as bad as the 'coalition backbench committee for power station nationalisation'.

But all of this is the same trend from this government, where they talk a big talk and they have a big bark, but, when it comes to financial services regulation, they really have no bite. And when they did eventually get to introducing the legislation that is required, that was recommended to them by the Financial System Inquiry and that they said they would implement, it took them 18 months to drag the legislation into the chamber. Then, lo and behold, what do we find? They add this—on top of many other areas—to the expansion of ASIC's powers, but, at the same time, they are cutting funding—even in this budget just passed—to ASIC, the corporate regulator and the corporate watchdog. How on earth is this entity, which we rely on to protect consumers in the financial services sector in Australia, supposed to do its job when we all recognise it needs to do be able to do more? It needs more tools and it needs more powers. It needs to consider more things, as this bill proposes by making sure that ASIC has regard to competition. But how is it supposed to do that when the government says to ASIC, 'We're going to give you all these new powers so you can do things, but, at the same time, we're going to reduce the level of funding that we're providing to you'?

In response to the royal commission, the Treasurer has said that this government wants to throw the book at these who have breached financial law and ripped off the victims of scandals in the financial services sector. I don't know which book he's going to throw, because there won't be any book left. The entity that is supposed to hold them to account, that is supposed to do that work, is being underfunded by this government.

I wish to turn to the second aspect of this bill, and it is actually very important. It will remove the requirement for ASIC staff to be engaged under the Public Service Act. This, again, follows a recommendation from the ASIC capability review. This will bring ASIC into line with the other regulators in the financial services sector: APRA and the Reserve Bank. The 2015 ASIC capability review found that being subject to the Public Service Act negatively impacted on ASIC, in that it:

impacts ASIC’s ability to attract and retain suitably qualified employees …

slows down and impedes the ability to promote internally …

limits opportunities for career advancement, therefore contributing to employee attrition …

has an operational effectiveness consequences …

increases reliance on individual flexibility arrangements …

increases the frequency with which ASIC must go to the market to advertise roles, increasing cost.

I will point out that when they referred to impeding the ability for internal promotion, they seemed to take the view that it would be desirable for ASIC to have even more SES band employees within its ranks. When we talk about the capability of ASIC, I would have thought that having a few more legs on the ground—people doing the actual work at the front line of what we need ASIC to do—would be more desirable than creating an ever more top-heavy organisation with more senior executives. When it comes to employee attrition and employee advancement, that might have something to do with the fact that this government keeps cutting the funding to ASIC. How on earth would you expect any employees to hang around?

But, in any event, this bill provides for ASIC to employ directly rather than under the Public Service Act. It will allow certain functions, therefore, to also be delegated to ASIC senior staff members. This will actually improve flexibility within the agency, and that is an important thing. It will ensure that ASIC members who hold positions such as ASIC chairperson can delegate powers to other senior staff. It requires the ASIC chairperson to determine an ASIC code of conduct and ASIC values. These would come in to replace the code of conduct and values that currently apply under the Public Service Act. It will provide arrangements to transition ASIC staff engaged under the Public Service Act to be engaged directly under the ASIC Act. It's intended that all the changes will take place from 1 July 2019.

The Community and Public Sector Union have raised concerns about the implementation of these changes, as well they should. The union are concerned that the application of the Australian Public Sector Commission's workplace bargaining policy may impact on future ASIC enterprise agreements. ASIC have advised that they will likely still have to bargain under the current framework for the next round of enterprise agreement negotiations.

Another issue of concern, though, is superannuation entitlements. As you would imagine, there are a number of employees within ASIC who have transitioned into ASIC over a number of decades from its predecessor organisation and others, who are covered by transitional arrangements and historical arrangements when it comes to superannuation. ASIC have advised the CPSU that they have in-principle agreement from the finance minister that ASIC employees will retain and remain in their current super fund and superannuation arrangements. This is vitally important for these employees.

I hope that ASIC will actually be able to attract and employ suitably qualified people and provide them with good career advancement opportunities. I can tell you from firsthand experience when I was prosecuting corporate crime and working closely with ASIC that ASIC is full of good, well-intentioned people. They do a very commendable job, given the limited resources that they are provided by this government. But we also need to make sure that ASIC is able to be filled with people who have a good understanding of the real world of business, of commerce, of the financial services sector—that they have an understanding of what happens in this sector on the ground.

But we also need to guard against this becoming a revolving door of people moving from the banks and financial services sector into the regulator and then back out into more senior roles in the industry which they once regulated. This is a problem that also confronts other regulators, such as APRA. Where is the ground from which APRA can recruit? The banks. Where do the people who work at APRA go once they leave APRA? The banks. It's a bit of a revolving door, and that is a problem. Regardless of whether people are employed under the Public Service Act or newly under these amendments to the ASIC Act, we need to make sure that there is not an element of industry capture that confronts ASIC. At the same time, we need to balance that against ensuring that people within ASIC actually understand the sectors that they are seeking to regulate. The ability to promote from within them that will be granted is good in theory, but, as I say, we need to make sure that we don't create a top-heavy organisation—if all that is sought to be done here by creating these changes is to allow for an easier pathway into the more senior ranks of the organisation.

All things considered, I think this will help ASIC to make sure that it's able to obtain the highly qualified people, the experienced individuals, whom it needs to do not just the senior managerial work but the work on the front line that ASIC needs to be able to do to make sure that it is an effective regulator, that it is able to make use of these new powers—the new considerations such as competition—that it will have. But I also hope that, in doing that, ASIC is not continually stifled by this government as it has been. It's one thing to say, 'Let's change the law to allow ASIC to pay its staff more and recruit and retain higher qualify staff,' but, if you're cutting the funding to that agency, how on earth is it going to do that? You give it the power and say, 'Go, flourish, blossom, employ all these great people, but we're not going to give you any money to do it.' That is the problem of this government. It is all bark and no bite. It likes a headline, but it never actually delivers on the things that it needs to when it comes to regulation in this country and protecting the vulnerable consumers of this country.

I would like to just turn briefly to industry funding, because one of the things that we have been able to see with industry funding is that it has not matched up to what the government promised us here. When the government introduced its industry funding model for ASIC, it said that ASIC would be the tough cop on the beat. It said that industry funding would ensure that ASIC is able to deliver on the promise of protecting consumers, of making sure that we had a proper regulatory environment. It said that the industries that are consuming the most of ASIC's time and resources would have to pay for that work that ASIC was having to undertake to protect consumers and regulate those industries.

And yet we have a situation where ASIC has had to go cap in hand to government and say, 'We feel that we need to embed supervisors into our major banks, into the financial services sector.' And who's going to pay for that? Not industry, not the big banks—the taxpayers are going to have to pay for that. After government has cut the funding to ASIC, for each project ASIC has to go back, cap in hand, to government and say, 'We now want more money to do this.'

The whole point of industry funding is that you give ASIC and other regulators the capability to say: 'We can see a problem. We need to chase that down. We need to be able to do that, and we can obtain the funding to do it because we're able to take that from the sector that we are regulating.' What we have seen here is a complete breakdown of what the promise of industry funding was. It's something the government needs to turn its mind to quite seriously because this legislation is important. It's legislation that we on this side of the House support.

However, I also note that, when this government continually refuses to take steps to actually fund ASIC and the work it needs to perform, it's almost a complete waste of the time of this place. I think it is actually quite misleading to the public and confronting for the employees of ASIC when their concerns—when the concerns of the public, the concerns raised in review after review—are recognised and eventually, months or years later, this government gets around to introducing legislation to fix these issues, to say to ASIC, 'We'll give you more powers. We'll increase your capability. We'll give you regard to competition in the work that you do,' but they continually receive a lack of funding, funding cuts in the process and no regard for the fact we have a royal commission going on that is going to require even more work from ASIC as it concludes its work.

So, while we support the bill, I note that it comes from a government that has repeatedly refused to take the necessary steps to actually protect ordinary Australians from the misconduct in the banking and financial services sector. Despite the name of the bill, I'm sorry to say that ASIC's capability will not in any way actually change in practice if this government over here doesn't deliver on the promises of the resources to allow ASIC to get on with the job it so crucially needs to perform in regulating our corporate sector, in regulating our markets, in looking after financial services and looking after community credit—all areas where this government really has a poor record. In some of the areas it hasn't even gotten around to bringing the legislation into this chamber, despite the fact that over a year ago it said it would deliver on it.

As I said, Labor supports this bill. It's actually vitally important that we get this right. But we do want to see that the government actually delivers on funding ASIC to make sure that ASIC can do the things that we in the place through legislation all say that it needs to do.

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (11:11): Labor supports the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing ASIC’s Capabilities) Bill 2018. There are two parts to the bill. Schedule 1 sees the inclusion of consideration of competition in ASIC's mandate. This comes from a number of reports, including the Financial System Inquiry some years ago. Schedule 2 amends the ASIC Act to allow the regulator to employ staff outside of the Public Service Act.

Of course, when it comes to ASIC, history has shown that Labor has a much better record of supporting our regulators to ensure that they are a tough cop on the beat and that they have the necessary resources to regulate and keep an eye on what's going on with financial services and banks in this country. When we're backing ASIC, we're really backing the protection of all consumers and not just looking after the top end of town. Compare and contrast this with what the Turnbull and Abbott governments have done when it comes to ASIC and our financial service regulators. They have been slow to make amends for their inaction, they've cut funding to ASIC and to the other regulators and only after Labor shone a spotlight on what was actually going on in the financial services industry and some of the rip-offs that were occurring did they reverse some of that funding cut. But they did not completely restore the amount of funding that was initially in the Labor budget before we left office. When the Abbott government initially cut funding, that resulted in a loss of people, a loss of personnel from the regulators that are tasked with the responsibility of looking at what is going on in banking and financial services, the area where we've had a large number of rip-offs and scandals. Just today and over the coming week we will see what's going on in the banking royal commission with the banks in this country.

The inclusion of a consideration of competition in ASIC's mandate, as required by this legislation, was originally supposed to be introduced by the end of 2016 as part of the government's response to the Financial System Inquiry. It's a relatively small but important change to the law, and yet it's taken the government a long time before this has been brought to the parliament, and that's no surprise. Historians will record this as yet another poor effort by this government to ensure that we have a strong and well-resourced financial regulator in our country.

Looking at schedule 1 of the bill in more detail, including the consideration of the competition aspect of ASIC's mandate, the ASIC Act includes key objectives that ASIC needs to focus on when performing its functions and exercising its powers. These include promoting the confident and informed participation of investors and consumers in Australia's financial system. ASIC must maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial system and the entities within that system. That is to help promote commercial certainty, to reduce business costs and to boost the efficiency and development of the national economy. Finally, as part of ASIC's mandate under the ASIC Act, the regulator is required to take whatever action it can take and is necessary in order to enforce and give effect to the laws of the Commonwealth that confer functions and powers upon it. If passed, this bill will mean that, without limiting these existing elements, ASIC must then also consider the effects that the performance of its functions and the exercise of its powers will have on competition in the financial system. In action, this means that ASIC would need to take into account new considerations when making its decisions. This includes whether a decision will create a regulatory advantage for some companies over others competing in the same sector or generally across the industry as a whole.

ASIC would also need to consider if a decision will improve consumers' ability to exert demand-side competition pressure in a market. I think a good example of this in more recent times was a decision of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. They looked at strengthening the macroprudential standards that exist in lending, particularly around the housing market in Australia, and restrictions on interest-only loans to Australians. Going back to 2014, they introduced a set of new rules which initially imposed a growth limit of no more than 10 per cent on their interest-only loan book. That's been reformed to 30 per cent in more recent times. There's some disquiet amongst some of the smaller lenders in this particular market about that decision locking in market share for some of the bigger players and actually stifling competition within that market. The jury is still out on whether or not that has occurred and, depending on who you speak to, you'll get a different view. But this is an example of a particular decision by a regulator that potentially affects financial markets in Australia that ASIC may be required to look at under this new competition mandate, if it were required to do so by a government.

Finally, ASIC would also need to take into account whether a decision would disproportionately affect small entities and the impact that that would have on competition. Yet, given the existing objects of the ASIC Act, competition would not be considered in isolation. That's very important to point out. The regulator would consider competition in conjunction with elements of subsection 1(2) of the ASIC Act. For example, ASIC may still decide to proceed with an intervention that has a negative effect or impact on competition where the intervention is likely to significantly improve market confidence or investor participation. An example of that may be the case where a particular authorised deposit-taking institution was in trouble and looking like falling over and there was a takeover offer or an offer to merge with one of the existing ADIs. I'm reminded of the decision in recent times by Westpac to acquire St George. There have been other financial institution examples. Commonwealth Bank and Bankwest is another example. In the latter case, there was certainly evidence in the wake of the global financial crisis that Bankwest was in serious trouble. The decision was taken by the Commonwealth Bank to acquire that entity. It could be argued that that lessened competition within that market, but, in balancing that aspect of it, I dare say that there are reasonable grounds, in that you're facing the prospect of one of those financial institutions falling over and perhaps some of those who have deposits with that institution losing some or all of their deposits in the process. That's an example of where ASIC would have a competition mandate but that mandate would have to be read in accordance with the other mandate that it has, around stability in financial markets.

The Productivity Commission's February 2018 draft report Competition in the Australian financial system recommended that an existing regulator be designated as a competition champion for the financial sector. It proposed that either the ACCC or ASIC should be such a designated body. It should be noted that the change in this bill is relatively small; it simply requires ASIC to take competition into account amongst a number of other elements in performing its functions and exercising its powers.

Schedule 2 of the bill will remove the requirement for ASIC staff to be engaged under the Public Service Act 1999. This change will align ASIC with the prudential regulator, APRA, and the Reserve Bank of Australia. It implements a recommendation of the ASIC capability review. Labor encourages the government and ASIC to ensure that appropriate transitional arrangements are in place for existing staff. In that respect, the CPSU, the Public Service union, have mentioned to the government and the opposition that they have some concerns about this particular change, most notably the application of the APSC's workplace bargaining policy to future ASIC employees and enterprise agreements. ASIC have advised the CPSU that they will likely still have to bargain under the current framework for the next round of enterprise agreement negotiations and of course, importantly, superannuation entitlements. ASIC have advised the CPSU that they have in-principle agreement from the finance minister that ASIC employees will remain in their current super fund. However, the CPSU is seeking further information about the entitlement of future ASIC employees to access these funds. In seeking these answers, the opposition will make sure that we keep the government on its toes with respect to these important changes and that these commitments that have been given to the CPSU on behalf of their members who work at ASIC are met.

In conclusion, this is a bill that delivers, finally, on some of the recommendations of the Financial System Inquiry in terms of the competition mandate and other inquiries relating to ASIC's capability and staff. But yet again we note that it comes in the wake of cuts that this government has made in the past to ASIC's budget that have resulted in reductions in the number of people with certain capabilities in these regulators having a look at what's been going on in financial services and banking in this country. We all now know that what has been uncovered in the royal commission—a royal commission that was opposed by this government for 600 days—has been quite shocking. We've seen the rip-offs and scandals that have occurred for Australians from all walks of life. We've heard from small businesses. We're seeing farmers this week railing against what the banks have done in rural and regional Australia and some of the decisions that have been made that have affected their livelihoods and their families. We've seen small businesses, households and individuals that have been the victims of financial fraud, rip-offs and scandals. For too long this government held out, did the bidding of the big banks and would not agree to a royal commission. It was only after Labor's persistence shone a light on what was actually going on in this industry that we finally got a royal commission. We welcome it, and we await both the interim report in September and the final report early next year. But we again say to the government that it's important that our financial system regulators be properly resourced to do their jobs. Although the government has—only partially—restored some of that funding, there is still a deficit in terms of the expertise that was lost over recent years because, in particular, of the 2014 Abbott budget and the effects that that had on financial service regulation in this country.

Ms O'DWYER (Higgins—Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Minister for Women and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) (11:25): Firstly, I thank those members who have contributed to this debate. Strong and effective financial regulators go hand in hand with a strong and effective financial system. For this reason, since coming into power this government has commissioned two fundamental reviews: first, the Financial System Inquiry in 2013, which I note was not supported by those opposite but has been very valuable; and second, the capability review of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in 2015. Both of these reviews resulted in recommendations to strengthen ASIC—the corporate markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator. This bill implements recommendations from both of these reviews.

Schedule 1 of this bill amends the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 to mandate that ASIC consider the effects that the performance of its functions and the exercise of its powers will have on competition in the financial system. Competition in the financial system is critical in ensuring that the system delivers good outcomes for Australia. Competition strongly disciplines businesses to lower costs associated with the delivery of products and services, engenders faster innovation and deployment of new technology, and delivers more choice and lower prices for consumers. The effects of stronger competition in the financial system are felt well beyond financial markets and into other parts of the economy. Increased competition can benefit the economy as a whole through improvements to productivity and economic growth. An explicit reference to take competition issues into account will empower ASIC to more consciously consider how its actions may impact upon competition in the financial system. This measure fulfils the government's commitment to implement recommendation 30 of the Financial System Inquiry. This recommendation stated that the government should include in ASIC's mandate a consideration of competition.

Schedule 2 of this bill amends the ASIC Act to remove the requirement for ASIC to engage staff under the Public Service Act 1999. Consequential amendments are also made to the Business Names Registration Act 2011, Corporations Act 2001 and Mutual Assistance in Business Regulation Act 1992. In order to be effective, ASIC needs to recruit staff with knowledge of financial markets and services. As opposed to other public sector agencies, ASIC is therefore often competing against the private sector when recruiting suitable staff. Removing the obligation for ASIC to engage staff under the Public Service Act means that ASIC will be able to compete more effectively for suitable staff. This measure will bring ASIC into line with other financial regulators, APRA and the RBA. Consistent with the findings of the Financial System Inquiry, recommendation 24 of the ASIC capability review report suggested that the government remove ASIC from the Public Service Act as a matter of priority to support effective recruitment and retention strategies. The government agreed with this recommendation and indicated that it would remove ASIC from the Public Service Act to support ASIC to more effectively recruit and retain staff in positions requiring specialist skills. This measure fulfils the government's commitment. ASIC staff who are APS employees immediately before the commencement of the bill on 1 July 2019 will maintain their continuity of service with ASIC but will cease to be employed under the PSA. They will be employed on the same terms and conditions and will maintain the same entitlements accrued under the ASIC Act.

In conclusion, this bill will strengthen ASIC's capabilities to ensure it is an effective regulator. It builds on other key initiatives undertaken by this government to ensure ASIC has the powers it needs to promote trust and confidence in the financial system. These initiatives include providing ASIC with a stronger funding base through implementing the industry funding model, undertaking a review to assess the suitability of the existing powers and regulatory tools available to ASIC, and appointing a new chairman to ASIC, James Shipton, who brings vast international experience to the role. I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ms O'DWYER (Higgins—Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Minister for Women and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) (11:30): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (11:31): I move:

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

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the Government's failure to commit to a full suite of measures to strengthen the consumer watchdog, including:

(1) increasing the maximum penalties for anti-competitive conduct;

(2) cracking down on payday lenders;

(3) providing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission with an independent market studies function;

(4) increasing the litigation budget of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission;

(5) requiring car manufacturers to share technical information with independent mechanics on commercially fair and reasonable terms, with safeguards that enable environmental, safety and security-related technical information to be shared with the independent sector; and

(6) prioritising cases that disproportionately affect disadvantaged Australians".

It is always a good day when the coalition belatedly adopts Labor's policies. On 15 June 2016, Labor called on the government to raise the penalties for ripping off consumers. We did so following a succession of scandals in which firms had seen penalties for anticonsumer conduct as simply the cost of doing business. We had that period from 2011 to 2015 when Nurofen, one of the big shots in the pain business, began selling a series of painkillers said to target pain in the body—Nurofen Back Pain, Nurofen Period Pain, Nurofen Migraine Pain and Nurofen Tension Headache—but the fact was they all had the same active ingredient, 342 milligrams of ibuprofen lysine. The fact was that Nurofen were misleading consumers, and the penalties dealt out to them were a mere slap on the wrist.

The same was true when Dulux said that their outdoor paint could reduce the temperature of a house by 10 degrees and when Uncle Tobys asserted that its oats were a natural source of protein, leaving it to the fine print for consumers to understand that the oats are only a good source of protein when eaten with skim milk. More recently, we've seen the list of those who've been reprimanded by the competition watchdog read like a Who's Who of the top end of town: Jetstar, Virgin, Arnott's, Optus, Harvey Norman franchisees, Kogan and Unilever. Earlier this year we had the Federal Court bring down a judgment against Flight Centre, finding that Flight Centre had asked a number of airlines not to publish on their websites ticket prices that were than Flight Centre's prices. That decision saw a penalty of $12½ million for conduct between 2005 and 2009. Indeed, Rod Sims, the head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has voiced concerns that penalties for anticonsumer and anticompetitive conduct in Australia are 'significantly lower' than the penalties in other OECD jurisdictions.

So this bill is welcomed by this side of the House. This is a Labor policy being enacted into law. But the coalition need to go further. They need to amend the Competition and Consumer Act to give a fully autonomous market studies function to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and to explore public interest issues such as pricing discrepancies and increased market concentration. They need to increase the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's litigation budget so they can take on more potential scammers like those going door to door in Indigenous communities, ripping off some of the most disadvantaged people in Australia. They need to ramp up the penalties for anticompetitive conduct, which are lower in Australia than they are in comparable jurisdictions. Labor's policy on penalties for anticompetitive conduct says courts should use the European Union formula in the first instance, which makes the base penalty 30 per cent of the annual sales of the relevant product or service, multiplied by the number of years the infringement took place, capped at 10 per cent of annual turnover.

We have, in Australia, fewer competitive markets than we need. By one estimate, in the research done by Adam Triggs and me, more than half of Australia's markets are concentrated, where concentration is defined as the big four having more than a third of the market. We need to see fewer monopolies and more competitive industries in Australia. Only Labor's policy will deliver that. Labor welcome this belated adoption of our policy, but it shouldn't have taken two years to get this point. Indeed, this bill has languished on the Notice Paper since February. We should have had it dealt with by now.

Other measures include an 'egg-citing' measure about the definition of 'free range' which ensures that Australian customers know what 'free range' means when they see it on a label. We know many shoppers feel that suppliers are being a little chicken in telling them exactly what's going on. Having a precise definition of 'stocking density' will be good for consumers. Labor also supports the amendments to the Competition and Consumer Act to ensure that confidential supplier information obtained by the Australian Energy Regulator in performing its wholesale market monitoring and reporting functions under the National Electricity Law remains confidential under Commonwealth law.

The contrast between the two parties when it comes to consumer and competition issues is stark. Labor would have acted on this issue of raising penalties more than two years ago. That was when we announced this Labor policy. Labor still believe that there is more to be done in making sure the penalties are right, that the regulator is appropriately resourced and that the regulator has the teeth to do those critical market studies. Labor will be supporting the bill, but we are doing so at a time when we know the government are going soft on payday lending because of their 'friends of payday lending' backbench group that is stopping them supporting a bill that has previously been backed by their own party room.

We know they're not doing the right thing by independent mechanics, who are currently hitting the wall because they don't have access to the same data to fix cars that the authorised dealers have. We had the absurd situation on Monday of a private member's motion debate in which the coalition said they were already requiring manufacturers to share the same information with independent mechanics as they do with authorised dealers. That would be news to Australia's tens of thousands independent mechanics who right now suffer a competitive disadvantage by not getting the same data the authorised dealers get. As a consequence, consumers are paying higher prices and getting less choice.

Labor have always been the party of consumers and competition. Labor continue to lead the consumer and competition debate, and we welcome the government, two years late, catching up on this important reform.

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

Mr Clare: I second the amendment.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Fenner 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 TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (11:38): While this is a relatively straightforward piece of legislation, it's an important one that the government supports and that all members in this House support. The Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 3) Bill deals with three specific schedules around laws directly affecting consumers which need to be properly addressed. Schedule 1 deals specifically with issues around consistency and making sure that the laws and penalty regimes that exist under consumer law are contemporary and reflect the modern reality. This is a very straightforward exercise, but it is actually critically important to do. Across this great nation every single day millions of consumers go about buying-and-selling behaviour to procure and consume goods and services to be able to support themselves, their families and their communities. People should not be taken advantage of. One of the foundational principles of a free and open market is that there be a sufficient amount of information available to make sure that consumers are informed about a product or a service if they're seeking to purchase it and that people are not misled and not taken advantage of.

Of course, there is always a scenario where people may want to take advantage of consumers or other businesses that act as consumers, and that may be through providing deceptive conduct or engaging in some sort of fraud. Making sure that you have a penalty regime that's proportionate and reflects the reality of making sure that those who take advantage of consumers suffer the consequences is critically important, because over time—and this happens in other areas of law as well—if the penalty regime is not sufficient people may see the advantage in simply allowing for the breach of the law and paying the penalty. By having modern and consistent laws that work for 21st century consumers, particularly in an age of technology, people are able to buy things at a much faster rate and perhaps with less degree of scrutiny, so it's important to have this regime in place. This principle of support that underpins free and fair competition is something that this government should be proud of and proud to support.

Schedule 2 of this piece of legislation directly deals with making sure that consumers, who are becoming increasingly mindful of their consumer behaviour, are protected under consumer law, particularly around making sure that, when they purchase something as straightforward as eggs, the eggs they buy are the eggs they get. In the Goldstein electorate, there happen to be lots of people who buy free-range eggs, including myself. Whether you're down at Bay Street Coles, Woolworths Bentley or, of course, one of the thousands of people every weekend that go to farmers' markets, like the one organised by the great people of Hampton Rotary in Sandringham or the one organised at Beaumaris North Primary School by Beaumaris Rotary in Beaumaris, when you buy eggs you want those eggs to be the ones you purchased. You also want to make sure that there are proper protections in place under law to make sure that if people are selling free-range eggs they are actually free-range eggs and that there are proper measures in place to work with business to be able to make sure that those people who sell these products are doing the right thing.

By making some relatively simple amendments around the safe-harbour provision, we're increasing the confidence and capacity of people to be able to provide the product. We know what happens when you increase supply, funnily enough: generally speaking, it should lead to lower prices, or at least more competitive prices. This makes sure that consumers get the benefit of that and do not experience deceptive or misleading conduct in the process of buying eggs. I know that across Goldstein, while it may not be at the front of everybody's mind around legislation, these are the sorts of simple things this government can do to make sure that consumers are better protected, to ensure that consumers, no matter where they are in our economy or society, get fair and equitable treatment and to provide certainty for businesses so that they can make investments and engage in providing products to the market to meet market demands.

The principle of the amendment around schedule 3 is related to the Australian Energy Regulator and the information it collects around confidentiality. What this provision predominantly does is provide consistency across the market and across legislation, and that's a fundamental good. It sits across a backdrop of an increasingly challenging energy environment across Australia, where information is more important than ever to be able to inform the market and to make sure that governments make sensible, measured, proportionate policy decisions to try to deliver reliability, security and cheaper prices for Australian consumers. It sits across a backdrop where government involvement in the market, as much as it is testing at times, is necessary. The framework and the design of the market is very important, particularly when you look at leadership policies like the National Energy Guarantee, which is going to be critical in delivering the three pillars of reliability, security and affordability. It is important that we have the information available to us.

A condition of people providing information is a sense of confidence. The information they provide, at times, may be market sensitive, and therefore requires a certain degree of confidentiality, and sometimes it's consumer sensitive as well. If you look at what this government is doing, the core focus of its agenda around energy is to deal with the problems with the legacy that we have inherited over decades through a mixture of policy incoherence and intransigence. The federal government has a direct responsibility for dealing with international commitments, environmental commitments and other policy commitments, particularly around the reduction of emissions. That directly affects the sectors that are principally responsible, which is predominantly the stationary energy sector. Of course, the states predominantly have responsibility for stationary energy.

What we have had is an incoherence, a lack of consistency and a misalignment between what the federal government has been doing and how the states have behaved in turn. That is what the National Energy Guarantee is focused on addressing. It's actually focused on making sure that, when the federal government acts, it's proportionate and is acting consistently with the states so that investors can have security and confidence about the money they're going to put down over long time horizons. They need to be able to invest in energy to deliver lower prices and supply the grid—and similarly for not just those in the wholesale business for supply but also, of course, those people investing in network infrastructure, all the way through to retailers. That's about giving consumers confidence and business the confidence that they need to be able to meet the increasing demands that this country expects.

Of course, energy consumption is critical not just to the energy demands of households—and we obviously regularly reflect on that, particularly household bills, because I know everybody is sensitive to that, including me and including the people of Goldstein—but also because there is a foundational input into the energy market for businesses to be competitive. Across the entire south-eastern corridor of Melbourne, we have businesses, particularly in areas around heavy manufacturing and the supply of components for industry, and also many other manufacturing businesses, who need that confidence in the energy market and affordable energy so they can be competitive on the world stage. That is not just the world stage for supplying to the global market. They can be suppliers and contributors to other parts of the market for other Australian businesses that then want to export into the global marketplace.

Every little tweak in every little measure, including those introduced in the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 3) Bill 2018, is a critical part of building the framework and the infrastructure to achieve that degree of certainty. The more information we have, the more we can make decisions about market design to make sure that we can deliver—for those households, for those struggling families, particularly those with the least flexibility, and, in addition to that, for those people and those businesses who help provide the foundations and the pillars for the growth of our economy.

That is because the coalition, and particularly the Liberal Party, believes in free markets. The Liberal Party foundationally believes in strong competition in the economy, driven by people who are doing the right thing to drive growth in the economy and provide the goods and services that people demand. Even something as technical as this piece of legislation is critical as part of that agenda. That's why it has been brought forward by the Turnbull coalition government as part of building this nation's future.

Mr DICK (Oxley) (11:47): I'm delighted to enter the debate about the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 3) Bill 2018 and I want to thank the member for Fenner, in particular, for moving the amendment to the motion for the second reading, which was moved to highlight the fact that there are a number of issues where the government is not delivering on action for consumers. In my speech on the amendment today, I'm going to focus on a couple of key issues that are very important, I believe, for consumers not only in my home state but right across the country. They are two issues that I've been speaking on and championing for some time because I've seen the impact firsthand, and because I believe governments should take action, where appropriate, to protect consumers but also ensure that businesses and small businesses are protected. They, of course, are the issues of cracking down on payday lenders and of requiring car manufacturers to share technical information with independent mechanics on commercially fair and reasonable terms, with safeguards that enable environmental, safety- and security-related technical information to be shared with the independent sector.

I have spoken about these issues in this place. At every opportunity that I get to demonstrate my commitment to the protection of consumers and businesses, I will take that opportunity. In moving the second reading amendment, the member for Fenner made it very clear how this government has let down consumers and continues to do so on a daily basis. This includes the government's failure to commit to a full suite of measures to strengthen the consumer watchdog. On this side of the chamber, we welcome the adoption of our policy to increase penalties, which we announced over two years ago. But the government is still falling well short of community expectations for the protection of consumers, as I said, in many areas.

Perhaps the most notable of these is the absolute failure by the government to crack down on out-of-control payday loans. I now put on the record in the House of Representatives that it's now been 1,055 days since the government initiated the review of the payday loans industry in this country. Despite repeated promises made by the government, including by the now Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, that we would see action to clamp down on the payday loan sharks, we've yet to see any decisive action. It was only earlier this week that we heard on ABC Radio that we heard of the heartbreak and pain these shonky lenders are causing everyday Australians like Jane, a childcare worker who took out a payday loan to cover a few bills and has ended up with over $10,000 in debt.

I'm delighted that the assistant minister who has responsibility for cracking down on payday loans has entered the chamber, because—

Mr Sukkar: You're delighted? I'm delighted to be here!

Mr DICK: He's just announced he is delighted to be here. Well, despite his sheer delight, it would be great if, rather than avoiding this issue, he could actually start siding with consumers rather than with payday loan sharks.

Mr Sukkar: Are you speaking on this bill? Which bill are you speaking on?

Mr DICK: I'm speaking to the amendment, if you could keep up. Through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I'll take the interjection. I know the assistant minister doesn't like turning up to the chamber, as we've found out. We now have an amendment which he is clearly not on top of and which, clearly, because it is about his responsibility, he is trying to avoid.

For the benefit of the assistant minister, who hasn't bothered to even read the amendment before the House of Representatives today, I'll remind him that over 650,000 Australians who've turned up and taken out payday loans are now faced with outrageous terms and conditions and interest rates of almost 900 per cent. I met with the Consumer Law Action Group this week and with other people who deal with this. They also asked for a meeting with the assistant minister, who is at the table, this week. His office told them he would be happy to meet, but he never followed up. That is a government that is out of touch and not listening to stakeholders. If the minister is true blue about listening to the stakeholders, he should meet with the people being affected by the loan sharks in this country.

We know the cost of living has drastically risen under this government and that 1.8 million households are now financially distressed, which has resulted in 650,000 families turning to payday loans just to get by. I place on record again that these figures have almost doubled in the past decade. In return, consumers are paying interest rates as high as 884 per cent for household goods like fridges and washing machines, which would normally cost $350, but which end up costing consumers almost $4,000 because of loan sharks looking to rip off vulnerable Australian families.

I pay tribute to the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, who actually led the charge on this and sadly has now been rolled by the hard Right of the Turnbull government and by the friends of payday lending inside the government. I know, from talking to welfare agencies and experts in the field who try to help people put their lives back together, that government can take action. They can take action. Do you know why, Mr Deputy Speaker? Because the government initiated a review. They've actually committed to legislation surrounding this. Instead, they've hidden it; they've kept it secret. They've just sat on their hands and done absolutely nothing. I remind the House that we did see that glimmer of hope but, unfortunately, the hard Right of the Liberal Party, perhaps in a factional spat, has now decided not to proceed with that. The minister and the new Deputy Prime Minister committed to real reform, but, as I've said, for 1,055 days the government has sat on this report and done absolutely nothing.

In receiving the report and recommendations from their own review, the minister at the time was full of praise. I'll remind the House of memorable quotes such as, 'the government supported the vast majority of the recommendations, in part or in full'. And:

Implementation of these recommendations will ensure that vulnerable consumers are afforded appropriate levels of consumer protection while continuing to access SACCs and leases.

It's only this side of the House that has shown leadership when it comes to clamping down on payday lenders by introducing legislation earlier this year on 26 February. Sadly, not one coalition MP rose to support it. This is, in fact, despite the issue that the bill was the identical copy of the draft legislation released by the newly minted Deputy Prime Minister when he had responsibility for small business in 2017. The bill was approved by cabinet but later buried, as I said, as a result of pressure from the parliamentary friends of payday lenders. If these reforms were good enough for Minister McCormack and the coalition last year then they are surely good enough now.

As recently as just last month, my office obtained a copy of the letter from the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer, again, pledging that the legislation will be implemented this year. I won't be holding my breath, because after 1,055 days we've heard all of this before.

I say to the assistant minister who is responsible and is now in the chamber: start backing consumers and start listening to those people being ripped off by the loan sharks in this country. I've received countless examples—on it goes—of victims and of outrageous behaviour, that's the only word I can use. The government sides with the payday lenders rather than consumers.

The government is just not serious when it comes to protecting Australian consumers from businesses who do the wrong thing by them. Under this government, the Turnbull government, penalties for engaging in anticompetitive conduct and for breaching the rights of consumers are simply inadequate. Penalties are too small to act as a deterrent, are low by international standards and are seen as a mere cost of doing business according to the Federal Court, the ACCC and legal experts.

Over the last five years we've seen a range of appalling contraventions of consumer rights, often targeting the most vulnerable members of our community. These include predatory consumer leasing agreements, breaches of product safety standards, scams and misleading advertising. The maximum penalty a corporation faces for breaching the ACL is $1.1 million. This is a very small amount relative to the annual revenue of large companies and is one-tenth of the size of the maximum penalty under the CCA's competition provisions.

I want to say very clearly on the record today: let's not forget it's the Labor Party who was the party of encouraging competition. Competition means lower prices, higher wages and better quality products for Australian families. It means a more productive and more innovative economy that has more jobs and a higher standard of living. Strengthening competition is about defeating vested interests. It is about promoting a fair and equal society, which, sadly, cannot be said for those opposite when it comes to giving people like Australian motorists a fair dinkum choice as to where and when they get their car serviced.

We know, and I've spoken about this in the parliament this week, because more and more car and vehicle manufacturers are holding back information from local service centres, meaning higher costs for motorists and less choice as to where you can get your car serviced. Yet again, it has been left to Labor to show leadership in this space, particularly the member for Fenner, who has done a great job in advocating for our great policy, alongside Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition. Presently, car manufacturers generally own and control technical information and, in many cases, are the only sources of codes and software upgrades, which means that independent car repairers, who comprise the vast majority of Australian mechanics, are at a competitive disadvantage since most car manufacturers do not supply the same information to independent mechanics that they provide to authorised dealers. But I'm really pleased to support Labor's Your Car, Your Choice policy. We are seeking to change this to support the thousands of independent service mechanics right across Australia.

I listened to the debate in the Federation Chamber on this exact matter earlier this week. Government speaker after government speaker started talking about roundtables into roundtables, committees into committees. 'Trust us. We'll get to it. We might do something on the never-never.' I know that, when I've spoken to mechanics at Sumner in my electorate, when I've taken the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition to sit down and listen to the mums and dads and small business operators in my community, they are sick and tired of the government not taking action. They want to see some action.

We hear a lot from the LNP and the coalition government that they're the party of small business. Time and time again we hear these lectures. It's time now that the so-called party of small business started listening to small business, particularly the auto mechanics—people like Ian from Mr Spanner's and Scott from Future Auto Sumner Park. I know how much that would mean for their local businesses. Owners have told me that not only would it allow their local businesses to better service local residents but it would also be a huge win for our local economy as they could employ more mechanics and more apprentices to ply their trade.

I know this government sits by and does nothing. They weren't even able to defend their position in the Federation Chamber this week, as I already said. What we heard and continually hear is a lot of wishy-washy defence about how 'We're thinking about doing something about it down the track.' After consulting with industry, we know that this clearly isn't the case and we know that there is so-called consultation but only one-way consultation on this issue. We have heard that the government has a working party, yet I'm proud to say in the chamber today that the industry haven't heard anything about this. They've also apparently had a working party for some time, but that's also news to the industry, who said that's not their understanding but rather the government is meeting those who call them up. Let's call it what it is. That's not consultation; it's a joke.

So we know that this government, when it comes to consumer protection, simply cannot be trusted. When it comes to simple-yet-important changes that are needed to support local industry and local businesses, I call on the government to adopt Labor's Your Car, Your Choice policy of mandatory information sharing, which would mean a fairer playing field for all. Labor is committed to increasing the rights of consumers. We'll always stand by the consumers because Labor is on their side.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (12:02): I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I thank the former speaker. The Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 3) Bill 2018 delivers on a range of the measures that this government is undertaking in the consumer space because, as we saw sadly under the former government, we had very little action for six years and we are methodically working our way through. Schedule 1 to this bill delivers on our 2017-18 budget commitment to strengthen the Australian Consumer Law penalty regime to ensure that our Consumer Law continues to be an effective piece of legislation in the current economic environment. Schedule 1 increases the maximum civil pecuniary penalties and penalties for criminal offences for contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law.

Over time, as our economy continues to grow and thrive, the current penalty regime in the Australian Consumer Law has become outdated and insufficient to continue to deter breaches of the law. This ultimately puts consumers at risk of being victims of poor and non-compliant conduct, particularly where the conduct that breaches the law may be highly profitable or the company in breach is a large corporation. Schedule 1 to this bill increases the penalties in the Australian Consumer Law and sends a very clear and simple message to businesses: if you're considering engaging in conduct that would breach the Australian Consumer Law, think again, because the penalties will match the contravention. In the end, this government backs all Australian consumers.

The new maximum penalties for a body corporate include three possible penalty amounts, taking into account the benefit gained from the act or omission and the size of the business based on that body corporate's annual turnover. If the court can determine the value of the benefit obtained from the act or omission, then the new maximum penalty is the greater of $10 million or three times the value of the benefit obtained as a result of that act or omission. If the court can't determine the value of the benefit obtained from the act or omission, then the new maximum penalty is the greater of $10 million or 10 per cent of the annual turnover of the body corporate during that 12-month period—that is, the 12 months preceding, including the month in which the particular act or omission occurred or commenced occurring. The new maximum penalty for a person other than a body corporate is $500,000.

Schedule 1 of this bill secures better protections for all Australian consumers. It provides a real deterrent to businesses considering engaging in noncompliant conduct. The increases to these maximum penalties will hold companies who breach the law accountable and will impose a real financial cost, instead just the cost of doing business. The amendments in schedule 1 have the support of all state and territory governments, who jointly enforce this law with the Commonwealth.

Schedule 2 of this bill amends the Australian Consumer Law to insert a safe harbour from the misleading or deceptive conduct provisions for egg producers who comply with the Free Range Egg Labelling Information Standard. This will provide certainty for producers complying with the Free Range Egg Labelling Information Standard by ensuring that they won't be subject to prosecution under the misleading or deceptive conduct provisions of the Australian Consumer Law in relation to a claim that their eggs are free-range. By providing this certainty, the measure encourages industry adoption of the Free Range Egg Labelling Information Standard, which came into effect on 26 April this year following a 12-month transition period. The Free Range Egg Labelling Information Standard was developed following extensive consultation to provide producers and consumers with more clarity in relation to claims that eggs are free-range. The standard will give consumers and producers a very clear indication of the requirements that must be met when a producer makes a claim that their eggs are free-range. This means that, for the first time, consumers are able to be confident that eggs labelled as free-range were laid by hens with meaningful and regular access to the outdoors and the ability to roam and forage. The standard also makes sure consumers are getting what they pay for when choosing free-range eggs by requiring the disclosure of each producer's stocking density, as well as prescribing a maximum stocking density of 10,000 hens or fewer per hectare. This will now allow the consumer to select the free-range egg brand that meets their own personal preference.

Schedule 3 of this bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act to rectify an inconsistency between it and the National Electricity Law. This inconsistency between the National Electricity Law and the Competition and Consumer Act emerged in 2016 when the National Electricity Law was updated to provide the Australian Energy Regulator with new monitoring and reporting functions relating to the wholesale electricity market. The Australian Energy Regulator will use these functions to determine if there are features of the wholesale electricity market that undermine its effective functioning. As the Competition and Consumer Act is a Commonwealth law it currently takes precedence over the National Electricity Law. This bill will fix this inconsistency, which will ensure that confidential supplier information obtained by the Australian Energy Regulator in performing its wholesale market monitoring and reporting functions under the National Electricity Law remains confidential under the applicable Commonwealth law. This will ensures that our energy regulation regimes remain fair and efficient, and that the Australian Energy Regulator will continue to be a proactive and effective regulator.

I commend this bill to the House.

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

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (12:09): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr COLEMAN (Banks—Assistant Minister for Finance) (13:14): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (13:15): The purpose of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018 is to make a number of changes to Australia's intellectual property laws. Most of the changes in the bill, as the title suggests, are based on the recommendations of the Productivity Commission in its inquiry report Intellectual property arrangements, which was published in December last year.

There is a recent report of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on this bill which clearly outlines the findings and recommendations of the Productivity Commission for reform of our intellectual property laws. Those findings and recommendations include the following. Australia's IP arrangements fall short in many ways, and improvement is needed across the spectrum of IP rights. IP arrangements need to ensure that creators and inventors are rewarded for their efforts. Australia's patent system grants exclusivity too readily, allowing a proliferation of low-quality patents, frustrating follow-on innovators and stymieing competition. Copyright is broader in scope and longer in duration than needed, and innovative firms, universities and schools and consumers bear the cost. Timely and cost-effective access to copyright content is the best way to reduce infringement. Commercial transactions involving IP rights should be subject to competition law. While Australia's enforcement system works relatively well, reform is needed to improve access, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. The absence of an overarching objective, policy framework and reform champion has contributed to Australia losing its way on IP policy. International commitments substantially constrain Australia's IP policy flexibility. Reform efforts have more often than not succumbed to misinformation and scare campaigns. Steely resolve will be needed to pursue better balanced IP arrangements.

All of that is the kind of finding and recommendation that we've come to expect from the rigorous work that's done by the Productivity Commission, and I have to say that Labor is very happy to participate in ongoing reform of our IP laws. Labor has long advocated that there should be an ongoing process of review of the law in all areas of Commonwealth responsibility and that reform should be undertaken when change is required. With the rapid changes that are being brought about by ongoing technological change, this need for ongoing law reform is particularly important in the area of intellectual property law. Intellectual property law is an area that I practised in from time to time in the 20 years that I practised as a barrister.

Mr Snowdon: Oh, don't tell us that!

Mr DREYFUS: Why not, Warren?

Mr Coleman: Unnecessary information!

Mr DREYFUS: Unnecessary information, it's been suggested by the minister opposite. But it simply means that I have more of a particular personal interest in the subject matter of this bill than, perhaps, some other members. I can say in a heartfelt way that we are pleased to support the changes being brought forward by the government in this bill, the purpose of which is to make improvements to Australia's intellectual property laws to ensure that they better meet the objectives of promoting and incentivising investment in creativity, innovation, research and technology. To this end, this bill amends the following federal acts: the Copyright Act 1968, the Designs Act 2003, the Olympic Insignia Protection Act 1987, the Patents Act 1990, the Plant Breeder's Rights Act 1994 and the Trade Marks Act 1995.

I want to make some comments on the plant breeder's rights amendments. Plant breeder's rights is an area of intellectual property law that has developed, to some extent, separately from other parts of patent law. The reforms in this bill are likely to bring the plant breeder's rights part of intellectual property law more into line with other IP rights, and that's important. It's important that both practitioners and users of all parts of the intellectual property system should find it as easy as possible to understand. The more that all of it can be brought into alignment, the better.

Plant breeder's rights has, perhaps, grown up separately, because it deals with somewhat different subject matter to other parts of intellectual property law, but it's been made clear, through the Productivity Commission report and through the inquiry that's been conducted by the Economics Legislation Committee, that the current plant breeder's rights legislation does not provide adequate protections to farmers and other small businesses. That was the comment made by the Economics Legislation Committee in its report. It's the case that farmers and other small businesses that benefit from the ability to obtain rights through the plant breeder's rights system are—as are other rights holders in other areas of intellectual property law—vulnerable to unjustified threats and infringement proceedings. One of the consequences of the government going through an exposure draft process for this bill and going through an inquiry by the Economics Legislation Committee is that it has been possible to determine that there is wide support for the proposed amendments. In the form in which they're being introduced, what they will do is introduce some capacity for rights holders—for farmers and other small businesses who develop unique varieties of plants—to obtain protection from unjustified threats of infringement and to obtain additional or exemplary damages in situations of flagrant or wilful infringement.

In particular, what these amendments deal with is providing protection of registered varieties to EDVs—essentially derived varieties. They are varieties which share all of the characteristics of a registered plant variety, but are distinct and qualify for a plant breeders right's registration in their own right. These amendments, as I say, will provide more protection to farmers and small businesses that rely on the plant breeder's rights scheme to protect their intellectual property, and, as with the other changes to the other acts that I've mentioned, these are useful amendments to the intellectual property system.

Labor supports these changes. The Senate Economics Legislation Committee noted in one of the final paragraphs of its report, paragraph 2.62:

The committee notes that key parts of the bill originate from recommendations made by independent reviews, and that the provisions of the bill have been subject to extensive consultation. In particular, the committee commends IP Australia for its thoughtful response to the public consultation on the exposure draft of the bill which ultimately led to provisions of the bill being altered in important aspects.

Labor supports this bill as making balanced and reasonable reform to intellectual property law. As always, we will continue to consult with stakeholders on whether further changes to intellectual property laws are needed to ensure that they continue to be fit for purpose. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (13:24): I rise to support the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018. While some members in this House may not find intellectual property fascinating, I can say with absolute confidence that I find it to be an incredibly interesting and incredibly fascinating area of public policy. Anyone who understands the economy—I accept there are some members opposite who do not—understands the power and the role of property rights as the foundation of markets and tradeable goods and services. And, of course, property rights sit at the heart of an innovative economy.

Particularly, intellectual property rights sit at the heart of an innovative economy, because if you don't have some form of property right that sits at the heart of an innovation you cannot trade it, you cannot sell it, you have no sense of ownership, you have no incentive to invest and you do not have the advantage or the opportunity to be able to trade it and for other people to learn of it. One of the great tests of intellectual property is to make sure that innovations and inventions are disclosed so that you can inform the market. It acts as an incentive for other people to be able to learn from the knowledge that other people have invested in so that we can continue not only economic progress, technological progress and social progress, but, ultimately, human progress. While this bill only seeks to amend components of intellectual property laws, it's nonetheless very important, following a long inquiry by the Productivity Commission, as part of the need to make sure that our intellectual property regime keeps pace with the changing nature of the Australian economy and the global landscape.

One of the amendments included in this piece of legislation is directly related to parallel imports. Parallel imports, as some members may be aware, come up from time to time when people import products that have trademarks applied to them. I've just seen Mr Gosling walk into the House, wearing an interesting outfit, to say the least! Clothing is not protected by intellectual property, just so you know. Fashion is not a subject matter, so you'll not be able to claim exclusive rights! But with parallel importation of goods that are trademark protected, having simple, measured, proportionate reforms to parallel import restrictions is incredibly important, because people should be able to import goods into this country and have their property rights respected even if they do not originate in this country.

A few years ago, I was involved heavily in the debate around parallel importation of copyrighted books, up until the point that the Rudd government, frankly, squibbed it, after it was bought off by the arguments of, unfortunately, a small number of people who argued defensively not in the interests of intellectual property, despite the deception that was advocated, but in the interests of people who wanted to protect their industry. It had no impact on culture; that was a great lie put out there by the Australian Labor Party, among a number of other political parties.

With, for instance, copyrighted books, you have two types of property: you have the physical property, which is the pages, the binding and those sorts of things, and then the words, the copyrighted component. What parallel import restrictions did on books was protect the physical part of the book but not the intellectual property component of the book. It was a great deception imposed on this country, which led to people continuing to pay more for books, meaning fewer opportunities for children to learn and fewer opportunities to be able to secure the benefits of education and broaden the knowledge base of the nation, just to protect the interests of commercial operators. It is a shameful chapter in this nation's history, as far as I'm concerned.

Parallel importation should make sure that royalties are paid to the people who hold the IP. That is resolutely the case. What this amendment seeks to do is respect the IP and respect the royalty payments that are deserved, but not protect the interests of—well, these days, the modern Labor Party prefer to refer to them as the top end of town. That was the objective of parallel import restrictions under the models that they preferred in the past. So, this is a good reform.

Similarly, the reforms around plant breeder's rights, as an anomaly, are a consequence of how the intention of the system is designed to work to encourage people to create derivatives directly associated with the innovation and crossbreeding of plant varieties. That's incredibly important, particularly in a nation like ours, with so many unique flowers and plants that are part of our nation and the natural bounty of our Commonwealth. We should be encouraging the value and the extraction of the value of each one of those natural embodiments and endowments. We also have to make sure that we properly reward those people who invest in this type of invention and this type of innovation to the welfare and the benefit of humanity. That's what IP regimes are designed and set up to do. But, when you have an anomaly, where people who don't register certain plant varieties, and, therefore, don't get certain types of—it can undermine the protection of others, and is a disincentive to investment.

Finally, the last provision around the grace period and the extension from three years to five years—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The member for Goldstein has leave to continue when the debate may be resumed at a later hour.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ) (16:18): I call the assistant minister.

Mr Sukkar: There's one speaker left.

Ms Burney: No, there's not.

Mr Sukkar: I must say, I have the member for Bass listed here at the next speaker.

Ms Price: We'd like to hear from the member for Bass. Oh, he has gone to the re-education program.

Ms Burney: Goldstein.

Mr Sukkar: No, the member for Bass is next.

Ms O'Neil: Where's the member for Goldstein?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members will stop interjecting.

Mr SUKKAR ( Deakin — Assistant Minister to the Treasurer ) ( 16:19 ): I thank everyone for their contributions—sadly, we're missing a contribution from the member for Bass—and all stakeholders who contributed to the development of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018. This bill represents extensive public consultation over a number of years, including from the Productivity Commission, the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, and IP Australia. The government heard from a wide range of stakeholders, from individual intellectual property academics to legal practitioners in the attorney profession, from small nurseries to major agricultural operations, from small, innovative businesses to large Australian firms operating globally. The government values each and every one of these contributions.

The continuing success of the Australian economy will depend on our ability to be innovative, productive and competitive in the global marketplace. The intellectual property system is an important part of the economy because it promotes and incentivises investment in creativity, innovation, research and technology.

This bill delivers on the Turnbull government's commitment to review and reform our IP arrangements. In 2015, we asked the Productivity Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of the IP system, including copyright, trademarks, patents designs and plant breeder's rights. The government responded to the Productivity Commission's recommendations in August last year. This bill therefore contains the first suite of changes to ensure that our IP laws provide an appropriate balance between access to ideas and products and encouraging innovation, investment and the production of creative works.

The proposed legislation will bring a number of benefits. It will reduce uncertainty for importers of trademarked goods, which will ultimately strengthen competition and benefit consumers. It will strengthen plant breeders' protections to more effectively deal with anyone who, unfairly, freely rides on their innovative efforts. It will reduce barriers to competition, with fewer unused trademarks on the register, which will also increase our alignment with international standards. It will improve the protection that owners of IP rights have against unjustified threats, which will help level the playing field. The proposed legislation will also streamline and modernise aspects of the Australian intellectual property system, reducing barriers and regulatory costs for Australian businesses.

I also draw the House's attention to the report on the bill by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, which was released on 22 June. The committee noted the extensive consultation that I referred to that has gone into developing the bill, and commended IP Australia on its thoughtful response to the public consultation on the exposure draft legislation. Accordingly, the committee did not propose any amendments and unanimously recommended that the bill be passed.

To conclude, therefore, in the light of that endorsement: the IP system, in our view, is vital to the strength of the Australian economy because it encourages invention and investment in new technologies, products and markets. A good IP system must provide appropriate incentives for Australian businesses to innovate, but it also must be balanced to ensure that all Australians are able to benefit from innovation and competition. This bill is an important step in enhancing Australia's IP system so that it can ultimately better support innovation and growth in this country, and therefore I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (16:23): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (16:23): I'm sure most of the members in the House have a similar experience to mine when they go around the country and talk to Australians about what happens here in our parliament. The public see a parliament that's very divided, where we spend most of our time, according to them, yelling at each other across the chamber. That is what goes on a little bit in this House, but we have a lot of legislation that actually goes through this House with the agreement of all the political parties that are represented in the chamber.

It's been quite hard work to get the bill before us, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2017, to a point where Labor was supportive of it. There were some big issues, particularly with regard to custody notification, which is an area that protects Indigenous rights and Indigenous Australians who have been incarcerated for various reasons. But I have to say that we've worked with the Public Service and the government cooperatively and come to what I think is a good bill, and it's a bill that Labor will be supporting.

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill before us relates to a range of changes to our criminal justice system. It includes the Australian Federal Police's abilities to cooperate with international organisations, the disclosure of information in the context of controlled operations, custody notification and the protection of vulnerable witnesses. It's a bill that demonstrates the commitment of both sides of Australian politics to keeping Australians safe.

Schedule 1 of the bill would amendment the Australian Federal Police Act 1979, to enable the AFP to assist or cooperate with an international organisation or a non-government organisation outside Australia in relation to the provision of police services or police support services. In plain English, what we're talking about here is the fact that crime in our community is becoming very transnational. In the discussions I have with law enforcement, they're continually raising this issue with me. Many crimes—whether it is fraud, child exploitation or human trafficking and slavery, all the things that the AFP in particular deal with—are starting to have a transnational aspect. This means that the Australian Federal Police must be able to work effectively with international organisations. According to the Australian Federal Police, somewhere around 70 per cent of our serious criminal threats now have an international dimension. Allowing the AFP to assist organisations overseas is a sensible change and Labor will support it.

Of course, laws are very important to the prevention of crime, but they don't mean too much to Australians if they're not properly enforced. Alongside a commitment to continue to strengthen the law that supports the work that the AFP does, that same commitment needs to be extended by the government to the resourcing of the Australian Federal Police. Last month at Senate estimates, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police confirmed that the government's most recent budget contains a $205 million cut to resourcing of the Australian Federal Police over the forward estimates. We're pleased to see a bill like this that provides opportunities for the AFP to do its work more seamlessly around the world, but—I say again—it's not much good when the AFP is seeing its staff and budget cut by this government.

The AFP commissioner in Senate estimates was able to confirm that staffing at the AFP is predicted to fall from 6,448 personnel in 2018-19, to 5,881 personnel in 2021-22. That is a pretty extraordinary reduction of 567 cops over the next four years, and I am very concerned to see the government implementing that reduction. Labor will support this aspect of the bill and the measures it contains to assist the Australian Federal Police, but we do remain really concerned about the ability of this organisation to do work that is growing in importance and, I have to say, growing in magnitude because of the some of the threats that we face as a country.

Schedule 4 of the bill would increase the maximum penalty for breaches of the general dishonesty offences contained in the Criminal Code. That increase would see the maximum penalty go from five years imprisonment to 10 years imprisonment. The rationale behind the change is we believe a good one; it is to align the sentencing of dishonesty offences with similar offences contained in the Criminal Code, and we absolutely believe the courts need the flexibility to give stronger penalties to serious crimes like this. There was a concern raised in the Senate committee process, and one that Labor shared, which was about increasing maximum penalties. One of the ways this parliament can give a message to our justice system, to the court system, is by raising the maximum penalty. That can sometimes indicate to the judiciary that we believe that sentencing generally for this particular crime is not enough. That's not why this law is being changed today. We were pleased to receive confirmation from the government that it will be made clear by the minister that the intention of increasing the maximum penalty in this instance is not to target offenders at the lower level of offending; it is to target people at the very upper end of offending, who would be receiving a longer jail sentence if they were convicted under a similar but different federal law.

Legal Aid New South Wales was one of the organisations that engaged very constructively in the Senate committee process and they were very concerned about this change, prior to the clarification being received. They argued that increasing the penalties for these offences would disproportionately and unfairly impact on vulnerable people being prosecuted for social security fraud. I met with the government and raised these concerns. We are pleased that the minister has clarified that, in his summing up speech, he will make it clear that it's not parliament's intention that the maximum penalty be placed on the lower level of offending for this offence.

I want to turn now to the crucially important aspect of the bill before us, which is some changes that have been made to the custody notifications scheme in the Crimes Act. Custody notification is a crucial way that we manage what is a far too high incidence of incarceration of Aboriginal Australians. Custody notification requirements ensure that law enforcement let lawyers know when they question a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin in custody. We know that custody notification saves lives. We're very lucky on this side of the House to have Senator Patrick Dodson, who is in the other place. He has been engaged in this question of the incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians for many, many decades—for longer than I have been alive. He was part of the royal commission that initially looked into Aboriginal deaths in custody, and the custody notification that exists under Australian law today came, in part, through a recommendation of that royal commission.

The change that has been suggested in the bill seeks to amend a drafting error that was in our Commonwealth custody notification obligations. It came to light through a case that went through the ACT court system, a 2013 case called R v CK. What that showed was that investigating officials under the technical reading of this law were actually not required to notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation before they commenced questioning. It became apparent that there was this ambiguity about the exact timing of when an Aboriginal legal organisation had to be notified and whether the Indigenous person had to be held for the duration of their wait for a lawyer. Would a phone call at two o'clock in the morning that left a voice mail, for example, suffice under the act? Labor took a pretty strong view on this. We want to make it absolutely certain that Indigenous people who are incarcerated have all of their rights adequately protected. That's why we sat down with the government and tried to, in a really substantial way, look at amendments that could make this area of law much clearer.

Custody notification schemes can't be watered down, and I am very pleased with the fact that the government has agreed to make some big changes to this area of the bill. Labor senators were able to draft additional comments which outlined Labor's concerns with the bill as originally drafted, and we can see that the minister has made amendments to the bill that will go through the House and that will ensure that absolute notification requirements remain in the bill. I think it's really good news. It's great to have this area of the law clarified.

I say to people again: you see a lot of frustrations in this parliament, but here we have a legislative process that is actually working properly. The government did want to make changes to custody notifications. I don't think there is anyone in this parliament who doesn't agree there are issues with Indigenous incarceration rates and the treatment of Aboriginal people in jail. We certainly, as a parliament, don't want to be making that problem worse. There are many things we could be doing to make it better, but, certainly, we don't want to make the problem worse, and I'm pleased to see that the bill before us won't do that.

I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia, the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT), the Law Council of Australia, Legal Aid New South Wales, the Australian Human Rights Commission and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services for their work fighting for the retention of these important obligations.

I want to say a couple of things about why custody notification matters so much. I think most Australians are aware that there is massive over-representation of first nation Australians in jails around Australia. In 1991, first nation Australians constituted 14 per cent of our prison population. In 2017, 25 years later, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 27 per cent of the total Australian prisoner population. That is a national crisis and a national tragedy.

I'm very lucky to have next to me the member for Barton, one of our nation's foremost First Nations leaders. This is something that we are acutely aware of. We need to do more as a parliament to try to arrest this problem. There is a major issue if a community represents somewhere around three or five—or a little bit more—per cent of our population but a quarter of all Australian prisoners. There is something utterly wrong with how we are managing this area of policy and this very important population of people who represent the oldest living culture in the world. There's more that we as Australians can do to show our pride in that culture, to recognise the extraordinary generosity of First Australians in their willingness to share their culture with us, but we need to change the tone of how we've approached this problem. To see issues like Indigenous incarceration get worse over the last 25 years—and get worse when so many people have, I think, with full hearts tried to address some of these issues—means we really need to stop and have a think about how we're doing things.

One of the things that I know the member for Barton has been showing huge leadership on, nationally and within our caucus, is the importance of giving Indigenous Australians a voice in the national conversation about issues that affect them. When I look at the problem of Indigenous incarceration, when I look at some of the other issues that First Nations people face, I see that we must provide the leadership this community needs—provide them with a platform and a voice to tell us what they want us to focus on and how we're going to work our way out of some of these issues—because what we've done to date is clearly not working, when 25 per cent of all Australians in jail are First Australians. It's not good enough, and we need to do a lot more.

Before I finish, I want to briefly touch on schedule 6 of the bill before us, which would strengthen the protections for vulnerable people in part IAD of the Crimes Act—for example, child witnesses and vulnerable adult complainants giving evidence in particular criminal proceedings. Vulnerable witnesses and complainants are often giving evidence regarding truly shocking crimes. The federal Crimes Act deals with some of the most heinous human rights violations, and often those violations are done to people who are incredibly vulnerable, who are dependents or children. It's critically important that we provide people who are willing to testify against their perpetrators with every protection that we can through the criminal justice process. Labor is absolutely committed to protecting vulnerable witnesses. In government, Labor passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Law Enforcement Integrity, Vulnerable Witness Protection and Other Measures) Act 2013. The measures in the bill before us will build on these reforms, and Labor is very proud to be supporting them.

Dr ALY (Cowan) (16:38): I'm not going to speak too long on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I want to stand to reiterate and reaffirm the comments made by the member for Hotham, the shadow minister for justice, particularly around the bipartisanship shown in this process and in many of the processes around law enforcement. As the shadow minister for justice mentioned, Labor supported this bill with some very important amendments. It is an omnibus bill, which does several things. I won't go through all of them, but I want to focus on a few. The first one of those is the recognition of the importance of the Australian Federal Police in international cooperation, particularly around serious and organised crime. Serious and organised crime is becoming increasingly transnational, and our very top-notch and very capable law enforcement here in Australia has a strong role to play regionally in stopping international and transnational crime.

I'll just give you an example of how this kind of crime works. It is also particularly important to have regional and international cooperation in an era of new and emerging communications technologies, where criminals are taking advantage of that. They're able to coordinate using the dark web and encryption services across and between countries. An example of that was an Indonesian terror cell that used cryptocurrencies. First of all, they used some hacking devices to obtain the credit card information of people in one country, and then they sold that credit card information to people in third and fourth countries for cryptocurrencies. With this kind of technology-enabled crime, they managed to raise US$600,000 for a potential terrorist attack. That's just one example, but it highlights the importance of having a well-equipped law enforcement agency that can work internationally in this space.

As the shadow minister for justice quite eloquently mentioned, law enforcement is not just a matter of having a strong legislative framework; it's also very important that agencies are well resourced. Their capabilities are also very important. So this is about not just putting in place the legislative framework that enables law enforcement agencies to do the kind of work that they need to but ensuring that they are fully resourced and have the capabilities in order to ensure that as well. When funding is cut, that capability is compromised, and the work that they are able to do in stopping international and transnational serious and organised crime through these cooperative measures that are outlined in this bill is also compromised.

I also want to speak about another important amendment—again, reiterating what our shadow minister for justice said. That important amendment is on the custody notification issue. The bill alters the custody notification obligations of investigation officials when they intend to question an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person. As originally drafted, before we worked through these amendments in a bipartisan fashion as we did, the bill would actually have removed the absolute requirement to notify an Aboriginal legal aid organisation. The intent should have been to amend a drafting error that was brought to light in a case that the previous speaker mentioned It was a drafting error in the Crimes Act that, in effect, meant that investigating officials were not required to notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation or person before commencing questioning. This meant that the custody notification rules, which were originally intended to be an absolute requirement to notify, would have been scaled back to a requirement to take reasonable steps to notify and then a two-hour wait. The shadow minister for justice highlighted some of the difficulties with having reasonable steps and what qualifies as reasonable steps and then a two-hour wait.

As stakeholders noted, there are many reasons why an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation may not be able to respond immediately to a notification, so these proposed changes might have left individuals without those very important protections. What would have happened, had the bill gone through without the amendments that were recommended, is a watering-down of the notification provisions of the Crimes Act, which should protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. So we're very happy that that didn't happen, that the amendments that we suggested were worked through, again, in a bipartisan manner and that those changes were made. We proposed amendments to protect the absolute obligation to notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation, and we called on the government to implement nationwide custody notification services.

I do want to mention and add something here that's not in the bill but that I think has been an issue, in particular for Western Australia but also around Australia. In the circumstances of the arrest and incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, an issue has been access to interpreting services. There has been a lack of qualifications in determining whether or not somebody needs an interpreting service in a justice environment, an assumption that if somebody speaks English then they can comprehend and perform within a justice environment and a misunderstanding of the actual standards that would require access to an interpreting service. Apart from that, in Western Australia there has been a decimation of the Aboriginal translating and interpreting service. If we're talking about notifications and if we are looking at a more comprehensive approach, I think it's very important to mention here in this debate the need for more access to interpreting and translating services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly in justice settings.

The bill contains a number of other measures. I won't go through all of them, but it does contain strengthened protections for vulnerable witnesses and complainants in Commonwealth criminal proceedings in the Crime Act. I will just mention that Labor are committed to protection for the vulnerable. In government we passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Law Enforcement Integrity, Vulnerable Witness Protection and Other Measures) Act in 2013. That provided protection for vulnerable witnesses giving evidence in proceedings for Commonwealth criminal offences and a scheme to enable the use of victim impact statements in the sentencing of federal offenders. We were proud to build on that wonderful work that we did in 2013 and support these additional protections as they are in the bill.

Schedule 3 of the bill creates separate offence regimes for insiders and outsiders for the disclosure of information relating to controlled operations in the Crimes Act. The terms 'insiders' and 'outsiders' do not refer to separate television shows on two different networks—just to be clear! The intention of these amendments was to bring AFP-controlled operations in line with the offences for disclosure of ASIO special intelligence operations, which makes sense. The changes in schedule 3 will mirror section 35P of the ASIO Act, which was amended in 2015 to introduce lesser penalties for outsiders than for insiders who disclose ASIO special intelligence operations.

There are a number of other measures. Considering this is the third reading debate, I won't go into them. But I will just close by again reiterating the importance of a couple of things—the first being bipartisan support, particularly on law enforcement. We are happy with this bill and we're proud to support this bill, given the amendments that were recommended and the acceptance of those amendments. That's the first thing I want to highlight. The second thing is just to reiterate again the importance of legislative reform that allows law enforcement to do its job and keep in mind and keep an eye on ensuring that they also have the capabilities to take advantage of a robust legislative framework. Those capabilities are intrinsically tied to resourcing and to the level of funding that we give to our Federal Police. I commend our law enforcement agencies. They do a wonderful job. But, increasingly, they are asked to do that job with fewer and fewer resources.

Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (16:48): I, too, won't take too much time, given that agreement has been reached on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I commend the minister, as well as the shadow minister, on working in a bipartisan fashion to deliver the best results as it applies to law enforcement. I spent many years prior to entering this place representing the interests of police officers, state and federal. So I take an interest in issues of law enforcement generally. The bill before us is an omnibus bill that covers many, many things. I was initially going to speak about two aspects of this bill—namely schedule 2, in terms of the issues of notification when wishing to question or when arresting persons of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage; and schedule 3 of the bill, dealing with insider and outsider disclosures.

In terms of schedule 2, we have a very strong view—which I'm very happy to say the minister has now embraced—about notification being mandatory. By the way, the mandatory notifications in respect of the questioning of Aboriginal persons came out of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, so there was not any prospect that we saw of watering down those provisions. There would be no utility in it and no practical purpose. It would, regrettably, cause us to bring ourselves back into disrepute by flying in the face of the commissioner's recommendation coming out of that royal commission. So I'm glad that that has been resolved.

The second aspect that I wanted to speak a little on was controlled operations. Having represented police at both state and federal levels, I've been particularly involved in controlled operations, and many aspects had to be negotiated over a long period of time. At one stage, controlled operations were a little footloose and fancy free, without providing the proper protection for officers. Fortunately, that has now long since been remedied. But the issue of disclosure does raise some concern. The bill creates the new offences of insider- and outsider-initiated disclosures. Within the law enforcement community, we would take a very dim view of an insider disclosing any aspect of a controlled operation. The bill would make a distinction between that and—I know this has been negotiated between the government and the opposition—for instance, a journalist reporting in the public interest on a police-controlled operation or a police operation by the AFP. Making that distinction in the provision of schedule 3, I think, is a good thing and one which I would support.

When talking about policing, we inevitably start talking about police resourcing. It is of concern that the Australian Federal Police commissioner, Commissioner Colvin, at the last Senate estimates was able to confirm a $205 million cut to resourcing for the AFP over the forward estimates. Any cut to the resourcing of law enforcement should be a concern to everyone; not just to those who wear the uniform. According to the AFP predictions, that would mean a fall in personnel from 6,448 in this financial year to 5,881 in 2021-22. That's an extraordinary reduction in AFP staff of 567—I'm not saying that's 567 police officers, it's also staff of the AFP.

This is coupled with the fact that the government has taken almost 2½ years to resolve a wages deal for those on the thin blue line. Police officers of the AFP have waited 2½ years in truncated negotiations to resolve a wages deal. It is right that we regard our police highly. The men and women who are prepared to put themselves into harm's way need all the support we can give them. It is also right that they should be heavily scrutinised, because we are going to continually give more and more powers to police. They support that level of increased scrutiny, more so than anyone else in public life. Yet when it comes to wages, they are treated vastly differently. The government waited 2½ years to settle a wage claim for police officers. These are the people that we put on the frontline, the people who are on shifts from one day to the next, with the preparedness to put their lives on the line for the benefit of fellow Australians, and we treat them like that. I think that is thoroughly reprehensible.

I briefly take the opportunity to advise the House that we are approaching the inaugural Police Week, which will be in September this year. The event aims to draw the policing community together to participate in honour of those officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, and also to celebrate the wonderful work being done by police officers and law enforcement generally throughout the country. Australia's Police Week 2018 will draw together supporters of policing from across every state and territory in a range of formal and informal activities. It is envisaged that Police Week will become a major event on the law enforcement calendar in the future. While the focus will be on the National Police Memorial in Canberra from 15 to 29 September, jurisdictions across the country will also be holding very separate and specific events in their own states and territories. One such event is the Wall to Wall Ride for Remembrance, which will see over 2,000 police officers and their supporters from around Australia participate in a motorcycle ride en masse to the nation's capital, ending at the National Police Memorial in Kings Park on 15 September this year. This will be the second year that I haven't actually participated in that ride, for reasons that members would no doubt appreciate, but it is a very significant event. It is now in its ninth year. It's to remember fallen colleagues, to raise money for police charities, particularly Police Legacy, and to promote safe and legal motorcycling. To date we have raised over $800,000 for Police Legacy through our participation in that event.

I also advise the House that the fourth annual National Policing Summit will also be held during Police Week, on 17 and 18 September at the Hyatt Hotel. The summit will bring together police from every jurisdiction, along with various government departments and agencies, and strategic analysts, to discuss a range of police reforms and service delivery issues in a rapidly changing law enforcement space. I would also like draw the attention of the House to the inaugural National Police Bravery Awards. They will be held in Canberra on 19 September at the National Museum. The National Police Bravery Awards will recognise exceptional acts of bravery undertaken by the country's serving police officers. The awards will be specifically developed as an award to police officers recognised by fellow police officers, transcending all states and jurisdictional divides, making the recipients truly recognised as national heroes.

Finally, we will have the 22nd annual Police Federation of Australia council meeting in Canberra on 20 and 21 September. One of the key aspects of the council's meeting this year is police officers' mental wellbeing. Last year the PFA was able to access a proceeds of crime grant to help educate officers and those around them of the risks and the early warning signs to support police officers with mental health issues. Despite all the advances that have been made in this space, there's a lot more work that needs to be done, particularly in raising awareness, in understanding, in prevention and in destigmatising mental health in law enforcement. A major thrust is to break down the stigma attached to emotional illnesses and for officers to feel more comfortable about being able to come forward and advise their superiors when they have an issue.

On Friday, 28 September, National Police Remembrance Day observances will be held around the country, and specifically at the National Police Memorial here in Canberra. It's an opportunity for all of us to show our support for police officers and our support for not only those who have made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf but also those who are prepared to go to work day in, day out and face danger at our expense. I've learnt over a long period of time that it takes a special type of person with a special type of bravery to wear the police uniform, and we are extremely indebted to those who choose to do so. They are prepared to face dangers that, thankfully, most of us will never have to encounter. For those who are prepared to wear the police uniform, we should take the opportunity this September to show that we honour and respect them.

Mr PITT (Hinkler—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:00): I thank honourable members for their contribution to the debate on this bill, which will make significant improvements to Commonwealth criminal justice arrangements. The bill has been considered in detail by several parliamentary committees. I thank those committees for their contributions and confirm that the government has amended the explanatory memorandum and the bill to implement recommendations emanating from committee consideration of the bill. I also take the opportunity to thank the opposition for their cooperation.

This bill will bolster the Commonwealth's ability to combat fraud and corruption. The measures in the bill will enable the Commonwealth to gather necessary personal information to clamp down on corrupt officials and those who defraud the Commonwealth. Personal information will be able to be collected and disclosed to or within the Commonwealth and where it is necessary for an integrity purpose. These measures are appropriate and contain appropriate safeguards to protect privacy. The amendments only apply to serious misconduct or substantial fraud and require that any guidelines made on the operation of the measures be approved by the Information Commissioner.

The bill amends the sections of the Crimes Act dealing with offences for disclosing information relating to controlled operations. These amendments will reduce restrictions placed on ordinary citizens, introducing new elements that must be proven before a member of the community can be convicted of a disclosure offence. The government understands the importance of maintaining public awareness of and confidence in the activities of our law enforcement agencies. The decision to provide additional protections for members of the community demonstrates our commitment to achieving the right balance between freedom of expression and our national security and law enforcement requirements.

The government has amended the explanatory memorandum to clarify the intended interaction between the Commonwealth controlled operation offences and state and territory offences, in response to a recommendation published in the Bills Digest that considered the bill. The bill clarifies the timing of the requirement that investigating officials who intend to question an Aboriginal person or Torres Strait Islander in relation to a Commonwealth or ACT offence must contact an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation before starting their questioning. This will give full effect to a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody upon which the relevant provision in the Commonwealth Crimes Act is based. This was always the original intention of the legislative requirement, but was cast into doubt by an ACT Supreme Court case. The bill will end this uncertainty and will strengthen an important protection for Aboriginal persons and Torres Strait Islanders in custody.

The government will introduce amendments to remove the 'reasonable steps' requirement in response to concerns expressed in submissions to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. The bill also strengthens the Commonwealth's vulnerable witness protections. The bill will introduce amendments requiring that applicants seeking leave from the court to publish matters likely to identify vulnerable persons must notify relevant parties to the original proceeding prior to that application being heard.

The bill will increase the maximum penalty for general dishonesty offences in the Criminal Code from five years imprisonment to 10 years imprisonment. This will ensure that the courts have the ability to address high-level offending that falls within the parameters of these offences. It will also ensure that penalties for criminal conduct of a similar nature are consistent across the Criminal Code. This amendment was a key recommendation from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to the Senate committee inquiry into penalties for white-collar crime, which reported in 2017.

Contrary to concerns raised in submissions to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, this will not have a disproportionate effect on welfare recipients who have been charged with minor fraud offences. Increasing the maximum penalty will allow judges to address higher level offending. It does not follow that higher sentences will be imposed on lower level offending. The bill will expand the functions of the Australian Federal Police to enable them to provide assistance and facilitate cooperation with international organisations and non-government organisations in relation to the provision of police services or police support services.

The amendments will ensure that the AFP can exchange information with international organisations made up of multiple member countries—for example, the International Criminal Court, ad hoc international war crimes tribunals and Interpol. The amendments ensure the AFP can cooperate effectively with requests for assistance from international organisations in response to an increasingly global criminal threat. The government has amended the explanatory memorandum to include further analysis of the privacy implications of these amendments, responding to a recommendation of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. The bill also amends the Commonwealth's spent convictions regime to remove impediments that currently prevent the New South Wales Law Enforcement Conduct Commission from using spent convictions information to vet employees and investigate serious misconduct and corruption in particular circumstances.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recommended that, subject to the government elaborating on two issues in explanatory materials, the bill be passed. The government has tabled a further addendum to the explanatory memorandum, and government amendments to address the committee's recommendations. This bill has clearly been considered in detail and, as a result, represents a balanced approach to amending our criminal justice frameworks and practices. This bill will strengthen Australia's criminal justice framework and provide our law enforcement agencies with the tools and powers they need to do their job. It will ensure Commonwealth laws, as well as protections and safeguards, are robust and effective.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr PITT (Hinkler—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:07): I present a further addendum to the explanatory memorandum and a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill. I ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) and (2) together.

Leave granted.

Mr PITT: I move government amendments (1) and (2) on sheet KQ126 together:

(1) Schedule 2, item 4, page 4 (lines 15 to 22), omit the item, substitute:

4 Paragraphs 23H(1)(a) and (b)

Repeal the paragraphs, substitute:

(a) inform the person that a representative of an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation in the State or Territory in which the person is located will be notified that the person is under arrest or is a protected suspect (as the case requires); and

(b) notify such a representative that the person is under arrest or is a protected suspect (as the case requires).

(2) Schedule 2, item 15, page 6 (lines 13 to 19), omit the item, substitute:

15 Paragraphs 23WG(4)(a) and (b)

Repeal the paragraphs, substitute:

(a) inform the suspect that a representative of an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation will be notified that the suspect is to be asked to consent to a forensic procedure; and

(b) notify such a representative that the suspect is to be asked to consent to a forensic procedure.

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (17:08): I would like to make it clear that Labor will support the amendments to this bill. They're actually quite crucial. The bill as it was originally drafted would have altered the content of our federal custody notification scheme from an absolute requirement to notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation to an obligation to take 'reasonable steps' to notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation and provide a two-hour window for that organisation to contact the individual to be questioned. That sounds very technical, but what we're really talking about is what are the obligations on police when they want to question a person who is of First Nations heritage. It is crucially important that an Aboriginal legal service be notified so they can provide support to a First Nations person who needs legal assistance. That's the amendment that's before us and that's what's being clarified here in the House.

This is our parliament at work. The committee process flushed out these issues. We had experts on our side of the House who have been working in this area for decades who were able to provide some historical aspect to what was going on here. Labor went to the government and asked for amendments to be made, and the government in good faith made those amendments. So I'm pleased support what's before the House now.

Mr PITT (Hinkler—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:09): I thank the opposition for their support. These government amendments will amend schedule 2 of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2017, which concerns the existing custody notification obligation in the Commonwealth Crimes Act. The custody notification obligation applies to investigating officials when they have arrested and detained an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander for the purpose of questioning them about an offence. The bill as originally introduced would have amended subsection 23H(1) of the Commonwealth Crimes Act to require investigating officials to take reasonable steps to notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation in these circumstances. The government's intention with the bill in its original form was to clarify what was required of investigating officials to discharge the obligation.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee has considered the bill and recommended that the term 'reasonable steps' be further explained in the explanatory materials. After careful consideration, the government has decided to move amendments to remove the term entirely. The amendments will still make clear that investigating officials must notify an Aboriginal legal assistance organisation before commencing questioning. I thank the committee and the important community stakeholders for their consideration of the bill in detail.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Mr PITT (Hinkler—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:11): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (17:12): Labor supports these bills. The Underwater Cultural Heritage Bill 2018 replaces the framework established by the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. This bill provides for the identification, protection and conservation of Australia's important underwater cultural heritage, including historic shipwrecks, submerged aircraft and human remains, along with their fragile natural environments. The bill implements our national and international maritime heritage responsibilities and also promotes public awareness and appropriate use of the Australia's underwater cultural heritage. The bill will update the original aims as laid out in the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 to maintain compliance with modern standards of regulatory compliance and enforcement.

The Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 currently protects around 7,500 historic shipwrecks and 500,000 associated relics, which makes it the most extensive protection of cultural heritage under Australian legislation. The Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 was last amended in 1985. It's a solid legislative framework, but it does not account for the changes in Australian and international law after the ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1994. New international laws and agreements include the rights and obligations extended to states in that convention that were not outlined in the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976.

The bill triggers parts of the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014, providing for monitoring and investigative powers and enforcement provisions, including civil penalties and infringement notices. Contraventions of the act will be regulated more strictly to reflect the extensive national cultural legacy of Australia's underwater cultural heritage.

There is an expansion of the protective scope of the bill. This includes replacement of terms referring to 'shipwrecks' and 'wrecks' with terms referring to 'underwater cultural heritage'. This also includes articles that appear to have been constructed or used by a person associated with a vessel, providing for the protection of secondary heritage sites such as shipwreck, survivor or salvage camps. Certain articles of underwater cultural heritage are automatically protected, in contrast to the previous ministerial approach under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. The minister may still declare articles to be protected, but they will now be assessed against prescribed significance criteria. Automatic protection means that important artefacts and wrecks won't be easily missed or left unprotected for long periods of time.

Whilst the bill does not seek to assert sovereignty over waters that are not considered Australian under international law, it will also include a clause to protect Australian underwater crucial heritage articles located outside of Australian waters, such as one of Australia's first submarines, the AE2, which lies in the ocean off the Turkish coast. The bill also includes provisions to limit and regulate the possession and movement of underwater cultural heritage material that has been removed from Australian waters.

Labor knows the importance of our heritage, our environment and our Australian stories. Conservation of heritage is critical for maintaining Australian stories, culture and history. In 2012 the wrecks of the USS Lexington, known affectionately to her crew as Lady Lex, the USS Sims and the USS Neosho, which all sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea, were announced as protected historic shipwrecks under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 by the then heritage minister, Tony Burke. This announcement acknowledged the exceptional heritage significance of the wrecks in the Coral Sea, and ensured that the Battle of the Coral Sea will continue to be recognised. These wrecks are of important historical significance and serve as a physical reminder of the events that took place in the Pacific in World War II. The bill guarantees that any action that could result in damage, interference, removal or destruction of these historically significant wrecks or their associated relics is against the law.

Lady Lex was bombed down in May of 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea, and 2,735 crew were evacuated and 216 of her crew were killed. The Battle of the Coral Sea winded the Imperial Japanese Navy's attacks on Australia after they had previously killed 236 Australians in the bombings of Darwin earlier that year. The Battle of the Coral Sea claimed the lives of more than 500 Allied forces from the US and Australia, 66 US aircraft and three warships. These historical moments are integral to Australia's story and allow us to reflect on the wartime experiences of the Australians involved, while commemorating the first joint military action between Australia and the United States. Preserving these underwater wrecks is a thankyou to an incredibly brave and resilient generation of Australians, whether they contributed via air, on our seas or by helping out on home soil. Once these wrecks and relics are lost, they can never be recovered.

The cultural history of the Coral Sea is unique, as is the environmental value of the Coral Sea. It is worth putting on the record that, whilst Labor supports this bill, we oppose the marine parks plan that the government is proposing in the Coral Sea and other marine areas—a plan that will remove massive amounts of ocean protection. Just like Labor is committed to conserving our culture and history, we are committed to conserving our natural environment. Removing protections in the Coral Sea is the biggest step backwards in conservation anywhere in the world. The Coral Sea is a world-famous site for diving, has unique reefs and is known to be a turtle highway. Removing around 50 per cent of the marine national parks in the Coral Sea, which is what the conservative government is proposing, will see areas open to longlining and midwater trawling.

My electorate of Parramatta is landlocked, yet every time the Coral Sea or marine parks are mentioned we receive hundreds of contacts from people—landlocked Aussies who are incredibly concerned about the health of our oceans. I suspect that all of my colleagues on both sides in landlocked electorates receive the same kinds of responses. Labor won't stand by and see the ocean protection legacy created in 2012 destroyed.

Ms PRICE (Durack—Assistant Minister for the Environment) (17:19): I thank those opposite for their support, and I thank the member for Parramatta for her contribution. I would also like to thank those at the department for their service and their dedication and hard work, and also other stakeholders, to bring this important legislation to the House.

This bill is a continuation of the policy framework of the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. It gives clarity to the present and ongoing jurisdictional arrangements for protecting and managing Australia's underwater cultural heritage. For the first time, this bill recognises human remains in addition to other articles found within shipwrecks or sunken aircraft. It enables protection of Australia's underwater cultural heritage located outside jurisdictional waters and broadens protection to sunken aircraft and other sites. The bill elevates the role of the public by recognising the need to promote awareness, understanding, appreciation and appropriate use of Australia's underwater cultural heritage. This bill, in conjunction with the associated Underwater Cultural Heritage (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018, ensures that the discovery, protection and management of underwater culture heritage in Australia will be effective and proportionate. The bill modernises and strengthens the range of investigation and enforcement powers with a graduated approach to compliance, and it continues the highly successful delegated framework for day-to-day management.

The government is committed to protecting Australia's unique underwater cultural heritage. The approximately 7,500 historic shipwrecks, sunken aircraft and other underwater cultural heritage sites in Australian and Commonwealth waters are physical evidence of our past. The bill will support the continuing protection of the culture inheritance for future generations, and will position us to participate in the global community's response to threats to underwater cultural heritage. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ms PRICE (Durack—Assistant Minister for the Environment) (17:22): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms PRICE (Durack—Assistant Minister for the Environment) (17:23): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (17:24): Labor supports this bill. It helps to clarify, correct and strengthen Australia's consumer protection and product safety regime, and Labor has always backed measures that help and protect Australian consumers. Labor introduced the Trade Practices Act in 1974, the first consumer protection legislation for our nation, and Labor created the Australian Consumer Law, the ACL, in 2010. The federal Labor government, in negotiating the 2009 intergovernmental agreement on Australia's consumer protection arrangements which preceded the ACL, built in a requirement that the new laws be reviewed within seven years.

The bill seeks to implement some of the recommendations of that review. The ACL Review was commissioned in 2015, issued an interim report in December 2016, and submitted its final report to federal, state and territory consumer affairs ministers in March 2017. At their annual meeting in August 2017, these ministers agreed on 15 recommendations for implementation. A number of other recommendations were referred for further review, consultation or policy work. The measures in this bill have been agreed upon by state and territory consumer affairs ministers, and have been consulted on extensively, both through the Australian Consumer Law Review process and in an exposure draft, but the measures don't fully implement all provisions agreed by the government with the states.

Of the 15 agreed measures, 10½ are in this bill, one was legislated in a previous bill and two are expected to be enacted through regulation. The 10½ measures, in the order in which they appear in the bill, are based on the following recommendations from the ACL Review:

Proposal 17: Ease evidentiary requirements for private litigants through an expanded 'follow‑on' provision enabling them to rely on admitted facts from earlier proceedings.

Proposal 9: Extend the ACL (and ASIC Act) unconscionable conduct protections to publicly-listed companies.

Technical Amendment (a): Amend the definition of 'unsolicited services' in section 2 of the ACL to allow the false billing provisions … to apply to false bills for services not provided.

The first half of proposal 12 by the ACLR clarifies that the 'unsolicited selling' provisions can apply in public places, not just at a residence or a workplace. It's unclear why the second half of proposal 12, which captures third-party lead generators under unsolicited selling provisions, wasn't included in this bill. The bill also implements the following recommendations:

Proposal 13: Enhance price transparency in online shopping by requiring that any additional fees or charges associated with pre-selected options are included in the headline price.

Proposal 8: Strengthen ACCC powers to obtain information about product safety, by broadening the power to apply to any person (including a consumer) likely to have relevant information, rather than just the supplier.

Proposal 11: Enable regulators to use existing investigative powers to better assess whether or not a term may be unfair.

Proposal 19: Allow third parties to give effect to a community service order under the ACL.

This can include when the offending party is not qualified or trusted to do so. An example is a community service order providing for financial counselling where it would be inappropriate for an offending financial service provider to conduct that counselling. The bill then addresses the following proposals:

Proposal 5: Clarify the scope of the exemption from the consumer guarantees for the transport or storage of goods where those goods are damaged or lost in transit.

Technical Amendment (b): Amend section 12DC of the ASIC Act to address terminology that is inconsistent with other consumer protection provisions in the ASIC Act and that may unintentionally narrow the scope of the provision.

This relates to the consumer protection laws around the sale or grant of land and will make terminology more consistent through the ASIC Act. And finally, the bill addresses recommendation 16:

Proposal 16: Amend the ASIC Act to clarify that all ACL-related consumer protections that already apply to financial services also apply to financial products.

There are three other proposals agreed by the federal, state and territory consumer affairs ministers which have been, or are expected to be, implemented through other legislative vehicles.

The ACLR proposal clarifies the mandatory text requirements for warranties against defects by developing specific services and services bundled with goods. This was included in the exposure draft of regulations that accompanied consultation on the bill. However, I note that the government is yet to indicate when they're likely to implement those regulations.

Proposal 18 increases the maximum financial penalties available under the ACL. Of course, Labor took this policy with a tenfold increase in maximum penalties for anti-consumer conduct to the last election. We've been calling on the Turnbull government to implement it as a matter of urgency. We were pleased when the government announced that it would adopt Labor's policy in the 2017 budget.

Legislation to implement the increased penalties was introduced into the House on 15 February this year, and ACLR technical amendment C amended section 76 of the ACL, or the regulations, to clarify that disclosure requirements for unsolicited conduct arrangements don't apply in certain exempt agreements. This corrects a drafting error that obliges gas and electricity suppliers to disclose information about cooling-off rights or unsolicited consumer agreement even in circumstances where those rights don't apply. This was included in the exposure draft of the regulations that accompanied consultation to the bill.

Here, again, the government have not given an indication of when they intend to implement those regulations, and we would be keen to hear from the assistant minister as to the intentions in relation to enacting that recommendation. This brings us to one-and-a-half agreed proposals that are outstanding. The second half of one proposal relating to unsolicited selling is simply nowhere to be seen. We don't know what the government are doing with that proposal. Another recommendation to strengthen product safety recalls was featured in the exposure draft but removed from the bill for unknown reasons. Only the assistant minister knows why this was removed and won't explain it.

ACLR proposal 7 clarifies and strengthens voluntary recall requirements by introducing a statutory definition of voluntary recall and increasing penalties for failure or refusal to notify a voluntary recall in line with other ACL penalties. These provisions were included in the exposure draft bill but have been excluded from the bill as presented to the parliament. Again, the assistant minister hasn't explained why this has happened. It's another no-show from the assistant minister on this issue. We don't know if the government has abandoned this change contrary to the agreement it struck with states and territories last year, or is it, like so many other consumer reforms that the government has put, on the backburner while Australian consumers pay more?

What we do know is that the assistant minister and the government in general have what we could say are complicated feelings when it comes to product recalls. The Turnbull government failed to explain why it took six months for a compulsory recall of the deadly Takata airbags. They were asleep at the proverbial wheel when it came to this issue. The potentially lethal Takata airbags have been found to have misfiring inflators capable of firing shrapnel through the vehicle's cabin. This means drivers and passengers were risking life and limb whenever they got into certain vehicles. The airbags can turn a minor incident into a fatal crash. Misfiring Takata airbags are believed to have killed over 20 people worldwide, including at least one Australian. The alpha airbags have been identified as particularly dangerous with a failure rate of one in two compared to a failure rate of one in 400 for other Takata airbag models.

It was in August last year that the ACCC told the House Standing Committee on Economics that the deadly risk associated with the Takata alpha airbags meant they needed to be replaced immediately. That was the evidence that was given by the representatives of the ACCC at that hearing. The chairman, Rod Sims, also revealed that, as the Takata recall was voluntary at the time, there was little enforcement action that could be taken to ensure that everything possible was being done to replace the airbags.

The following day Labor called on the minister responsible for product safety, the current Deputy Prime Minister, to use his emergency powers under section 132J of the Competition and Consumer Act. We called for an immediate issuing of a compulsory recall of Takata airbags, amid growing concerns about the inadequacy of the voluntary recall process and renewed urgency around the alpha type of airbags. The result: nothing. The government did nothing. It took another six months, until February 2018, for a compulsory recall to be issued. They were asleep at the wheel whilst Australians were unknowingly risking their lives. Every time a person got behind the wheel or was a passenger, they were in danger. One Australian had already died, and it took six months for the government to take any action. What was Minister McCormack waiting for?

Now I want to speak about proposal 12, which clarifies that the 'unsolicited selling' provisions capture suppliers in their negotiations with consumers where suppliers obtain from a third party—sometimes referred to as a lead generator—a consumer's contact details or permission to be contacted. This wasn't even included in the exposure draft of the bill, and again we await an explanation as to why. It's yet another sign, as if we needed more, of the government's half-hearted approach to ensuring Australian consumer protections. Perhaps even saying 'half-hearted' may be generous. While the government make the right noises about reforms that were already in train or reviews that Labor started, in the end they always fall short. We've seen the government drag their feet on payday-lending reforms, we've seen them try to confuse consumers around measurement labelling, and we've heard nothing but talk in relation to improving consumer protections for retirement home residents. But Labor has been working to improve outcomes for Australian consumers—with or without the government.

There would be few better examples of the government's reluctance to improve protections for vulnerable consumers than their approach to payday lending and rent-to-buy schemes. We've seen these changes flicked back and forth between ministers and the assistant minister since the small-amount credit contract review reported in early 2016. Under amendments made by Labor in 2012 to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, the government commissioned a review of small-amount credit contracts in 2015, which reported to the government in March 2016. The government's response was released in November 2016. Minister O'Dwyer indicated in February 2017 that drafting was underway, and we were told that the drafters were putting pen to paper to implement the SACC review's recommendations. But the following day, under questioning from Senator Katy Gallagher, Treasury revealed in estimates that the minister was incorrect and that drafting actually had not commenced. In the 2017 budget estimates, in May, Treasury again confirmed that drafting had not commenced around this particular reform. The former member for Perth, Tim Hammond, led a private member's motion debate about the SACC reforms in the Federation Chamber on 4 September last year. Then by late 2017, after responsibility for the reforms had been delegated to the Minister for Small Business—now the Deputy Prime Minister—the government released an exposure draft of the legislation. It meant to enact the recommendations of the SACC review and promised that the bill would enter the parliament by the end of that year. To date no legislation has been introduced and, following the December 2017 reshuffle, responsibility for these reforms has been brushed off to the member for Deakin.

Those on very low incomes have little or no capacity to absorb financial shocks. With little disposable cash after bills are paid and with little savings put away for a rainy day, one of the obvious options is a payday loan. We've all seen the TV ads. There's a profligacy of these payday lenders now springing up and using advertising—cash while you wait, and loans via apps. They're springing up everywhere.

There are also rent-to-buy schemes for consumer leases, under which a consumer will enter into an arrangement by which they rent a consumer good—a vacuum cleaner, a fridge or a dishwasher—from a company for a period, and at the end of the period they get to keep the good. This is becoming increasingly common with mobile phones. Labor recognises that these types of unconventional small-finance arrangements play a legitimate role in smoothing out the swings and roundabouts of modern life for low-income families. However, we do remain opposed to credit contracts that see some of the lowest income citizens being trapped in cycles of debt in which, if they don't meet the initial repayment obligations, they are forced to pay interest rates that often are in the hundreds of per cent when they come to paying back the debt. Cash loans are being described as leases to avoid caps on costs under national credit laws, and leases and loans have been given to people who already had financially crippling debt repayments for existing loans. Rent-to-buy contracts have ended up costing consumers over 800 per cent of the retail price of the good. Payday lenders are using loopholes to avoid having to follow the rules of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, and some providers have incorrectly used rent alone to calculate an applicant's expenses without taking into consideration grocery costs, bills and other cost-of-living items.

On the positive side, some small-amount credit contract providers have waived fees and created special payment plans for people in extreme circumstances. There are other options for those who need small loans. For example, the No Interest Loan Scheme makes loans of up to $1,000 available for low-income consumers. They are available via community organisations. NILS is operated by Good Shepherd Microfinance and is supported by the Australian government and the National Australia Bank.

But low-income consumers on fringe finance should not have to rely on credit companies' charity and goodwill. They need robust consumer protections. That's why in February Labor introduced the government's consultation draft of its payday lending reform bills as a private member's bill. The government was dragging its heels, and Labor came to the party and actually introduced the legislation—the exact same legislation—on behalf of the government. It shouldn't come to that. If the minister responsible was doing their job they wouldn't drag their heels. They would get this legislation into the parliament. Labor's payday lending private member's bill implements the government's own policy in relation to the reforms as expressed in its response to the SACC review over a year ago. As such, the bill must be supported by government members. It isn't just a stunt to get the government's failure to implement anything that looks remotely like an agenda; it's about having a heart and implementing the recommendations that have been agreed to by the council of ministers.

In summary, Labor supports the passage of this bill. We can't let it pass without noting that the government is failing in its responsibility to protect consumers and implement the recommendations of the reviews that have been undertaken and the agreements that have been made by the ministerial council through a COAG process. As is the case with payday lending reforms, we can only assume that the government is hoping that it can quietly sweep these policies—policies that the Deputy Prime Minister has already agreed to—under the carpet. Labor won't allow that. That's why we've introduced the private member's bill. That's why the government should bring that on for debate and finally allow and agree to these reforms going through the parliament.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (17:43): I am pleased tonight to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Australian Consumer Law Review) Bill 2018, which makes 11 rather detailed changes in relation to our competition laws. I would like to raise a few issues in relation to our competition laws and how these proposed amendments may affect some practical circumstance.

I will start with comments by Professor Judith Sloan written in The Australian about AGL, one of Australia's largest providers of electricity. Professor Sloan wrote:

… AGL is the biggest provider of coal-fired electricity in the country and more than 90 per cent of its (rising) profits is sourced from fossil fuels.

But we are still told to believe that the company is changing by moving into that rent-seeking space: renewables. But if you look at AGL’s profile of production, renewables are small beer and will remain so for a considerable period of time.

Now some might think hypocrisy by having to put up with the company’s marketing messages, egged on by a bunch of staffers some of whom have been trained by none other than Mr Inconvenient Truth himself, Al Gore.

But where you think hypocrisy, I think misleading and deceptive. I can’t believe that the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission hasn’t launched a case against AGL for using false information to attract customers. Surely a company that derives over 90 per cent of its profits from coal and gas can’t portray itself as green as grass.

She continues:

Its recent behaviour, its stated intentions to close Liddell (all 2000 megawatts) and comments from the Yank have all belled the cat for the public by exposing the distorted Australian electricity market as an expensive and unreliable racket. It is now clear that the government must act and this does not involve doling out even more favours to the unreliable renewables sector.

That is Professor Judith Sloan. In another article she also talks about AGL's plan to close down the Liddell coal-fired power station. Professor Sloan writes:

…when a company is planning to short the market and drive up prices, why would it accept a bid from a competitor to keep the Liddell plant in operation?

…   …   …

It's simply following the money trail, even if there are profoundly anti-competitive aspects to the way the company operates – its ownership of a dominant retail operation, for instance.

…   …   …

Most of the board wouldn't know the difference between a megawatt and a Gucci handbag.

…   …   …

Something doesn't ring true here. Liddell is so valuable that Alinta's bid of $250m is too low but it's too expensive to keep going. Politicians and consumers should smell a rat.

…   …   …

As events panned out, the ACCC was completely on the money and AGL is simply exercising its full market power to take low-cost coal electricity out of the market and partially replace it with unreliable renewable energy and a small amount of very expensive gas.

That brings me to a case a decade ago about how competition law can deal with such anticompetitive conduct. This was in Germany back in 2008. I'm reading from the European Commission's Competition policy newsletter about how German authorities acted with a large electricity generator that had shorted the market:

On 26 November 2008 the Commission adopted a commitment decision addressed to E.ON …

E.ON is the large electricity generator in Germany, with very equivalent circumstances to AGL's market, market share and control here. It goes on:

For the first time in the Commission's decision-making practice, the decision requires the company concerned to dispose of very significant assets: E.ON will have to divest 5,000 MW of generation capacity

…   …   …

The first case relates to the German electricity wholesale market and the concern that E.ON may have carried out a strategy of short-term capacity withdrawal and deterrence of investments in electricity generation by third parties.

That seems to ring a bell with exactly what is happening here in Australia. It goes on about their case:

Both reports identified the issue of capacity withholding as being the lowering of production capacity offered on the short-term market …

How did European competition law deal with such withdrawal of capacity? They go on:

The withdrawal of generation capacity on the electricity market by a dominant operator is considered an abuse of a dominant position and therefore contrary to Article 82—

of the European competition law. Further:

Such action causes serious harm to all groups of consumers by increasing the prevailing price on the spot market.

What does European competition law actually state? It says exactly this:

Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market … shall be prohibited …

It goes on:

Such abuse may, in particular, consists in:

(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;

Critically, paragraph (b) reads:

(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;

So, under European competition law, it is illegal, it is prohibited, for a company with a dominant position to limit production to the prejudice of consumers.

We have seen from the comments of Professor Sloan that closing the Liddell Power Station will limit production to the prejudice of consumers. How will this work under Australian Competition Law? Previously, our competition law provided that a company with a substantial degree of market power could not take advantage of that power to eliminate or substantially damage a competitor, to prevent the entry of a person into that market, or to deter or prevent a person from engaging in competitive behaviour in that market or another market. Perhaps, under those terms, there could be a case made out that a company with a substantial degree of market power cannot limit production to the prejudice of consumers. However, we actually changed that law and now it provides:

A corporation that has a substantial degree of power in a market must not engage in conduct that has the purpose, or is likely to have the effect, of substantially lessening competition …

So the test in Australia is: does the conduct that we're looking at result in a substantial lessening of competition? Under European competition law, the test is limiting production to the prejudice of consumers.

I have had extensive discussions with the ACCC. They do not believe that they can prove the case that AGL closing Liddell, not selling it to a competitor and withdrawing that production capacity from the market would be a substantial lessening of competition. But if we had the provision in our competition law that the Europeans have, which says that, if you have a dominant position in the market, you cannot limit production to the prejudice of consumers, we would have a clear-cut case against AGL's conduct with Liddell. Make no mistake: what they are preparing to do will short the market. Yesterday they put out a replacement plan. But how can you equate the extra capacity they are putting into the market to the closing of Liddell and not the closing of the Northern Power Station or the closing of the Hazelwood Power Station? They've already exited from the market. How they can equate that to Liddell specifically is quite beyond me. If we look at the details of their replacement plan, yes, there may be an argument that they are replacing the same dispatchable capacity. But when you look at what they are planning to replace in dispatchable megawatt hours to the grid, their replacement plan will limit production by about 50 per cent.

We are not saying that AGL as a company should be forced to keep that plant open against their wishes, but if they have competitors in the market that are willing, able and prepared to buy that plant from them, I say they are actually engaging in conduct that will limit production, and it will be to the prejudice of consumers. If our existing competition laws are not strong enough to find that conduct anticompetitive, we need to have a close look at our competition laws and make a laser-like amendment to those laws, especially in the area of essential services. We cannot have companies that supply essential services—electricity is one of those—limiting production. We cannot run our factories, we cannot heat our homes, we cannot have the lights on, we cannot have our trains and our communications systems all running and we cannot have our hospitals running without reliable electricity being delivered to the grid. There is no other market where we have a provision in our competition law that provides that a company that is in a dominant position, or has a substantial degree of market power, can limit production to the prejudice of consumers. That is the plan that AGL have.

I say to this parliament that we have an obligation to Australian consumers. We have an obligation to Australian industry to make sure they remain internationally competitive. If AGL are continuing down this track, we should adopt those principles of European competition law. We can apply them specifically to essential services. We can give them a very clear message that this parliament and this country will not accept the anticompetitive conduct that they are engaged in.

This bill makes 11 amendments to our competition laws. I could go through them all, but for brevity I commend them and I commend this bill to the House.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (17:56): I rise to speak in support of this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Australian Consumer Law Review) Bill 2018. But I do so while simultaneously raising concerns that I have with respect to consumer laws in this country. It is true that we have done much over the years to protect consumers, as a result of consumer law legislation at both federal and state level. But there are still too many gaps within our laws, which allow unethical operators—some of whom are very well-known brands—to exploit consumers. It is little wonder that, today, consumer confidence in all sectors of society is diminishing. We've heard other speakers talk about some of the areas that are still not adequately covered by consumer law protection. I will list a handful of them before I get to some specific comments I wish to make in respect of this legislation.

We've heard about payday lenders: like in every industry sector, there are good and bad operators. But the bad operators are clearly taking advantage of some of Australia's most vulnerable people. When they're in the greatest need and have to go and cash in products that they own, they then get taken advantage of. I have heard of people paying, sometimes, amounts of maybe 10 times what the value of the product would have been, had they had the money to have bought the product up front.

We've heard about car manufacturers—again, I heard only in recent days about the CEO of one global car company who may be jailed as a result of the performance indicators being fabricated with respect to the brand of that vehicle. We have airlines and insurance companies using fine-print contracts to avoid meeting their obligations or to add extra charges for consumers. Telcos are doing the same.

We have the private health insurance industry—only today there was information that private health insurance complaints rose by 30 per cent in the last year alone. We have exclusions between one company and another with respect to the policies or excess co-payments being charged. These exclusions make it almost impossible for consumers to try and compare the policies of the various companies, if they decide that they want to take up private health insurance. Not surprisingly, with all of the confusion, the number of people that are now covered by private health insurance is diminishing and people are dropping out—because of the confusion and because they find that the companies are taking advantage of them.

I want to turn to the question of the energy and other utility service providers, which the previous speaker also referred to in his remarks. It has become almost a daily practice that, in my office and throughout the community, I hear complaints, or complaints are brought to me, about the activities of the energy providers in particular. Whilst there are several of them out there now, certainly, in my home state of South Australia, trying to choose which provider a consumer will go to is becoming increasingly difficult because it's becoming almost impossible to make fair comparisons between what each of them have to offer. And it was only a day or so ago that there was an article released by Bruce Mountain, Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre from the Victoria University, which stated:

A recent survey found that Australia’s power companies are less trusted than media companies, banks and telcos. … One feature that deserves close scrutiny is the all-pervasive discount. In electricity retailing, all but 3 of the 28 active retailers use discounts in their retail offers. … discounts give customers the impression that they are making a smart buy. This is often true, particularly in cases where it is easy to see and compare the discounted prices. But if it’s not easy to compare, customers may not realise if they’ve been duped.

With respect to discounts, Mr Mountain goes on to list the ways—and I won't read the whole list—that, quite often, the customers are duped, to use his language:

some discounts are worked out as a percentage of usage charges while others are on the total bill

some discounts are before the receipt of concessions, others after

some discounts are before solar feed-in receipts, others after

…   …   …

most discounts are conditional on customers doing something (usually paying the bill on time) but some are unconditional …

Those examples highlight why consumers are finding it so difficult to make choices and, in fact, how consumers are being taken advantage of.

I turn to a matter that is current right now. I refer to the case of Toys "R" Us, who went into, I think, receivership on about 21 May. I understand that all operations of Toys "R" Us will close in Australia by 5 July. The administrators are McGrathNicol. On about 21 May, the administrators issued a statement in respect of the company. For the benefit of anyone listening, I will say that the company has about 700 permanent and casual staff here in Australia. It's got 44 stores in the country, three of which are in South Australia with two of those being in my own electorate. In South Australia, there are about 70 employees, and the two stores in my electorate would cover about 40 of those employees. Firstly, I hope those employees are properly covered with respect to their worker entitlements and the pay that they are entitled to receive. The other issue that concerns me with respect to the administrators of Toys "R" Us is that they made a decision that anyone who holds a gift voucher cannot use it unless they expend an equivalent amount of additional funds on the day they go to collect their gift voucher value. I will read directly from the frequently asked questions sheet put out by McGrathNicol:

Gift cards, coupons and store credits

The terms of redemption depend on the nature of the card, coupon or store credit. Ordinarily, gift cards and store credits represent an unsecured claim against TRU Australia and would not be able to be redeemed. Until 5 July 2018, the Administrators have agreed to honour gift cards, coupons and store credits in store only, on the basis that the total transaction is at least double the value of the gift cards, coupon or store credit amount utilised in that transaction (i.e. to utilise a $100 gift card, the value of the transaction must be at least $200.)

If customers do not utilise or are unable to utilise their gift cards or store credit in accordance with these conditions, they can complete a Proof of Debt for the balance they are owed. … Westfield gift cards may be used with restriction.

So, immediately, there is a differentiation between one type of gift card and another. That, in itself, is wrong. But what is even more wrong is that the decision to have holders of gift cards required to spend an additional amount was never part of the understanding when that gift card was purchased. Therefore, whilst the administrator may well be within their rights to impose that condition, it is totally unethical and immoral to do so.

I don't know whether it is within the rights of the administrator. I would have thought that, whilst the company or the shops are trading—and they will be trading to 5 July—the holders of those gift cards should be allowed to go to the store and cash them in for the products that they want at the value of the gift card, without any additional conditions. If there are conditions, I suspect that the purchasers of those gift cards were never told about them, or that they are subject to change and that new conditions might be applied to them in the future. That is a matter of serious concern, because, I suspect, it will affect hundreds and possibly thousands of consumers around Australia.

It is an issue which also arose back in early 2016 when the Dick Smith stores around Australia also closed. The same thing happened there—in terms of the cards not being honoured because they were considered to be unsecured creditors. I don't believe that, at that time, there was an expectation that holders of the cards had to spend an equivalent value to the gift card value; they were simply not honoured. Again, I find that that is totally unfair on the purchasers and holders of those gift cards.

I don't know how we close those kinds of loopholes, but these are matters that affect thousands of people in the community and there should be ways of closing them. One of the suggestions that I would make is that, perhaps, when a gift card is purchased the money should go into a trust account of some kind where it cannot be used for normal business purposes by the owner of that business, so at least it will be there should the business go bankrupt or become unable to continue trading. That would not only secure the money for the holders of the cards but also guarantee the business some future purchase, which would enable the business to know that its sales would be there in the months ahead as people cashed those cards in. But there may be better ways of doing it. I raise this matter because I know that it is affecting people right now. Indeed, given that the operators of Toys "R" Us are still trading to 5 July, I hope that they might reconsider. Having said that, I'm not holding my breath that they will.

As other speakers have pointed out, this legislation does make improvements. I accept that and I support the improvements being made. I am, however, conscious that consumers continue to be exploited by unethical operators. In my office it's perhaps one of the most common matters that we have to deal with: we step in to try to assist residents in my electorate who have been in some way or another treated unfairly by operators. Sometimes we have success, but not always. With those comments, I commend the bill to the House

Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (18:09): One of the most common comments I get as a federal member of parliament is: 'Why can't you people just agree on something? Anything!' If anybody were to watch question time they would think both the government and the opposition are constantly at loggerheads on every single point, and that every single point is taken. So it's refreshing to see matters such as this where both the coalition government and the Labor Party can come together and agree on some very sensible measures. And these are sensible measures. They are sensible measures that have come about as a result of the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendations. They're not hugely groundbreaking, but they are progressive and they do certainly improve the act as it stands.

In a past life when I was a barrister, from time to time I acted on behalf of clients who relied on the Competition and Consumer Act 2010; its previous iteration, the Trade Practices Act 1974; or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. I want to rise today to express to the House the importance of this bill for so many of our constituents. Around budget time, debates in this place often revolve around unimaginable sums of money—macroeconomics, huge spending programs, figures with some so many zeros they're almost incomprehensible to the average person. The Turnbull government has made those big economic decisions in my own community, with billions of dollars for the road and rail infrastructure that we need on the Sunshine Coast and, quite frankly, that's in no small part thanks to the minister sitting at the dispatch box tonight. I want to thank him for his terrific work when he was the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. He truly did an absolutely sensational job, and I have no doubt that he will do a similar job in his role as Minister for Veterans' Affairs.

When it comes to our constituents' daily lives, often it's not the big spending programs and government grants that have the biggest impact. We often talk about some of these programs—for instance, the $3.2 billion that's being spent on infrastructure on the Sunshine Coast. Sometimes the biggest impacts are small community grants, sometimes only worth a few thousand dollars. To the average community group or the average person, that's a lot more tangible than $3.2 billion. I mean, what is $3.2 billion? What does it look like? I don't know. I've never seen it. I've never experienced that sort of money.

But one of our duties and our privileges in this place is to pass laws which protect ordinary Australians from the harm caused by the misbehaviour among those who have power over them. Alongside record spending on health and education, unprecedented income tax reform that we just announced last week and $75 billion in infrastructure investment, the Turnbull government has been very active in protecting everyday Australians from corruption, from exploitation and from fraud. We introduced the Australian Building and Construction Commission to protect workers and employers in the construction industry from the threats, intimidation and violence of the union movement and its most lawless representative, the CFMMEU. We passed the Fair Work Amendment (Corrupting Benefits) Act 2017 to protect working Australians from having their pay and conditions traded away in return for secret backhanders. We passed the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017 to stamp out the exploitation of low-paid workers, first identified in the franchising sector. As I speak, we have bills before the House and in the other place to protect superannuation savers from the improper management of their retirement savings. These and many other pieces of legislation brought forward by the Turnbull government demonstrate our commitment to protecting ordinary Australians from corruption and exploitation. There is only one side of politics that is standing up. This side of politics, the Turnbull government, is standing up for vulnerable Australians, and that is a very noble thing.

As I saw so often during my time as a barrister, ordinary consumers can face exploitation and misbehaviour from unscrupulous traders. It has to be said that most businesses operate with great integrity and with a focus on consumer satisfaction; it's at the forefront of their minds. However, there will be those who make mistakes, some intentionally. Some of them go out of their way, unfortunately, to make a quick buck by exploiting vulnerable people. The Turnbull government recognises that this is an unfortunate reality. Importantly, we also recognise that, as the world is changing, these threats change, and so the legislation that we have to address those threats must keep pace. We recognise that, in an increasingly competitive environment for products like insurance, entertainment, telecommunications and financial services, there's been a resurgence in aggressive sales techniques in public places like shopping centres and CBD streets and often in people's own homes when they get doorknocked and phone-called. Consumers can be just as vulnerable to high pressure sales and exploitation in those locations as they can in the traditional door-to-door setting. The existing law was not clear enough that these situations were covered by the proper consumer protections, so schedule 4 of this bill makes that explicit.

The government recognises that, in an era of new technology start-ups, alternative business-funding models and more flexible approaches to growth, public listing is no longer the preserve only of very large and well established businesses. That's why schedule 2 of this bill removes the carve-out which excludes publicly listed companies from protection against unconscionable conduct. We recognise that, among other things, the significant focus on speed and convenience in online sales has increased the prevalence of so-called preselected options. Too often these added-cost preselected options are not reflected in the headline price and can easily be confusing to consumers. Schedule 6 therefore ensures that in the future they will have to be made clear throughout.

Online sales in recent years have also dramatically increased the weight of goods being shipped or otherwise transported rather than purchased in person. Schedule 9 of this bill extends consumer guarantees to better cover the transport of these goods as well as providing consumers with more power to deploy those rights for themselves. We recognise that the increasing complexity of many services, especially services delivered online or using digital technology, has led to more opportunities for unscrupulous individuals and businesses to demand payment for services which were not only never requested but never in fact supplied. This includes, perhaps most notably, unsolicited demands for payment for the spurious renewal of online domain names. Schedule 3 clarifies that this behaviour is prohibited under the Consumer Law's false-billing provisions. Mr Deputy Speaker, I don't know about you, but nothing riles me more, apart from the Labor Party and the CFMEU, than receiving a letter in the mail saying that I have to pay a particular account for something that I did not ask for and that I did not purchase.

Ms Husar interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Lindsay will cease interjecting.

Ms Husar: We're just having fun. We're friends, really.

Mr WALLACE: We don't talk about that. The government has also listened to my colleagues in the legal profession, and this bill contains further practical measures to improve access to justice for consumers. Schedule 1 of the bill extends the follow-on provisions of the Australian Consumer Law to more closely match those which apply to competition law and to allow private litigants to rely on admissions of fact made by the respondent in earlier proceedings as prima facie evidence in their own case. Schedule 6 extends the minister's or delegate's power to issue disclosure notices to obtain information about the safety of goods or services to third parties like other traders, test laboratories, safety consultants or consumers. Schedule 7 further removes impediments to robust investigation of wrongdoing by extending the power of the ACCC and ASIC to use their statutory powers to determine whether a contract may be unfair. Finally, schedule 8 clarifies the remedies which are available to the court to ensure that community orders can be used sensibly to get injured parties the services they need, whatever the specific qualifications of the person in breach.

Whenever I hold a seniors forum or whenever I talk to consumer groups, I, as a barrister—although I'll tell them this isn't legal advice—will try to give them some instruction. I tell them this very simple principle—and I'll use this opportunity, this megaphone of the House of Representatives, to tell all the millions of people who will be listening right now—if someone rings you and tries to sell you something or if someone knocks on your door and tries to sell you something, whatever it is they are selling, you shouldn't be buying. Not everybody's a rip-off merchant, but I always err on the side of caution. If I want to buy something, I'll go out, I'll do my research and I will look to see who the most appropriate company is to deal with. If someone knocks on your door or rings your phone and they want to sell you something, hang up; close the door.

Ms Husar: Can you sing that?

Mr WALLACE: It could be a song! Do yourselves a favour: don't give them any information, don't sign a contract, take them nowhere, give them nothing. Protect what is yours—protect your hard-earned money. As a barrister, I saw the impact that breaches of these and many other consumer law provisions can have on everyday consumers. I saw how much more serious these impacts can be on vulnerable Australians, particularly our older Australians.

This is something that happens, unfortunately, very much in the online space. I hope my dad doesn't mind me saying this, but someone recently tried to rip him off as he tried to buy a car. The banks cop an absolute shellacking here, there and everywhere, but he literally got as far as the bank teller to get a bank cheque drawn, and the bank teller said: 'Mr Wallace, there's something about this transaction that doesn't sound right to me. Do you mind if I make some inquiries?' She went out the back and made some inquiries. My dad is 84. The teller came back out the front and said: 'Mr Wallace, I think you've been scammed. I can write this bank cheque for you if you like, but I really suggest that you don't do it.' Sure enough, Dad came to within an inch of being scammed for $10,000-odd. So, whatever you do, be very careful online. These are important reforms and I commend them to the House.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC and Deputy Leader of the House) (18:24): I rise on behalf of the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer to provide the summing up comments on behalf of the government regarding the Treasury Laws Amendment (Australian Consumer Law Review) Bill 2018.

Firstly, I'd like to thank those members who've contributed to this debate. This bill amends the Australian Consumer Law and the ASIC Act to clarify and strengthen consumer protections relating to consumer guarantees, unsolicited consumer agreements, product safety, false billing, unconscionable conduct, pricing and unfair contract terms.

Schedule 1 of this bill amends the Australian Consumer Law to ease evidentiary requirements for private litigants through expanded follow-on provisions, enabling litigants to rely on omitted facts from earlier proceedings.

Schedule 2 amends the Australian Consumer Law to extend the Australian Consumer Law and ASIC Acts unconscionable conduct protections to publicly listed companies.

Schedule 3 amends the Australian Consumer Law to amend the definition of unsolicited services, to allow the false billing provisions to apply to false bills for services not provided.

Schedule 4 amends the Australian Consumer Law to ensure that the unsolicited selling provisions operate as intended, by clarifying that the provisions can apply to public places.

Schedule 5 amends the Australian Consumer Law to enhance price transparency in online shopping by requiring that any additional fees or charges associated with preselected options are included in the headline price.

Schedule 6 amends the Australian Consumer Law to strengthen the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's powers to obtain information about product safety by broadening the power to apply to persons likely to have relevant information rather than only the supplier.

Schedule 7 amends the Australian Consumer Law and ASIC Act to enable regulators to use their existing investigative powers to better assess whether or not a term is unfair.

Schedule 8 amends the Australian Consumer Law to allow third parties to give effect to a community service order where the trader in breach is not qualified or trusted to do so.

Schedule 9 of this bill amends the Australian Consumer Law to clarify the scope of an existing exemption from the consumer guarantees regime for the transport or storage of goods where those goods are damaged or lost in transit.

Schedule 10 amends the ASIC Act to address inconsistent terminology in relation to the sale or grant of land.

Schedule 11 amends the ASIC Act to clarify that all Australian Consumer Law related consumer protections that already apply to financial services also apply to financial products.

These amendments, taken together, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Australia's consumer protection regime and ensure that the Australian Consumer Law continues to be fit for purpose. I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC and Deputy Leader of the House) (18:27): I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Australian Consumer Law Review) Bill 2018. I move the government amendment as circulated:

Schedule 7, item 1, page 10 (lines 5 to 14), omit the item, substitute:

1 At the end of section 13

Add:

(7) If a consumer contract or a small business contract is:

(a) a financial product; or

(b) a contract for the supply, or possible supply, of services that are financial services;

ASIC may make such investigations as it thinks expedient into the terms of the contract for the purposes of determining whether or not to make an application to the Court under section 12GND.

(8) Expressions used in subsection (7) that are defined in Division 2 of Part 2 have the same meaning as in that Division.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC and Deputy Leader of the House) (18:28): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (18:29): I'm pleased to be able to contribute to the Airports Amendment Bill 2016. In 1914, Claude Grahame-White, the English aviator and first pilot to ever make a night flight, had this to say about aviation:

First Europe, and then the globe, will be linked by flight, and nations so knit together that they will grow to be next-door neighbors… What railways have done for nations, airways will do for the world.

And how correct he was. Aviation has transformed our world, shrinking the way we perceive distance while growing the global economy. Today it supports almost 63 million jobs and generates some $2.7 trillion in global GDP.

Australia is benefiting from the growth in this sector, which contributes in excess of $30 billion every year to the Australian economy and supports more than half a million jobs. Tourism has driven a significant proportion of this growth. Over the last 20 years, international passenger movements have grown at an annual average rate of some 4.5 per cent, while domestic passenger movements have increased by 2.5 per cent.

But aviation is also pushing boundaries and unlocking new opportunities in other ways through advancements in technology. On 24 March this year, QF9 departed Perth for London, the first ever direct flight connecting Australia to Europe. This is a game changer for WA and a glimpse of things to come for Australia. Consequently, it is in this context that we must consider the Airports Amendment Bill 2016, which seeks to amend the Airports Act 1996 to streamline processes for development at and around federally leased airports.

The fact is that our airports are critical pieces of national economic infrastructure. They connect towns and cities across the nation to each other and are our gateway to the rest of the world. But their operations can impact significantly on the social amenity of the communities of which they are a part, which is why developments at our airports must be well planned and communities properly consulted. Already there is much development occurring around the nation's major airports, including the new greenfields airport underway in Western Sydney. In addition, major developments are at different stages of progress in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, which are all getting new runways. While we need to ensure that the aviation sector continues to grow, we must also see to it that communities which live in proximity to airports aren't disproportionately affected by this growth.

Labor strongly supports this investment in aviation infrastructure. However, this investment must be underpinned by a social compact between airports and the communities that live around them. Consequently, Labor is proposing two amendments to the Airports Amendment Bill 2016 to ensure that this occurs: firstly, that the monetary trigger threshold for major development plans be reduced to $25 million and, secondly, that the automatic approval of requests for shorter public consultation periods in relation to major development plans be removed.

As mentioned, this bill will streamline processes for development at and around federally leased airports, which Labor largely welcomes. Unlike most other infrastructure, the federal government is the consent authority for major airport development, with states and territories playing a secondary role. This has a number of implications. Firstly, under existing federal legislation, 19 of the 21 federally leased airports are required to prepare a master plan every five years, which is then subject to approval by the federal minister. What that means, literally, is that every five years you have a process whereby development not just over those five years but with a 20-year forward horizon has to be approved by the minister. It means that we have strategic direction for development around airports. It means that communities can have ongoing input into the operation of airports.

This is a critical change, and it arose from the 2009 aviation white paper, undertaken under the former Labor government. This was the first time ever that we had had a strategic plan for aviation with a green-paper and white-paper process in this country. One of the important processes of reforms that came up through that white-paper process is the legislation that we are dealing with here today in terms of moving further amendments. Importantly, the master plan update process does require that community consultation.

Secondly, major developments at airports, including certain projects that currently cost more than $20 million in construction, require federal approval of a major development plan. The 21 airports subject to this legislation are Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin, Bankstown, Gold Coast, Alice Springs, Camden, Townsville, Tennant Creek, Archerfield, Mount Isa, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Essendon, Launceston, Parafield, Jandakot and Moorabbin. Western Sydney Airport is also included. The Airports Amendment Bill 2016 will make a number of changes to the existing approvals process. These include moving eligible airports from a five-year master plan to an eight-year cycle. However, the main gateway airports of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth will remain on a five-year cycle, as will Western Sydney after representations from Labor, because with the new airport you will need to ensure that there is closer monitoring over its initial years of operation.

Additional changes include that an updated Australian Noise Exposure Forecast will be required in each master plan—that is, you will have out there, in a transparent way in each master plan, a clear update of what the noise impact will be for each of these airports around Australia. All 21 airports will enable that process, which will, of course, need to include the community consultation as well. The legislation proposes to lift the monetary trigger for the requirement for a separate major development plan for certain major projects from $20 million to $35 million. Our amendment that we will move in consideration in detail to reduce that back down to $25 million will receive the support of the government as well. I thank the incoming minister, Minister McCormack, who is certainly more consultative than some of his predecessors. That is a constructive dialogue that has occurred with the new minister. This is essentially a CPI increase from the previous figure of $20 million to $25 million. That is a reasonable change, but I think people want to ensure that that scrutiny isn't reduced. Hence, the figure of $25 million is a sensible resolution, and I think it's a good sign that the minister has been prepared to accept Labor's proposition on that. It will also introduce three-yearly cost indexation thereafter, so that will get around the issue of what the figure should be in the future. The automatic indexation removes the need to come back into the parliament and make amendments to the act. This will, of course, also allow for better definition of cost elements of the trigger.

The monetary trigger, however, already sits alongside subjective alternative triggers for requiring MDPs as well, based on significant environmental or other impacts. If anything of significance is occurring and, regardless of the value, it is going to have a significant environmental impact, the major development plan is automatically triggered regardless of the value of that upgrade of the airport by any particular project which may be under the monetary threshold. This is a sensible reform as well.

The changes will include establishing a decision time frame of 15 days for the minister to consider reduced consultation periods for major development plans. What is in the proposal originally was that a plan would be deemed to be approved if the time frame were not met. This aligns with existing provisions in the act relating to deemed master plan approval after a 50-day period. What we will be proposing in our amendment that we will move in consideration in detail is a process so that the request, rather than being assumed to have been approved, will be assumed to have been refused. What that ensures is that something can't be approved due to omission, or due to a failure to take action, and will ensure the conscious involvement of the minister but also that those processes around the approval of the MDP are kept in place. It will enable the minister to extend, by more than once, the period during which major developments are required to be substantially completed. Failure to comply can lead to civil penalties under existing legislation. For example, when I was the minister there were occurrences whereby a project simply hadn't been completed. What this will do is allow for that period of examination to be extended. Again, a common sense resolution that is about making a practical change to the operation of the act.

It will also allow airport operators to notify the minister if exceptional circumstances mean that a major development cannot proceed. At the moment, if an approval is given for a particular project and it can't proceed, because of circumstances of a failure to receive financing for a project or for another reason, the act provides for civil penalties to be imposed under the existing legislation. This is also a sensible change. According to the government, these changes will relieve inefficient outcomes for the industry while lifting unnecessary and onerous administrative burdens.

Labor has supported the broad consultative mechanisms involving local community engagement, proper assessment of community impacts and reasonable mitigation measures to address these impacts. Generally, the package reduces the burden on approval for development of the affected airports and creates more flexibility around legislative time frames whilst ensuring that the protections for consultation and other measures are not diluted.

We support the amendments. We've put forward the two amendments to the Airport Amendment Bill. We are pleased that the government has seen the virtue of our practical amendments and will be supporting them when they are moved. The first amendment is that a major development plan must be completed in a number of circumstances, including when a monetary trigger is reached. The current monetary trigger of $20 million was determined back in 2007, so a rough guestimate would indicate that increasing the threshold to $25 million is practical. The $25 million essentially reflects the changes in construction costs over that 10-year period. The opposition looked at the ABS construction CPI, which showed that costs have increased by 20 per cent since 2007. Hence, a consistent position of applying basically a 20 per cent increase to that threshold, so a practical figure of $25 million is reasonable.

With the second amendment, the simple fact is that communities do require proper consultation. Currently, the public consultation period associated with draft major development plans, as specified in subsection 92(2A), of the act is 60 business days. However, the minister can approve a shorter period of not less than 15 business days if asked in writing by the airport operator to do so, and as long as they are satisfied that the proposed development is consistent with the airport masterplan and does not raise any issues that have a significant impact on the local or regional community. The proposed amendment inserts a new subsection 92(2BA), which would provide that if the airport makes a request for a shorter consultation period, and the minister does not make a decision on the request within 15 business days, then the minister is deemed to have approved that shorter period.

Labor couldn't support such an amendment, because it had the potential to undermine the rights of local communities to have their say. In the words of the Bills Digest prepared by the Parliamentary Library:

This amendment seems to raise the possibility that the Minister could simply not decide on the request, and then be deemed to have approved the short period, even if the development is inconsistent with the airport master plan, or raises issues that have a significant impact on the local or regional community.

Not for the first time, the people in the Parliamentary Library who do the Bills Digest have got it right. We're very fortunate to be able to benefit as lawmakers from proper advice.

It should be well within a minister's capability to consider within 15 days a request for reduced consultation, and, where that doesn't occur, it certainly isn't appropriate that the request would be deemed approved anyway. I wouldn't suggest that some of the ministers under this government who've had control of infrastructure might have slept through 15 days, but, if you were cynical perhaps, you might come to that conclusion and be concerned that it would be deemed to be approved by not making a decision. That would not be appropriate.

I'm sure that the current minister—and it's been a revolving door; it's got to be said. There have been four of them in the last very short period of time. I've got on with all of them okay, it must be said, and have had reasonable working relations with them. Nonetheless, I do not want to see circumstances whereby decisions are deemed to have been made by not making a decision. That is not a sensible way to legislate.

Of course, this Airports Amendment Bill—you will note, Mr Deputy Speaker—is the Airports Amendment Bill 2016. It's been around for a while. That would indicate perhaps that the people who've had responsibility for it aren't as dynamic as they could have been, given that it is now towards the middle of 2018, so that makes my point, I think. It's good that Minister McCormack has gotten on top of this issue so quickly, it having just sat on the Notice Paper for so long.

I'm very proud of Labor's record when it comes to aviation. We have always sought to balance the needs of the sector with the rights of the community. Aviation is an important economic asset for the nation. In an island continent such as ours, we by definition rely in modern times, in this century, on aviation to connect ourselves with the world, whether that be by Australians travelling to and from the world—we're great travellers—or, importantly, by attracting tourists to come here as well and therefore creating jobs.

The aviation white paper had a range of reforms which this legislation reflects, prohibiting developments incompatible with aviation use on federal airport sites, for a start, unless exceptional circumstances exist. So the priority of airports is aviation. That sounds an obvious thing, but the fact is that, because it was federal land, a whole range of developments that were incompatible with aviation were considered to be supported in a range of airports, particularly the smaller airports, where general aviation is so important.

Secondly, we required federal airports to establish community aviation consultation groups. Before the aviation white paper and legislation, they didn't exist in most airports right around Australia. The interests both of the airports and of the communities around them are served by proper consultation. A range of airports do it better than others, but it is important that that be mandated so that for issues such as aircraft noise and the impact on communities there is an opportunity for communities to have that direct input.

We obligated federal airports to submit more detailed master plans, so no more could you have changes made which, essentially, hadn't been properly scrutinised. We introduced the new major development plan trigger, activated by any development with a significant community impact, regardless of size or cost. Before white paper, that was not a consideration. We established the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman. That was an important reform that has meant that communities have somewhere to go that is independent of the ownership of the airports and independent of the government. It's important that they could have confidence that there was an office that was dealing with aircraft noise, which can be an issue not just for major airports but for the many secondary airports, particularly around our capital cities. Of course, we also banned a range of older, noisier aircraft from operating at our airports.

I conclude by saying that Labor strongly supports investment in aviation. We understand the importance of the role that aviation plays in supporting jobs. We're committed to growing the sector. But the simple fact is that this investment must be underpinned by the social compact between airports and the communities that live around them. That's why we'll put forward those amendments to the Airports Amendment Bill 2016. That's why I am pleased that the government, and the minister, in particular, have indicated support for those amendments. I commend the bill to the House with the knowledge that the bill's flaws will be fixed by those amendments that we will move in the consideration in detail stage.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (18:52): I am very pleased to follow the member for Grayndler on the Airports Amendment Bill 2016. I would like to congratulate him on his recent manifesto, where he said that it is not our job to sow discontent. That is so true. Class warfare, identity politics and sowing discontent in our nation are shameful practices which should be condemned and called out at every opportunity. I congratulate the member for Grayndler for that statement.

I also congratulate him for his other statement—I hope I'm quoting correctly from his manifesto; he may like to interject in case I get it wrong—in which he said, 'we do have to engage constructively with business, large and small'. Absolutely; again, I agree with that 100 per cent. The idea that one side of this parliament wants to come and rip the tax cuts away and add an extra burden on small business is something that everyone in this parliament should stand up and condemn. I congratulate the member for Grayndler on that as he leaves the chamber.

Back on 15 April 2014, the coalition government announced that the site of Sydney's new Western Sydney Airport would be at Badgerys Creek. I can remember being at Peakhurst High School in the 1970s, and our economics teacher, Mr Simpson, who was a fantastic economics teacher, said to the class—I can still recall today: 'There will never be another airport built in Sydney. In the lifetime of anyone in this classroom, there will never be another airport built in Sydney.' Well, it looks as though this is one of the rare occasions on which my high school economics teacher will be proven wrong, because the coalition is going ahead with the construction of this airport in Western Sydney.

It will be a boost for the local economy. I hear the member for Penrith over there yawning, when she should be absolutely proud and be 100 per cent behind this.

Ms Husar: Lindsay.

Mr CRAIG KELLY: Lindsay—I apologise. I withdraw. I said 'the member for Penrith'. I'm sorry; I spoke incorrectly. It's the member for Lindsay.

Mr Husic: Rookie!

Mr CRAIG KELLY: The member for Lindsay is not a rookie at all. That's not a very nice comment there from the member sitting at the dispatch box. The member at the dispatch box should not make that inference about the member for Lindsay. I know she's trying her best, but you should not call her a rookie. I'm sure the member for Lindsay supports this airport, because she knows about the jobs that it will create in her local electorate and for her constituents. Construction of the airport will add a $3.6 billion infrastructure package and an estimated 8,000 new jobs. I see the two members sitting on the opposite side. A lot of those jobs will be for constituents in your electorates. I am very happy. They should be here supporting this bill 100 per cent, but instead we still hear this ranting and raving, this antibusiness rhetoric that we continually hear, this continual opposition for opposition's sake.

However, as we get on to the construction of a new airport in Western Sydney, there is one concern that I would like to raise. This goes to our commitment under the Paris climate control agreement. Under that, we have to reduce our carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 26 to 28 per cent off 2005 levels by the year 2030. One of the largest emissions sectors of our economy is transport. We know that by 2020 the transport sector will make up something like 18 per cent of our nation's CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions. Of that 18 per cent, according to a paper here on Australia's greenhouse emissions projections for 2017 by the Department of the Environment and Energy, Australia's domestic aviation emissions in 2020 will be nine million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, but by 2030 it will have increased to 12 million tonnes. So we're looking at a 30 per cent increase in the carbon emissions from our domestic aviation, yet under the Paris agreement that we have there has to be a 26 to 28 per cent reduction, not off 2020 levels but off 2005 levels. So, just on rough back-of-the-envelope calculations, if we are going to have every sector do its so-called share in that 26 to 28 per cent reduction, I see that from where we are today, rather than having an increase of a third in our domestic aviation emissions with more flights, more people travelling and more overseas tourists, we're going to have to have something like a 40 per cent decrease.

This is where it gets interesting, because the policy of the mob on the other side, under the Paris agreement, is to have a 45 per cent reduction in emissions. So I put the challenge to those who sit on that side of the chamber: can you tell me what emissions reductions you want in our domestic aviation sector? What do you want?

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr CRAIG KELLY: We just heard it there. The opposition want to prevent Australians from travelling. That's what they want to do. They want to prevent Australians from travelling, one of the greatest rights that we have. One of the greatest improvements that we've had is that Australians can travel and visit other areas of our nation, with all the tourism jobs that come with it. The opposition want a 45 per cent reduction. Not only would they be happy to close down our new airport in Western Sydney; but they would have to close down a lot of the internal flights around this nation to meet their absurd, economy-wrecking, job-destroying emissions reductions. It's very timely that the shadow assistant minister for climate change has come into the chamber, because he may be able to inform us what Labor's plan is to reduce emissions in the domestic aviation sector.

We've recently seen a lot of debate in the UK on Heathrow Airport saying they are having a new third runway. Is it any wonder? As we look around the world, they're talking about the number of passengers on international flights being set to double between now and 2030 or 2040. But an interesting comment in the debate on Heathrow was from a gentleman called Leo Murray, director of the campaign group Fellow Travellers. He said:

If Britain moves to a net zero 2050 target to honour the Paris agreement, all domestic flights will need to end pretty much immediately.

I would like to know this: is that the policy of the Australian Labor Party? Do they want more or fewer Australians to fly domestically? The Australian Labor Party want to have a policy of a 45 per cent emissions reduction target over and above what we already have. And we should remember that our Paris target is already, per capita, the most onerous in the world.

Mr Conroy: A rubbish comparison!

Mr CRAIG KELLY: I hear the interjection from the shadow assistant minister for climate change. Maybe he could inform the House sometime later tonight which nation per capita has a higher emissions reduction target than Australia. Is there any answer? Of course not. He knows it's correct: we have the highest emissions reduction target per capita in the world. The Labor Party say: 'That is not enough. We want to make it even higher. We want that 45 per cent emissions reduction target.' What would that do to domestic aviation? How many people do they want to deny the right to fly in Australia? How do they want to reduce it? This is the debate that we should be having. The Labor Party cannot hide behind these feel-good numbers without explaining what effect they will have on each sector of the economy. I would hope during this debate on aviation and the Western Sydney Airport that the Labor Party take the opportunity to tell the Australian citizens how many people they want to deny the right to fly. That is what their policy will result in.

We also have the issue of international air travel. We know that domestic air travel is a major part of our emissions profile. I've got some numbers here from 2016. We had 7. 1 million Australians fly domestically for leisure and travel. But 5.3 million Australians actually flew overseas for holidays. For business domestically, it was 2.1 million Australians. But 628,000 Australians flew overseas for business. If you look at the average flight internally in Australia—it might be from Sydney to Melbourne, from Melbourne to Brisbane or from Adelaide to Sydney—it probably averages around an hour and a half. But I would say those international flights would average eight to 12 hours. So our emissions from our international flights will be far, far greater than our emissions from our domestic flights. So, again, I ask members of the Labor Party: if they want to pursue their 45 per cent emissions reduction target—that economy-wrecking, job-destroying emissions reduction target—what is their policy on international aviation? How many Australians will they want to deny the right to fly overseas?

One of the great privileges of being an Australian today is the opportunity that Australians have to travel overseas and see the world and to experience different cultures and different lands. Members of the Labor Party, with their emissions reduction target, want to take that opportunity away from Australians. They should explain their policy in full. How will you reduce your emissions? What are your plans? How many fewer Australians will have the right and the opportunity to travel overseas under your reckless, economy-destroying, 45 per cent emissions reduction target? I bet that we'll hear nothing from them, because if they explain their policies, if they let Australians know the harm that they are going to inflict on them, the rights that they are going to take away from them, the Labor Party will be consigned to electoral history. So they'll fudge it. They'll continue to talk about feel-good numbers and they'll continue to rant and rave, as we have seen.

This is a fantastic opportunity. This bill gives every member of the Labor Party a chance to stand up, either at the dispatch box or at their seat in this House, and explain to the Australian public how many Australians they want to deny the right to fly, domestically and internationally. Because that is exactly what their policy is—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews) interjecting—

Mr CRAIG KELLY: We hope, Deputy Speaker! I will leave my remarks there to make sure that I give the members sitting on the other side of the House ample opportunity to explain those things to the Australian public.

Mr Craig Kelly interjecting—

Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (19:06): I don't have to be lectured to by the energy minister and the coalition, demanding a whole series of answers from the Labor Party. I don't care. You don't bring your coalition party room approach to the floor of the parliament. You don't tell us what to do, Member for Heathcote!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Andrews ): Order! The honourable member will use the correct title.

Mr HUSIC: It will be a pleasant change, given he misnamed a whole swag of electorates.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member will use the correct title or I'll sit him down.

Mr HUSIC: I apologise, Deputy Speaker. The member for Hughes—the man who thundered about—what was the interchange in his area? I can't remember. He used to get very uptight about that interchange.

Mr Craig Kelly: Moorebank.

Mr HUSIC: Moorebank, that was it. I was trying to remember the one he used to go on about. He used to feel very uptight about it, and he seems to deny people the right to have their say. The member for Hughes is big on free speech, except when people have alternative views. Then he doesn't want to hear those views. Anyhow, I'm sure the quality of his contributions will improve when he joins the crossbench and we'll see some really good, solid policy development coming out of there. Or is he considered part of the crossbench within the coalition party room and has a great deal of leverage?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The honourable member will come back to the subject of the bill or I will sit him down.

Mr HUSIC: Anyhow, talking of freedom of speech, I do reflect on the fact that the member has previously had very strong views about infrastructure developments, just as others are entitled to have the types of views about infrastructure developments that this bill is supposed to allow communities to have, to be able to have some impact on the way in which plans are made. While the member for Hughes during his contribution suggested that the Badgerys Creek airport would have massive job-creating impacts in Western Sydney, the reality is that in my part of Western Sydney it won't have anywhere near the impact. In fact, the coalition hung its hat on the claim that this airport would be needed in Western Sydney to create jobs. They said thousands of jobs would be created for Western Sydney. But it was interesting to note the sheepish admission from the Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities a few months ago. We had been saying for ages, 'Put a figure on the number of jobs that will be created in Western Sydney by this.'—because the job figure bounces around like a ping-pong ball. On top of that, there is no firm commitment from them about whether or not the bulk of the jobs would be created.

Mr McCormack: They're still jobs.

Mr HUSIC: I take the interjection of the minister, who says, 'They're still jobs.' Yes, they are, but they're not jobs for the entire region; they are jobs that will be located largely in one part of Western Sydney. Western Sydney itself, growing at the pace that it is, is way bigger than many of those on the other side even understand or appreciate. I certainly wouldn't expect this minister to appreciate Western Sydney in any great detail whatsoever, other than it being a great talking point for a media release. The reality is this: instead of saying that the lion's share of jobs will be created in our area, all they can get is a 50 per cent target for job creation out of that airport. The bulk of the jobs won't even go to Western Sydney; 50 per cent of the jobs will be going to people outside the region. Can we land—pardon the unintended pun—on an actual jobs figure? The figure bounces around: is it 20,000 or 40,000? If it's 40,000 then 20,000 jobs will be created at this airport. That's it.

This bill is supposed to promote community dialogue and consultation, but this airport still hasn't released the actual flight paths. The minister might want to let us know when the flight paths for this airport are going to be released. This bill says they'll provide greater community consultation, and they can't tell you where the planes will fly. I've heard about a pub with no beer, but never an airport with no planes. They keep talking about all the jobs that this airport will create, but they can only do a 50 per cent job target, and they never tell you the actual flight paths.

Here's the big tip: I bet you any money we won't find the flight paths before an election, will we? No, not at all. They are ramping up the construction and making all the announcements, but they won't properly commit to the maximum number of jobs for Western Sydney and they don't have the guts to tell you where those planes will fly. This is scandalous: $10 billion of public funds are being spent on this airport—roughly $3½ billion on the road network around it then the $5 billion now being assumed by the Commonwealth for driving it—and they won't tell you the flight paths. They'll get so much of this thing built that, when the communities find out how they are affected, it'll be too late. It is the most cynical way to design, implement and manage a project of this size.

This bill, by the way, was introduced in December 2016, and gets debated now, nearly two years later. We are told that the whole master plan concept will improve the way in which they'll consult with and bring people along with them on these developments, right? Rubbish! You can look at current experience: the community is not being treated with any respect on a major development right now. This is all about clamouring to an inner-city and Eastern Suburbs approach to what happens in Western Sydney.

Western Sydney is growing at such a pace. In my part of Western Sydney 150,000 people are moving in. The motorways and trains are crammed. The public hospital infrastructure doesn't keep pace with growth in our area. Hospital waiting lists for surgeries and emergency departments are crammed full. It's not keeping pace with development. The schools on the most backlogged maintenance lists in the state are located in Western Sydney, and we are not developing them. Funds are being cut from universities and from TAFEs.

In my part of Western Sydney 150,000 people are moving in, with another 300,000 moving into the south-west of Sydney, and the answer that is being advocated to fix clogged roads and rail, hospitals that are falling apart or not keeping pace with growth, and schools that don't get the proper funding is to put $10 billion into an airport. If I had ever said to a Western Sydney resident that the solution to all that is to spend $10 billion of public funds to build an airport, and to cynically do it in a way where the full impact of that development is not explained to the public, people would think you had rocks in your head. The reality is: that's exactly what is happening right now, where $10 billion is being put into one project.

That's before we even get to the expenditure on the North South Rail Line connecting the airport into Western Sydney or a western rail line from Penrith, where the member for Lindsay represents, through to the city. We're going to connect up all these people from that airport onto a congested Western Line. I would love for coalition ministers to go out to railway stations in Western Sydney and see rows five deep of people waiting to get on a train. Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, I'm sure you would see in Melbourne as well that people want to support public transport, and it is so patronised that trains are packed. I see it when I stand at the stations at Rooty Hill, Doonside and especially Mount Druitt. I think to myself, 'Those people are getting on trains where people from Penrith, Werrington, St Marys were then joined by people in Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill, Doonside before getting to the next major railway station of Blacktown.' They will stand the whole way—for over an hour, in the case of the member for Lindsay's constituents. Then, on top of that, we will connect patrons from the North South Rail Line without thinking if we've cleared the congestion on the Western Line, which the state government knows is a problem as well. None of that consultation takes place, but this bill that we're debating now should fix up a master plan just for an airport—one airport that's being put in there. It is wrong; people are right and they should be getting sick to their back teeth of it.

The other big thing is the M7 motorway that's supposed to connect up. Mind you, no-one ever thought for a moment that, instead of building a North South Rail Line, they could use the easement on the M7, which is vacant right now. They could put in busways, a scalable response to meeting transport needs. They could convert those easements that are there—Transurban knows they are there; the government knows they are there—into bus lanes that would allow for buses to ferry people north-south. We're going to build a rail line, but we never thought of using an alternative. That will be wasted.

The M7 is already getting congested. I commend the then Howard government on working with the state government to make that reality—it is a great roadway—but it is already starting to get congested because of growth in Western Sydney. We haven't even thought about the next big roadway, the M9, which has to run parallel to the M7. Where's the funding going to come from for that? When you put $10 billion into one federal project and then ask for more, it's very hard to do it because other states—and I notice the member for Holt is here and that the deputy speaker is from Melbourne—get a little bit itchy when you take $10 billion for one project and then want to ask for more.

This is the dilemma that we have in Western Sydney. We know that all these other projects that need vital infrastructure support will now be competing not only against one big project but also against the other states and territories. We have 500,000-plus people moving into the region. The western part of Sydney will soon dwarf the eastern part in population numbers, but none of the decisions for Western Sydney actually get driven by Western Sydney people; it's all in the east. There are deals that could help parts of our area—these much-vaunted city deals that get announced—but the biggest council in Western Sydney does not have a city deal. Why? It is because it had the temerity to disagree with the federal government about the airport and so it has been blacklisted and not included as part of the city deal announcement. All these other councils get to go in, but the biggest council is left off it. Why? As I said, it is because it dared have an opposing view to this government. The biggest council with the largest population sector and the largest amount of development occurring is left off and not provided funding. It will get no federal funds to think in the long-term about how to do development in a way that will support growth in that part of Western Sydney. Again, eastern Sydney people—or people outside of Western Sydney—are calling the shots on what's happening. When we get this bill through, do you reckon I have any faith whatsoever that it'll actually deliver what it promises, which is supposedly better consultation? No, because I've seen what 'consultation' is; consultation is eastern and northern Sydney people calling the shots, as it has always been.

As I often say when it comes to Western Sydney, 'The things we need, we never get; the stuff we never ask for gets forced on us.' This bill is just a facade to support more of that behaviour, because, if Western Sydney started jacking up through the master plans and all the stuff that goes on that masks itself as consultation, we'd be ignored. No-one ever asked for this airport in our part of Western Sydney. They wanted serious jobs and serious infrastructure to deal with the things that we know are going to be long-term problems. But it will be too late. I'm happy to be proven wrong. If all my concerns about this airport turn out to be wrong, I'm happy to wear egg on my face. If I am right, I'll be interested to see if the people who argued for this airport will still be here. No, they will not, and we will have spent $10 billion on a facility and all the other infrastructure needs will have been neglected and people will have been left to suffer crowded roadways and crowded public transport, hospitals that don't meet their needs and schools that aren't being invested in.

So, yes, good luck with this bill genuinely tapping into community sentiment. I very much doubt it will. Like much of the stuff this government does, it's all facade and no form.

Mr BROAD (Mallee) (19:20): I'm not going to talk about Western Sydney Airport, but I am going to talk about why the Airports Amendment Bill 2016 has a lot of importance. It's actually got a lot of importance when it comes to access to airports. We spend so much time thinking about flight routes and flight paths in our cities, but there's a reason aeroplanes have to fly over cities: they have to land at those airports.

A lot of those airports play a very critical role for the people I represent when it comes to their health. Across the electorate of Mallee, the range of Air Ambulance helicopters is somewhat limited. That's just a physical limitation because of fuel. If you were flying from Essendon Airport you could get to Bendigo, but you certainly couldn't make it to Mildura without having to refuel and come back. So, because helicopter range is a limiting factor for health delivery in Victoria, we have to have fixed-wing aircraft that they need to land on an airstrip. Air Ambulance run a King Air B200. The Flying Doctor Service are running the Pilatus PC-12. Essentially, the King Airs are coming in and out of Essendon Airport, and I have been concerned that Essendon Airport, whilst it's a very strategic airport for us, has allowed more and more development. We need to be very careful that, when we think about the master plans for airports, we ensure they keep their primary focus—which is to ensure that they are available for aircraft to land in and land in safely.

To give an idea of the scale of the flights, we would have four aircraft a day coming out of Mildura, taking someone who might have a premature baby to a hospital in Melbourne, taking a victim of a car crash, taking a person who might have had a heart attack. That's four flights a day coming out of one town. Out of the township of Horsham we have three a day flying down to Melbourne, and out of the township of Swan Hill there are three a day on average.

For those who don't know, I am a pilot myself. I own a good 177RG Cessna, one of the best light sport aircraft ever built—a nice Cessna with a Lycoming 200 horsepower fuel-injected engine, retractable gear and a constant-speed prop. It gets along at about 150 knots. When I am flying that plane, I am constantly coming across air ambulances flying across my electorate. So I see just how important this is. What we don't want is to get to a stage where we allow growth that doesn't match up with our national interests—growth that inhibits the opportunities to be landing at Essendon. In that case, air ambulances would have to go Moorabbin Airport, and I don't think that would be an acceptable outcome for the people of Victoria. The difference in congestion and distance you would have with getting land transport from the air ambulance in Moorabbin through to a hospital in central Melbourne could sometimes be the difference between life and death.

I commend the government for having a very proactive role in this and for saying that, when there is a master plan, they are going to have a good look at it to ensure that it maintains national and strategic interests. I say to the people who complain about aeroplanes flying over their heads: keep in mind that some of these aeroplanes are flying people whose life depends on it, and that country Australians do need to have access to city airports and that those slots do need to be available.

I will also point out that in contrast to Sydney one of the things that has become a commercial advantage about Melbourne is that we don't have restricted landing hours. The planes can come in and out at different times. This has facilitated, in a significant way, the opportunity for agricultural and horticultural products to make their way out of Melbourne. The open skies policy, which the Australian government has, has been very beneficial.

Out of my patch every night there would be a semitrailer load of asparagus that's trucked down to Melbourne Airport that's put in the belly of an A380 or a 777 and is largely sent to the UAE, and from there it makes its way into the markets. When I met with the CEO of Emirates airlines a while ago, one of the reasons they were flying, at that stage, out of Adelaide—even though they didn't have enough passenger movements, because they couldn't get enough passengers to fill the plane—was that they could get the plane to its maximum take-off weight on the back of agricultural products in the belly of those planes.

In contrast, the 24-hour access that's available in Melbourne has created more opportunity for exports of our nation and the restrictions on Sydney Airport have actually limited that. I find it quite interesting that we have people who put their hand on their heart and believe in having an open market where we have our ports open, such as our seaports, but they want to put restrictions on our airports, which also take our export goods as a nation. This is one of the reasons why Western Sydney plays a very critical role: it will allow us to have an additional spot for us to take our products to the markets.

One of the things that's also a concern to me, as a person who lives in a regional area, is even getting into Sydney—getting those slots for regional aircraft into Sydney Airport—has become more and more difficult, and has been sometimes some of the restrictions for opening up routes for servicing country Australians' access into our capital cities. That's another reason why it is good to see the government building a second airport in Sydney. It isn't just an issue for the people who live in Sydney; it's also an issue for the national competitiveness, and for the people who live in regional areas.

I will talk about the importance of general aviation and having general aviation access into airports such as Parafield, which I've flown into; into airports such as the Gold Coast, which I've flown into and will be flying into in a couple of weeks; and into airports such as Jandakot and Archerfield. The general aviation sector services not just business travellers but regional Australians that need to fly into those cities. One of the great challenges we've got if we are going to have safe, open and good air services for many years to come is that we need to be encouraging the general aviation sector, so that we have more pilots. Everyone who flies a big plane starts off in a little plane. I know it might sound like rocket science, but you usually start off in little Tecnam or maybe a 152 Cessna. Then you progress from there. Then you move your way up. The dream is to finish up flying the A380 Airbus, the A350 Airbus, the 777 or the Bart 787—'If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going', for those who believe in good American aircraft.

It does concern me that the general aviation sector is being forced out of too many of our airports and that restrictions around ASIC cards have made life difficult for a lot of general aviation pilots, who have legitimate reasons, to be landing at the airports. We need to ensure that ownership of general aviation aircraft is affordable and that medicals are fair and reasonable. I think if we're not careful we'll get to a stage where we will be limiting our capacity to open up the opportunities for aviation, because we can't find enough pilots.

I commend this bill to the House. This is wise. We do need to have very strong and considered oversight when it comes to airports. They provide links for regional Australia for our agricultural products, our safety and our general aviation. This bill is going a long way towards that. I hope and trust that our government will continue to stand by general aviation so we can have a vibrant, prosperous regional Australia for many years to come.