Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (10:03): Today I present the 26th report of the Petitions Committee for the 45th Parliament.

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (10:06): I'm very proud to stand to support the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill, because we on this side of the House understand just how much pressure families are under. Cost-of-living pressures and the cost of rent in my area of Parramatta are dramatically impacting on households' capacity to pay their bills. I know how many families in my area trying to balance their work, family and cost-of-living issues have sorted out ways to get through their lives by working a few extra shifts on the weekend, with maybe one partner working a few extra days. That is incredibly important to the decisions they have made about how they fund their families and pay the bills. And this decision by the Fair Work Commission and the decision by this Turnbull government to enthusiastically support that decision show just how out of touch this government is. It shows a complete lack of understanding of how much pressure households are under from the costs of living and stagnant wage growth, let alone wage cuts. It's also bad economics. It was at the time and it has been proven to be so since it was introduced.

Let's look at the impact on families first. Let's look at who's hit and who suffers the most. Low-paid workers in retail, fast food, hospitality and pharmacy have had their penalty rates cut and, when it flows through finally, will be up to $3,273 worse off a year. That's a $70 cut for a Sunday penalty shift. Calculations show that, because of the cuts to Sunday and public holiday penalty rates, workers in various industries face cuts to take-home pay up to the following amounts: pharmacy, $3,273; retail, $2,450; hospitality, $1,884; fast food, $1,628; and restaurants, $586. The government can afford to give $7,000 tax cuts to people on $200,000 a year, while taking away penalty rates from the people who can least afford it. In Parramatta, there are 12,300 people or one in six workers in the retail, food and accommodation industries affected by the cuts to penalty rates. That's one in six. In Parramatta, we're seeing up to one in six workers losing up to $77 a week as well as an additional $80 a week on new tolls, rents well over $400 a week and a new Medicare levy coming in for lower income workers. The government, of course, thinks it can compensate people with a $10 a week tax cut for what are substantial decreases in their take-home pay. But it's not just about the families that are affected. These are actually customers. One in six customers in Parramatta have had their take-home pay cut, and these are the lowest paid people in our community who spend every dollar they earn. If you cut the wages of one in six of your customers, what do you think you get? You get less spending for a start. That, to me, is so obvious. When we have been debating this for over a year now, I've been wondering why those on the other side who claim to know so much about business don't get what happens when one in six of your customers get their take-home pay cut, particularly if those customers are the ones that spend all the money.

The figures prove the point. A survey of 1,351 workers by the University of Wollongong and Macquarie University found 'there has been no short-term increase in the number of hours worked by employees'. The government promised that, if they cut penalty rates, there would be more jobs and more hours. There are not. University of Wollongong lecturer Martin O'Brien is reported as saying:

… some workers experienced a drop in the number of penalty-rate hours they worked in the first two months after penalty rates were reduced.

They concluded:

… 15 per cent of all retail workers who were employed on Sundays worked 9 per cent fewer hours, while hospitality workers experienced no change.

So retail workers actually worked fewer hours.

It was also obvious that the cuts would impact on consumer spending. All those penalty rate workers that dropped into the pub on the way home from work before their penalty rates were cut just don't do it now. They just don't do it. They have less money in their pockets to spend in local businesses. The controversial cuts to Sunday and public holiday rates on 1 July were followed by the weakest three months of consumer spending since the global financial crisis. So consumer spending was at zero growth following the cuts to penalty rates.

All the promises about the positive benefits of cuts to penalty rates have not been forthcoming, but damage to the income of households has. We have families increasingly struggling to pay the bills and looking at subsequent penalty rate cuts over the next few years. It's bad policy from the government, and I support this amendment to wind it back.

Mr LAUNDY (Reid—Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) (10:11): I rise today to continue to discuss the hypocrisy of those opposite when it comes to penalty rates. For over 100 years now, rates of pay in this country have been set independent of government. The reason for that was in case you ever had a situation where a populist leader, desperate to do anything to become Prime Minister, turned around and promised a pay increase in an attempt to get votes. Heaven help us that that's exactly where we find ourselves today. The even greater irony is that the independent umpire in its current form was in fact put in place and overseen by the Labor Party and the union movement, post the 2007 election: the Fair Work Commission, which is the independent umpire in all things to do with industrial relations.

The irony doesn't stop and the hypocrisy doesn't stop there. The Leader of the Opposition was one of the key architects of that act, where the four-yearly reviews of modern awards were initiated, the process that came up with the decision that we're debating today. There was hypocrisy again in 2010, when the Leader of the Opposition was the minister responsible, when there was the first decision by the Fair Work Commission to reduce penalty rates in some modern awards. What did we hear from those opposite? Crickets. We heard nothing. Then in 2014, at the end of another four-yearly review, there were more changes to reduce Sunday penalty rates to some restaurant awards. And what did we hear then? We finally heard support for the Fair Work Commission, especially, most loudly, from the member for Gorton, the shadow minister, who stood up and argued that that is how the system works and the Fair Work Commission is the independent umpire, as it should be, as is fit and proper. But the even bigger hypocrisy here, the latest example, is that those opposite today are saying that they will turn around and overrule their own independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission—the one that they constructed.

The bill that we're talking about, the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018, does not include changes to enterprise bargaining agreements. But the reality is that the Leader of the Opposition, in his union career pre politics, did exactly what he is rallying against today. In 2006, in an agreement that he oversaw, 780 BigW workers in North Queensland had their Sunday penalty rates cut from 200 per cent to 150 per cent. In another 2006 agreement, again under his stewardship, 129 Target workers in North Queensland had their penalty rates cut from 200 per cent to 150 per cent.

Before the last election, when the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, was asked by Neil Mitchell on 3AW if he would accept the findings of the independent umpire and the decision about penalty rates that was pending at that stage, he answered yes. Neil Mitchell asked:

You'll accept them?

SHORTEN: Yes

MITCHELL: Even if they reduce Sunday penalty rates?

SHORTEN: Well, I said I'd accept the independent tribunal …

It suited him then; it doesn't suit him now. Why? Because he's in a populist drive for votes. At the same time, as I mentioned, there is the hypocrisy. I ran into a young bloke, Michael, in my electorate working in a major fast-food chain a couple of weekends ago, on a Saturday. I asked him what roster he works. He works six hours on a Saturday and six hours on a Sunday. He is $27 a week worse off because he is employed under an enterprise bargaining agreement that was negotiated by the shop, distributive and allied union, the SDA—the biggest supporter of the Labor Party in terms of both membership and dollars over the last decade—which has actually reduced penalty rates far in excess of what the Fair Work Commission has come up with, after taking hundreds of submissions on the topic across all players in the industry and considering the case on its merits.

Michael is in year 10 in my electorate. You've got predominantly young schoolkids and university students in these major retail chains—multinational in some cases, but national in all cases—that are subject to enterprise bargaining agreements that have deductions that are well in excess of what we are talking about the Fair Work Commission making. It is hypocrisy writ large. Today is just the latest example of that. If the Leader of the Opposition tells you it's raining, I'd advise those in Australia to stick their head outside and have a look.

Mr PERRETT (Moreton—Opposition Whip) (10:16): I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018. Before I do, in the absence of the shadow industrial relations minister, I'd like to pass on my condolences to Brendan and Una on the loss of their fabulous Jodi Dack at this sad time.

I speak on this bill, which was introduced by the Leader of the Opposition in June. Sadly, the government's agenda didn't include bringing this bill on for debate before the long winter recess. Clearly, they had other things on their mind, like trying to give an $80 billion tax cut to the big end of town. The take-home pay of working Australians was cut yet again on 1 July, again on this minister's watch, on the Turnbull government's watch. On 1 July, hardworking Australians who make sacrifices to work the hours when most of us are spending time with our families again had their take-home pay slashed. This time the cuts were even deeper.

At a time when workers are suffering the fall-out from wage stagnation and rising cost-of-living pressures, this heartless government has overseen more money leaving workers' pay packets. This mean-spirited government has done everything it can to undermine working Australians. More than 13,000 workers in my electorate of Moreton rely on penalty rates to put food on the table, to put petrol in their cars and to pay their rent—that's one in six workers. Cutting penalty rates means my people will have to work longer hours for less pay. That is why Labor has introduced this bill to protect a principle as old as the Labor Party itself: a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

There's nothing fair about the lowest-paid workers having their take-home pay cut. There's nothing fair about women, who already suffer from the gender pay gap, having their take-home pay cut. There's nothing fair about the economic policies that the Turnbull government believes in and continues to inflict on Australian workers—policies that will give corporate giants an $80 billion tax cut while cutting $17 billion from our schools and cutting $440 million from preschool education, which will see 350,000 Australian children miss out on preschool altogether.

The Medicare freeze has effectively already cut $3 billion from Australia's health care. Not protecting the penalty rates of Australian workers and cutting the take-home pay of the most vulnerable workers deepens inequality. On average, a woman earns $25,000 less each year than the average man and spends between five and 14 hours a week doing unpaid housework compared to fewer than five hours for men. Yet women make up the majority of employees in industries that will have their penalty rates cut, such as retail and hospitality. I would hope Minister Cash spoke up and knew about this when this cut came through on 1 July.

Vulnerable, low-paid workers—women and young people especially—are the people who will suffer most from these penalty rate cuts. The young university students who work weekends so they can attend their lectures during the week will be forced to make up extra hours to pay their way through university. Single mothers will have to spend more time away from their children just so they can put food on the table. You have to wonder about the priorities of the Turnbull government, which are prepared to cut the take-home pay of young people who are striving to make a greater contribution to Australia and of mothers who just want to give their children a good start in life—this, while they are zealots about making sure their big corporate mates get a tax cut, including giving the banks $17 billion.

Tragically, cutting the penalty rates of people who earn low wages is also hurting the economy. Workers on low wages usually spend every cent they earn. They now have less to spend, starving the economy of much-needed expenditure; it's especially bad for retail and hospitality. On eight separate occasions in this parliament, this government has voted against protecting the penalty rates of vulnerable, low-paid workers. Eight times it has made it clear that it will not protect the wages of hardworking Australians. Labor will not sit back and do nothing. Labor will protect hardworking Australians, who are just trying to pay their bills. That's why the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, introduced this bill. It's a bill to stop the cuts to penalty rates and ensure that they can never be cut again. The Turnbull government did not bring this bill on for debate before 1 July. Why? Because it wanted Australian workers to get a pay cut.

Penalty rates are not a luxury for the 13,000 workers in my electorate of Moreton. Penalty rates put food on their tables and petrol in their cars and give them a chance in life. The Labor Party will always stand up for such workers. The Labor Party will always do the right thing. The fact is that the opposition leader has always stood up for workers. Despite the comments being made by those opposite, the opposition leader has a long track record of actually working to support working-class and middle-class Australians—those who want to get ahead. Labor will always stand up for those workers, and I will fight for penalty rates as long as I am here.

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (10:21): It's a great pleasure to get up and speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018, because it's not often in this place, Mr Speaker, that you see an own goal being provided while it's in action. It's not a hole in one like the member for Shortland's new mini golf course but an own goal, where the opposition get up and move a motion, filled with impassioned speeches concerned about penalty rates so that they can load up onto Facebook and their social media accounts something that simply isn't occurring. Instead, what it does is provide an opportunity for the government to talk honestly about what is actually happening and shine some light onto the dishonest scare campaigns led by the opposition and particularly by the actions of the Leader of the Opposition, who has never shied away from an attempt—and the previous speaker was right—to cut people's penalty rates, to cut their benefits and, even worse, while he takes money from them as a former union leader, to advance his own interests at their expense.

I actually happen to agree with the previous speaker on the point about penalty rates being necessary, particularly in disproportionately being to the benefit of young people who are seeking work, often when they're balancing out multiple workplaces or they're also studying, or women who may want flexibility in their workplace arrangements. But, of course, many Australians want flexibility in their workplace arrangements. These are exactly the people that the opposition leader has a long track record, and the Labor Party has a long track record, of selling out. We have the example in 2006 with the agreement for 780 Big W workers in North Queensland who had their penalty rates cut from 200 per cent under the award to 150 per cent under the wonderful leadership of the opposition leader and the Australian Workers' Union. We had the other 2006 agreement covering 129 Target workers in North Queensland who had their penalty rates cut from 200 per cent under the award to 150 per cent as well. Another example in a long line, a conga line, of secret deals done between the opposition leader as a trade union leader and big business to advance his interests at the expense of workers is the 2006 agreement covering 119 Just Jeans workers, who also had their penalty rates cut from 200 per cent under the award to 150 per cent. The result for all these workers was that they had $53 less pay in their pockets for a Sunday shift. What a proud record the Australian Labor Party has in defending the interests of workers!

There are many examples. The union has a long history of selling out its members and their interests by striking deals with big business to advance the interests of the apparatchiks who operate inside their unions and their political arm, which is, of course, the Australian Labor Party. These same workers have watched their penalty rates disappear under the Australian Workers' Union and are now watching the shallow morals of the Leader of the Opposition spread like a weed throughout the Labor Party. It's a cancerous infection that is now deep at the heart of the opposition, who don't care about workers and won't stand up for them but carry with them the legacy and track record of selling them out.

With this bill, the Leader of the Opposition is essentially asking the Fair Work Commission to act with the same inconsistency he has demonstrated day in, day out in his role as a leader of the union and also as the opposition leader sitting in this parliament. It might come as a surprise, but being opportunistic and untrustworthy are not character traits that should be emulated. Australians expect their leaders to act with integrity and, I might add, some consistency, which the opposition leader can claim no capacity to do. They also don't expect politicians to demoralise independent bodies like the Fair Work Commission purely for their political gain. The Fair Work Commission, as set up by Labor—let us remind ourselves of this—is required to ensure awards are fair and relevant, taking into account the impact on business employment costs and, of course, wanting to increase the number of jobs in the economy. That includes making evidence based adjustments to our award system that may involve corrections to take-home pay. You cannot expect the Fair Work Commission to perform its role if it loses the ability to deal with the different challenges affecting different workplace arrangements. There needs to be some flexibility to grow jobs for those people who are denied them. Both people and beliefs are disposable to the Leader of the Opposition and, as we've come to expect, if his lips are moving, you can't assume it's for anything other than self-opportunism.

Mr HART (Bass) (10:26): We've just received a contribution from the member for Goldstein which focused for five minutes not on the government's record with respect to looking after low-paid workers but simply on the Leader of the Opposition and his role as a leader of the union movement some time ago. This shows the total lack of policy direction from this government and, in effect, it shows just how out of touch the government is with low-paid workers in Australia at the moment.

I rise to support the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018. It's often said by commentators and indeed in this place that the news cycle, social media and political culture conspire to create a situation where arguments can be run, won and indeed lost in the space of hours, days or weeks on matters that seem to be of prime importance but, for those not engaged in politics, are of little consequence. If politics is the contest of ideas, those ideas should be about the issues that matter to the electorate. One side of politics may seek to promote its vision for Australia. Our responsibility as the opposition is to set up our alternative.

The contrast between the government's priorities and those reflected in this bill is significant. In fact, the contrast could not be more marked. This government has, at least in my view, a one-point plan, because that is all it has left. This one-point plan involves giving a tax cut to the largest corporations in Australia, including the big banks, in order to drive prosperity, championing the economics of trickle-down. Labor says that the revenue forgone through a tax cut for the big end of town could or should be spent on matters that deserve priority—important priorities like our healthcare system, education and supporting the jobs of the future.

It's important to look at the immediate pressures upon Australian families. Australian voters know that this government cannot be trusted when it makes promises like savings on their power bills. Cost pressures are affecting ordinary Australians every day, and they need to see practical relief—not trickle-down economics, not promises that this government's energy policy will see reductions in power bills and not promises of new employment driven by tax cuts but practical relief which is targeted at those who need it most.

The extraordinary thing is that this government, which claims a mantle of fiscal responsibility, should know that giving a tax cut to the largest corporations means that there is less money in the budget to pay for services that are important for ordinary Australians. They should know, because many economic commentators have been expressing their concern for many years that low wage growth is a significant risk for the Australian economy and threatens growth within the Australian economy, including employment growth, which also has the effect of depressing the amount of tax that will be collected from both personal and corporate income tax. In this setting the government needs to take responsibility for cuts to penalty rates—cuts that affect the take-home pay of more than 700,000 Australian people and cuts that materially affect low-paid workers, students and people in the regions, including northern Tasmania, in which my electorate of Bass is based.

This government is quite properly criticised for being out of touch and failing to understand the pressures that have built up over many years due to low wage growth not keeping pace with cost-of-living increases. This government either doesn't care or simply ignores the fact that many low-paid workers will have suffered a reduction in their income, meaning there is less disposable income circulating within many communities. Small business relies upon customers that are able to access either disposable income, savings or borrowing. Any reduction in the disposable income of their customers will in turn affect those small businesses.

We hear no more about the potential for increased employment in hospitality or retail trade as a consequence of the reduction of weekend penalty rates. How many people really believe the promises that reduction in penalty rates would enable the employment of more staff? Even the government's much-vaunted job creation fails to recognise that wages growth overall is depressed, which in turn creates limitations upon economic growth. Underemployment continues to be a significant problem. People who are in insecure or part-time work are sustained by penalty rates. In some instances they organise their lives so that they are able to work on a Sunday so that they can receive extra income to sustain their families.

The spectre of rising inequality is something that should not be ignored by this government. Whilst the Treasurer insists that inequality is not a problem, economic commentators insist that increased inequality is again a restraint on this economy not just affecting those in insecure work and low-paid work but also limiting the opportunities of businesses to expand and the economy as a whole to grow in a more robust and sustainable manner. Only Labor has a plan to address the immediate concerns of workers that their wages will be cut.

Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (10:31): I have listened to the contributions of other members and wish to make the point that the commercial landscape, particularly in the areas of retail and hospitality services, has changed dramatically over the past decade. Retail trading hours have extended. Consumers demand more choice and flexibility in the hours during which they shop and access services. Competition has increased both domestically and from emerging economies in our region. In an increasingly global economy, costs have risen and margins have narrowed. Socially, we have changed as a nation as our nation has become more multicultural, with a diversity of customs. So, no longer is Sunday the universal day of rest that it once was, with different cultures observe Friday or Saturday as their preferred days of rest or those with busy lifestyles choosing to schedule their work and leisure commitments around study timetables or family commitments.

The contemporary Australian workplace must also adapt to these trends in order to stay relevant and competitive. In my electorate of Moore, retail businesses and those in the hospitality services sector make up a significant proportion of the local economy, with Hillarys marina being a major tourist destination, as well as a golf resort, major shopping centres, a bulk goods retail precinct and a service industrial area. Many businesses in my electorate are small to medium businesses, which are represented by the Joondalup Business Association. Our local business community is experiencing difficult times in the economic downturn and would like to extend trading hours to take advantage of the trend in consumers choosing to shop and dine at their convenience.

As a business owner myself, I have experienced a recent decline in retail turnover and have seen a few tenant vacancies as the economy goes through a rough patch. Trading hours in Western Australia have been extended only relatively recently compared with the eastern states. Our dining and hospitality venues tend to close earlier than in the east, leaving locals, tourists and visitors with unmet demand as many small shops, pharmacies and takeaway shops have found it too expensive to open on Sundays and public holidays.

The independent Fair Work Commission has made a determination on penalty rates after extended hearings and consultation. The recommended reforms are both measured and moderate and will mean that our small business sector will be able to compete on a level playing field with big business, which currently uses enterprise agreements to make deals with unions to reduce Saturday and Sunday penalty rates. For instance, the local takeaway shops and cafes at Hillarys marina will typically have to pay their staff $8 per hour more than McDonald's or KFC, which have negotiated enterprise agreements with the unions. Similarly, a family-owned, speciality gourmet greengrocer shop will typically pay $5 an hour more than Woolworths under its union negotiated enterprise agreement. A family bottle shop is more likely to be subjected to a wage bill of $7 per hour more than Dan Murphy's. A family-owned hardware store is likely to pay $5 per hour more than Bunnings.

In the current economic climate, margins can be less than 10 per cent and penalty rates can be the difference between returning a profit or making a loss. I would much rather see businesses in my electorate opening on Sundays and public holidays, employing people, rather than closing due to excessive costs. Why should small businesses be denied the same conditions as large businesses? The independence and consistency of the Fair Work Commission in making its determination on penalty rates should be respected, as it followed due process and is moderate in nature. It will set a bad precedent to arbitrarily interfere with determinations made by the Fair Work Commission, which are designed to boost the economy and create employment. Wages should be determined by productivity as opposed to the time of work. Inflationary pressures arise when wage growth is not matched by productivity gains. The modern workforce has a great degree of flexibility in choosing when to work. To match the contemporary consumer preferences— (Time expired)

Ms KEARNEY (Batman) (10:37): I rise to support the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill. I am constantly surprised and amused by the government's sudden respect for independent umpires, with regards to the Fair Work Commission, when we know that they unilaterally abolished the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which was an independent umpire that would have meant that truck drivers would not have to drive themselves to death under unfair conditions. The government simply show ignorance; they do not know the difference between the bargaining regime and what is a unilateral cut to people's pay by the Fair Work Commission. These are two very different things. Being elected to parliament is a great privilege—one beyond belief—and I intend to use this time, as I come to it very late, to make a difference. That is what we should be doing here. That is why I joined the Labor Party. It was to be in a party that formed governments and has, as its objective, the great challenge laid down by Ben Chifley: to make people's lives better.

We on this side of the House often wonder what the Prime Minister strives to do each day for everyday Australians. Does he ever get out of bed and think, 'Today, I want to make a single mum's life easier. I want to shore up jobs for kids in Townsville. I want to find a way to meet the challenges facing Indigenous families in remote areas. I want to help the homeless and fix the scourge of insecure work'? Does he even worry about people struggling on low incomes? If he does, he doesn't show it. All he shows us is that he is about helping the wealthy stay wealthy and pretending that he believes in trickle-down economics while he watches the IPA froth at the mouth when he talks about tax cuts for incredibly powerful and wealthy corporations. I don't normally harp on about individuals, but today—as hundreds of thousands of workers on low incomes face losing wages—I find it incomprehensible that the Prime Minister and his government refuse to admit that cutting penalty rates will adversely affect people on low incomes. They refuse outright to stop it happening. They could stop this happening, right here, by supporting this bill. I am sorry, but this is inexcusable. We have heard over and over the damage this will do to families, to individuals and to the economy.

Penalty rates have existed for decades—around 70 years, in fact—and the economy has continued to grow and the hospitality and retail sectors continue to employ more and more people. No-one believes jobs will increase dramatically with wage cuts. In fact, the opposite is true. In those depressed economies in the US, raising wages has resulted in stronger, better economic conditions. There are those who will say that when wages are out of control the economy suffers. The only wages out of control are those of CEOs of multinational corporations. Wages growth for ordinary Australians is at an all-time low. In fact, people in this country are working harder and making more profit for companies but their pay is going backwards.

Unlike the Prime Minister, I know the Leader of the Opposition worries every day about those who are struggling to make ends meet. He worries deeply about the effect of cutting already low wages, and that is why he has introduced this bill. He, and those of us on this side of the House, knows that penalty rates make a real difference. The $70 on a Sunday wouldn't be a drop in the ocean for the member for Wentworth, but for so many people it puts food on the table and pays the bills. We on this side of the House want working mums to have time to care and earn a decent part-time, secure wage. Penalty rates are part of that. We want young people away from home combining study and work not to have to couch surf. Penalty rates are part of that. We want low-paid older people to be able to afford to buy their grandkids Christmas presents. Penalty rates are part of that. We want families to afford a simple holiday or pay their energy bills. Penalty rates are part of that.

We respect the contribution of working people. In fact, we honour it. If you work unsociable hours, we actually think that you should be paid something for this—for missing out on those times with your family and friends. This legislation is as real, as practical and as urgent as it gets. I want people to have better lives and, yes, that is everyone from asylum seekers, migrant workers, nurses, hairdressers and cleaners to truck drivers and so on. I want something better for people everywhere. Saving penalty rates is part of that.

Workers in Australia need a pay rise. Everybody is arguing that, from the Reserve Bank of Australia right through to every economist that has written on this issue. Australians need a pay rise, a decent pay rise, but we have a weak and mean-minded, bank-loving, corporate-kowtowing Prime Minister who still wants to cut the lowest-paid people's pay packets. This is a disgrace.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (10:41): Here we are, the first day back after the winter recess, we're not even an hour into the new parliamentary sessions and yet we have this blinding hypocrisy from the Labor Party. The member for Batman gave the game away when she brought up bringing back the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in this debate. The tribunal was simply about putting sanctions and mandates upon small business operators in the road transport sector but not putting the same sanctions or mandates against the large companies with their unionised employees. This is exactly what we are seeing in this argument over penalty rates.

It would be nice if the Labor Party came in and said that the bill that they were introducing applied to all the cuts that have been made by their friends at the SDA over recent years, but, no, it's not. This is the whole problem, it was those cuts to penalty rates that were made and authorised by the union officials that forced the hand of the commission. Let's just have a look at some of them. At Bunnings the 'shoppies' union, the SDA, and the Leader of the Opposition's former union, the AWU, cut penalty rates for workers at Bunnings from zero on Saturday and down from 100 per cent to 50 per cent on Sunday. Where were all the members of the Labor Party standing up and saying how terrible these cuts to penalty rates were then? We didn't hear a whisper or a murmur from them. All that did was make small business in the hardware sector have to pay more wages than their competitors—their large, big-end-of-town competitors, backed by their union mates—so they were at a competitive disadvantage.

It was the same thing at David Jones. The SDA, with the backing of the Labor Party and all the Labor members that sit over there, cut penalty rates at David Jones. They cut them to zero on a Saturday and down to 50 per cent on a Sunday. That put David Jones, with a unionised workforce, at a competitive advantage against small business that were forced to pay higher wages on a weekend. Where were the complaints from the Labor Party when that happened? Absolutely none.

Another example: the SDA cut the penalty rates for workers at Pizza Hut in Queensland, making them over $13,700 worse off—they actually cut the penalty rates to zero on a Saturday and Sunday! And where was the outrage of the Labor members of parliament over this? When did they come into this place and complain about penalty rates being cut for Pizza Hut workers in Queensland? A deathly silence. But that cut, again, placed a large corporation with a unionised workforce at a competitive advantage over their small-business competitors. And that is what we see this debate is all about.

This debate has nothing to do with penalty rates. It is about more union control, more union dominance, across the workforce. The Labor Party don't care about those workers who had their penalty rates cut, otherwise they would have come in and spoken up about them before. They just wanted to see those small businesses with a non-unionised workforce placed at a competitive disadvantage, and to have those workers have to go over to their big-end-of-town competitors—and, of course, cough up their union fees. That is all this debate is about.

I've heard a few other comments from other members. The member for Bass raised power bills—well, if the member for Bass is so concerned about the cost of electricity in this nation, I hope he will get behind the recommendations made by the ACCC, and reduce the subsidies that are currently flowing and being added onto everyone's electricity bills. If the member for Bass is fair dinkum, he will get behind those recommendations, and he will stand up and say, 'I support every single one of the ACCC's recommendations.' But, Deputy Speaker, five will get you ten that there's not a chance of that.

Then we had the hypocrisy on the corporate rate of tax. We live in an internationally competitive environment. Our companies have to compete around the world for capital and for workers. We currently have a situation where the US have lowered their corporate rate of tax down to 21 per cent. We have France planning to lower their corporate rate of tax from 34 per cent to 25 per cent. We have the UK, 20 to 17 per cent—(Time expired)

Ms BUTLER (Griffith) (10:47): What's happening in the Australian economy right now is pretty clear. We need to have more consumption, we need to have a situation where there's a stimulus in the economy, and one way to do that is to ensure that the wages of people whose marginal propensity to consume is pretty high are not cut. It is a no-brainer that the last thing we should be doing right now is cutting the wages of working Australians. It's pretty clearly the case also, when you look at the Wage Price Index—and, as you know, Deputy Speaker, it has been languishing, down at its lowest rates since we started keeping the Wage Price Index in 1997. All of these factors should make it blindingly obvious to this government that it is economic vandalism to allow the commission to be cutting wages at this time for some of the lowest-paid workers in the country. And the government has failed to do anything about this, despite the blindingly obvious nature of the problem that's before us. The government could step in and legislate to ensure that people's penalty rates are not cut. The government could step in and legislate to ensure that the commission does not reduce the take-home pay of working Australians. But the government has not only failed to do this, it is preventing the opposition from having a vote on doing these things, and I think that's deeply reckless.

The government is trying to blame the fact that this cut has happened on the commission. The fact is: of course the commission has an obligation to review awards—of course it does. If the commission doesn't review awards, awards become obsolete, because community standards and industry rates so far exceed the award that it is rendered useless for all except those who really want to completely underpay their workers. So you have to have reviews of awards, and those reviews of awards, of course, have to take into account more than just the base rate of pay; they should take into account penalty rates, allowances, working conditions—all of the things that go into an award. But that's not a reason to say that we should just wash our hands of the decisions that are made in respect of the review of awards when the commission makes a decision that is so obviously wrong for our nation, for our economy, and for the people who depend on those wages. We have the opportunity right now to say to the commission: 'Look, fair enough, you are reviewing awards; you're expected to do that under the legislation. But it is up to this parliament, the sovereign parliament of this nation, to ensure that the laws that are made here are for the peace, order and good governance of this country. That requires us to take a responsible approach to our economy and our society and to the people who live within them.' Once we have taken that approach, we can see quite clearly that there needs to be legislative change to ensure that the commission knows that it is not to be reducing take-home pay of working Australians, and that's what this bill does.

This is an opposition private member's bill. It's a private member's bill to introduce into the workplace relations legislation provisions that would preclude the commission reducing the take-home pay of working Australians. It's a very straightforward piece of legislation. It's only a couple of pages long, but it would introduce amendments to ensure that, in the process of reviewing awards, the commission does not reduce the take-home pay of Australians. Not only would it resolve the penalty rates problem that has been caused by the decision of the commission to reduce penalty rates, but it would be a method of preventing the commission making further decisions in the future that reduce the take home-pay of Australians.

It's pretty rare to see a commission make a decision to reduce the take-home pay of Australians. You will remember that under Work Choices, which of course the government would love to go back to, there was a minimum pay panel, and they increased the minimum wage every year except for 2009, I think. That was one of the years. Deputy Speaker, I'm sure you remember the controversy that surrounded the decision of that panel not to increase wages—which, for what it's worth, I thought was a pretty terrible decision, as we were just coming out of the global financial crisis. But to now be going a step further and have the commission reducing take-home pay—given the economic circumstances at the moment but also, of course, as a general proposition—should be, and is, even more controversial. That's why you're seeing no matter where you go—whether in the Longman by-election or the streets of my suburbs in the electorate of Griffith—you are seeing people raising concerns about the fact that this government is doing nothing to prevent cuts to penalty rates and that under this government's watch the commission has cut penalty rates. This government, by allowing that to stand, is effectively responsible for cutting penalty rates. It has the chance now to fix it, and it should. (Time expired)

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (10:52): Given that there are no government speakers taking the jump, I thought I would use this opportunity to say a few words about the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018 and the importance of maintaining penalty rates. Let's face it: when was the last time you planned your child's birthday party for a Monday morning, went to a christening on a Tuesday, invited friends to your house for a barbecue lunch on a Wednesday or went off to see the AFL Grand Final on a Thursday lunchtime? The fact is weekends exist for a reason. They help workers coordinate socialising time together, which is so vital to the health of the Australian community.

We live in an Australia that has become more disconnected over recent decades. We've seen a decline in the share of Australians attending church or being part of community groups such as the Scouts, the Guides, Rotary and Lions. Surveys that I've helped to have commissioned over the years have shown that the share of Australians who know their neighbours has fallen and the number of close friends that Australians can count has dwindled. So protecting the weekend is absolutely vital to building the strength of social capital in Australia. The strength of the weekend reflects the ability of a society to get together to enjoy life. The purpose of life is not to work. It is terrific when we add to GDP, but GDP is not the sole benchmark of the performance of a society. While we have strong weekends when people can get together with their friends and neighbours, we are healthier as a society. Frankly, things work a lot better in a society with a high degree of social capital and civic connectedness. Playing sport, being part of a union, attending religious services and supporting community life are fundamental to the kind of Australia that many people want to live in.

Yet we've seen attempts from the conservative side of politics to hack into penalty rates. This is the side of politics that often touts its family values credentials and says that it is the party that believes in supporting family values. But what can be more fundamental to family values than the ability of someone to know that they will be able to attend a child's birthday party, take their kids to sport on weekends and not have their weekends treated by their employer like any other day? Those who are working on the weekends ought to be properly remunerated. Those who are working as baristas or waitstaff are workers who are spending time away from their family, and it is appropriate that they are compensated through the system of penalty rates which defend the weekend.

Penalty rates are a bulwark against the attempt of unchecked market forces to take over the weekend and to corporatise the weekend. When baristas and waitstaff spend time away from their friends and family, often the cafe or restaurant will put in place a surcharge for Sundays and public holidays. I don't think anyone in this place begrudges paying that surcharge, because that recognises that you're there enjoying socialising at a time when others are working to literally put the food on your table. The money that goes to penalty rates disproportionately goes to those who are at the lower end of the income spectrum. The weekly minimum wage set by the Restaurant Industry Award is not much over $600, less than half the average median wage. Those getting penalty rates aren't using them to go off and buy yachts; they're putting them into paying the family bills. So penalty rates go back into the economy. I know there are some business leaders who love to have low-paid workers and high-paid customers. Sadly, workers and customers are the same group of people. If you cut the pay of workers, particularly those workers who are spending their whole pay cheque, then you cut the amount of money that goes back into the economy.

To treat Saturday and Sunday as standard days of the working week would mean that shop assistants, petrol station workers, bakers and hundreds of other kinds of workers would lose their penalty rates. Penalty rates have a long and distinguished history, going back to 1947, and they reflect the simple notion that at least three-quarters of Australians support—that penalty rates are an Australian value and an egalitarian value. (Time expired)

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

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ) (11:50): The Speaker has received a message from the Senate informing the House that Senator David Smith has been appointed a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories.

Mr LEESER (Berowra) (11:51): On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples I present the committee's Interim reporttogether with a corrigendum to the report.

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

Mr LEESER: by leave—I take note of the interim report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, which was tabled out of session.

In March this year the parliament appointed this committee to build on the work of the 2015 joint select committee, the 2012 expert panel, the 2017 Referendum Council and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It tasked us with finding a way to advance the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples able to be supported by Australians from all walks of life and contribute to a more unified and reconciled nation.

It is important that any proposals have the support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and also, as our terms of reference indicate, broad parliamentary and political support as well as the support of all Australians. The joint select committee on constitutional recognition acknowledges the long history of advocacy for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

My co-chair, Senator Dodson, and I have understood the requirement for this committee to find common ground and seek a way forward on the options and issues considered and reflected in the work of those previous committees. I support the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as part of a broader project of reconciliation and recognition of their unique status in our nation.

We as a committee understand the frustration many have about the length of time taken to advance these issues. However, we also note that the Uluru Statement from the Heart represents a major change in the direction of the debate about constitutional recognition, with its proposals for a voice, agreement-making and truth-telling. While the Uluru Statement gave us a direction, it didn't provide much detail as to what proposals for a voice would actually look like. Therefore the primary task of this committee is to consider and develop proposals for constitutional recognition, including the voice.

The range of views about what the voice might look like means that this is not a simple task. We've listened closely to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, legal experts and other Australians. The committee has put forward a range of principles and models and has asked for responses to a series of questions.

In the Interim report the committee has outlined a non-exhaustive list of 15 different models of consultative bodies, which we are seeking comment on.

Past models

These include past bodies like the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, the National Aboriginal Conference and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

Current Models

Models that are presently operating in the public policy sphere include the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, the Torres Strait Regional Authority, the Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly, the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council, the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, prescribed body corporates and Aboriginal land councils.

Indicative proposals for a First Nations Voice

We have also received indicative proposals for how a First Nations voice might work from organisations like Uphold & Recognise, the Cape York Institute and Mr Eric Sidoti.

The committee has also highlighted a non-exhaustive list of nine principles, which have come through the initial consultations we have conducted.

We have noted that there is strong support for the concept of the voice.

Most significant is the strong support for local and regional structures.

The members of the voice, whether local, regional or national, should be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples rather than appointed by government, as this will provide legitimacy and authenticity for the voice.

The design of local voices should reflect the varying practices of different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. A Canberra-designed one-size-fits-all model would not be supported.

We believe that there should be equal gender representation on the voice.

The voice at the local, regional and national level should be used by state, territory and local governments as well as the federal government. It seems logical that, if the voice is to have a role regarding federal legislation policy and services, it should have the same or similar functions in relation to state and local government policies, laws and services.

The voices, whether local, regional or national, should provide oversight, advice and plans but not necessarily administer programs or money.

The voices should provide a forum for people to bring ideas or problems to government, and government should be able to use the voices to road test and evaluate policy. This process should work as a dialogue where the appropriateness of policy and its possible need for change should be negotiable.

Consideration must be given to the interplay of any voice body with existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations at both the local and national level in such areas as health, education and law, and how such organisations might work together with the voice.

Evidence presented to the committee and broader discussions have highlighted that the majority of day-to-day challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples do not fall within the ambit of this parliament. Many of the solutions to these challenges are both local and regional.

These solutions need to be found through close political and fiscal cooperation between the Commonwealth, state, territory and regional bodies. Consequently, to be effective, any voice proposal will need to have local, regional and national elements.

Throughout our inquiry, we have asked for people's proposals and ideas on what the voice might look like and how it might best work with the Commonwealth parliament, the Australian government, the states and territories, local authorities and existing organisations.

This Interim report indicates our progress to date and outlines what we as a committee will be doing next. It sets out key areas of inquiry, asking specific questions, some 100 questions, on what a voice might strive for and how it could be designed.

It acknowledges that, whatever form future proposals might take, a voice must be legitimate, representative and agreed upon between the parliament and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Design questions regarding constitutional and/or legislative change remain before us. The committee recognises that the Australian public and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples may have differing views on the need for a voice and, indeed, whether the voice should be given a constitutional guarantee.

We have also considered in the report suggestions for agreement-making and truth-telling. We look to further comment on the appropriateness of the term 'Makarrata' and how culturally this process might help us achieve reconciliation.

We encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader community to make submissions examining the principles and models outlined in chapters 3 and 4 and addressing the questions we pose in chapter 7 by 17 September this year.

But, as we foreshadowed, this report will not be the end of the process. We hope that the next round of consultations might help the committee to refine models which might form the basis for a process of deep consultation and co-design between the Australian government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in every community across Australia in order to ensure that the detail of the voice and related proposals are authentic for each community in the country.

I want to thank the members of the committee and record my particular thanks and appreciation to Senator Dodson. He and I have a approached this task with goodwill, acknowledging the difficulty of the task but also focusing on the things which we can agree on.

I want to acknowledge the members of the committee: Senator Duniam, Senator McCarthy, Senator Siewert and Senator Stoker and the members for Barton, Farrer, Lingiari, Indi and Wide Bay. I note that the member for Barton is here. Many of those members, including the member for Barton, bring with them a lifetime of experience in Indigenous policy and they have been very generous with sharing their insights and experience with other members of the committee, and for that I'm very grateful.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge the secretariat for the work they have done, as well as the office of Senator Dodson and my own office.

On behalf of the committee, we would like to acknowledge and thank members of the public who have worked with us to this point, and we look forward to their ongoing input as we continue this important journey.

I commend the Interim report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples to the House.

Ms BURNEY (Barton) (12:00): by leave—I rise to join with the member for Berowra in his tabling of the Interim report on constitutional recognition for First Peoples. I also recognise, as the member for Berowra has, his leadership as the joint chair of the committee, along with Senator Patrick Dodson. I understand that this is quite an unusual arrangement when it comes to select committees, but I think it's important and appropriate, particularly when you look at the subject that we're exploring in relation to this topic, that it be a joint committee.

I'd also like to say that one of the challenges, of course, as outlined also by the member for Berowra, is for this parliament to welcome this Interim report and then the final report in November. In the sense of not being on the wrong side of history, I think the nation is very ready—certainly from my discussions and interactions over the past 12 months—for an Indigenous voice to this parliament. It's really important that we are clear on what the Referendum Council said. They did not say that this voice would have any veto powers over the parliament. I think it's mischievous that there are intimations that this might be the case. They recommended that this voice would be advisory only and it would be up to this parliament to actually sort out and work out how it would operate, which of course has been the work of the select committee.

It has been a complex task but, interestingly, there have been very real themes that have evolved about the need for the voice to be elected so that it's legitimate. Many people have said that it needs to have a regional base. Obviously the one thing that everyone has recognised, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, legal and non-legal, is that the sovereignty of this parliament has to be upheld and protected, and I think that that's very much understood, and I think that's the most important thing for people to keep in mind at the moment.

It seems to me also that it would be very wrong for this parliament to reject the views, yet again, of First Nations peoples when it comes to self-determination and when it comes to putting a reality around the words that we have said in this parliament many, many times. Both the Prime Minister and others have said that we want to work with Aboriginal people and work alongside them, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that. The discussions that we've had around the country—and there will be more—have been very deep and meaningful, in the sense that there has been a consideration of history, of the social circumstances of First Peoples and, of course, of the richness of the story of this nation and what First Peoples' stories bring to this nation.

I am disappointed, however, in the fact that the Prime Minister, as recently as last week, has dismissed the idea of the Uluru statement and has dismissed the idea of a voice, even before the Interim report was tabled. I think that the fact that the Interim report and the submissions made to the Interim report overwhelmingly support the proposal of a voice to the parliament is something that we as members of this parliament need to hear quickly and clearly. The Prime Minister said that a referendum would be undesirable and unwinnable, and he is misleading this place and the country when the voice is being described as a third chamber of the parliament. It is nothing of the sort.

There has been great discussion in our consultations about the value of a regional model. We've heard from many communities about the importance of grassroots people, local people, having a say, and, hopefully, that is happening through this process.

I think, though, that there is a real danger that the final report could be tabled in November, and not see the light of day again. I hope that that is not the case. I also hope very much that we avoid dog-whistle politics in this debate. It is not what we need. It is not what this country wants. And it's certainly not what First Nations people want. The issue cannot be ignored. This aspiration of First Nations people cannot be dismissed. We in this parliament have a responsibility to listen—as we say in our rhetoric.

I will finish up by saying this: the Interim report shows that the committee has had some very productive and constructive conversations on what a voice to parliament can achieve, and how it can be achieved. It notes strong support for a voice to parliament including from the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, the Australian Bar Association, and the Indigenous Peoples Organisation. It notes a voice such as this is not unprecedented internationally, citing several examples, including South Africa. In fact, I attended an international conference just recently, held here in Canberra and hosted by the Australian National University, where we heard a number of speakers from other first-world nations with a colonial history and a story such as ours who talked about various models that have been in existence in their countries for a long time without the sky falling in. Surely, it is time for Australia to do the same.

As I said, the Interim report notes a voice such as this is not unprecedented and cites several examples from across the world. In terms of design, the committee heard about the need for a national voice to include local and regional structures. Submissions have also called for a First Nations voice to be received at state, territory and local government levels, as state and local laws continue to affect First Nations people equally with federal laws. Submissions have typically called for members of the voice to be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and for an equal gender representation. What came across very strongly, in terms of the construction of this voice, whichever way we do it, is that it has to have gender parity. I'm extremely pleased to see that as one of the main and very loud calls that have come out.

The joint standing committee recognised that legitimacy and concrete details presented political challenges to a voice to parliament, and this is a good thing. It considered that constitutional entrenchment would protect against parliamentary or executive interference. A range of views were presented in relation to pathways to constitutional entrenchment. The committee considered past, existing and other proposed structures and models for a voice to parliament, including the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee and the National Aboriginal Conference.

In conclusion, Labor has always supported the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its aspiration of greater self-determination. Through the committee, we will continue to work for cross-party support for a voice to parliament, and we will continue to approach with full hearts and open minds the further consultations over the coming months across the nation with both First Nations people and the broader community on how we can realise this aspiration.

I finish by saying once again: it is up to this parliament to make those aspirations a reality. We cannot be a roadblock on this journey, because, if we are, it will not only affect First Nations people fundamentally, it will actually diminish us all as a nation.

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (12:09): I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Debate adjourned.

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (12:09): I move:

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

Question agreed to.

Mr BRIAN MITCHELL (Lyons) (12:10): Airports are key components of our national economy. Collectively, they employ more than 120,000 people and are critical infrastructure in the movement of people and goods. It's good to see we have the former transport minister at the table—one of many in this government! Airports are getting busier. More people fly than ever before. New technology and intense competition mean it is much cheaper to fly today than it was more than 30 years ago. Indeed, I personally recall an economy return fare to the UK in 1985, when average weekly wages were around $400, costing my family $2,000. It took a long time to save up to get me to the UK after high school. Sadly, for my family, I came back! Today, with average weekly wages having nearly quadrupled, you can fly to the UK for $1,500. That is $500 less than it was 30 years ago. It is just over a week's wages. Apparently, fares to the UK and the US got down to under $1,000 last year. It is eminently affordable for many Australians, but I must point out that it is still unaffordable for far too many Australians in insecure work and with low wages.

It's little wonder, with fares heading the way they have, that passenger numbers have ballooned both internationally and domestically. This massive increase in passenger numbers has required bigger and better airports, including across our regions. The Airports Amendment Bill 2016 seeks to streamline processes for development at and around 21 federally leased airports. Airports that used to be under Commonwealth control no longer are. The land is owned by the Commonwealth, but they flog the business enterprises off to some very lucky corporations that happen to make a very good amount of money out of those operations. Labor supports this bill, but we will be seeking amendments and we will support an inquiry into the bill when it reaches the other place.

In Tasmania, Hobart and Launceston airports are amongst the 21 that are covered by this legislation. Currently, Hobart and Launceston airports are required to update their master plans every five years. This bill will change that requirement to every eight years, relieving some compliance pressure on airport management. But if we're going to have less frequent updates to airport plans, we need to ensure that the plans airports put in place are better than they are now. In recent years, both Hobart and Launceston airports have had significant upgrades as a result of increased business. These upgrades have driven higher employment and higher profits for the airport companies, and that's good news. But higher profits for airport companies should not come at the expense of the communities that host the airports. Launceston Airport, which sits just inside the northern edge of my electorate, has for the past four years or so failed to pay its fair share to the local community of the Northern Midlands Council. I know the former minister is aware of this because I wrote to him ad nauseam when he was in the ministerial portfolio.

In lieu of rates, airports on federally leased land pay a fee to local councils based on evaluation. As it's federal land, the local council has no legal jurisdiction to levy rates nor to enforce the collection of the fee in lieu. Local councils essentially depend on the airport playing fair and, ultimately, upon the federal transport minister to step in if airports don't pay their way. Following a significant capital upgrade some years ago, Launceston Airport refused to abide by the newest estimates of Tasmania's Valuer-General, which carried with it a significantly higher fee in lieu that recognised the higher valuation as a result of the development.

The airport's refusal has led to years of legal stand-offs between the airport corporation, allied with its landlord, the federal department of transport, against the plucky Northern Midlands Council, which is acting on behalf of its ratepayers. The Northern Midlands Council isn't some big fancy council like Sydney or Brisbane; it's a tiny council with a relatively small rates base, lots of sheep farmers, and it needs this money. It hasn't been able to collect more than $1 million in fees because Launceston Airport simply refuses to hand over the money. Every dollar that the airport corporation refuses to pay is a dollar the council does not have to invest in local amenity for Northern Midlands residents and ratepayers. This was a formal process of assessment done by the same people who assess all residential and commercial property in Tasmania. So why should Launceston Airport expect special treatment?

The government's response through this saga has been disappointing and not helped by the fact there has been a merry-go-round of transport ministers. The current incumbent is the Deputy Prime Minister, and he's getting the same letters that I sent to the minister currently at the table, the member for Gippsland. I do call on the current minister, who is a member of the Nationals, a party that makes much of representing regional communities, to put the interests of a regional council ahead of the interests of a wealthy corporation and direct Launceston Airport to cough up the more than $1 million it now owes the people of the Northern Midlands.

We'll get off Launceston for now. Hobart Airport abuts the southern edge of my electorate. That gives you some indication of the size of my electorate. In the north I've got Launceston and in the south, Hobart sits just outside it. Hobart Airport could also do with some assistance when it comes to dealing with the local community. Hobart has also undergone significant and long-overdue upgrades, and these have been welcomed by all. But it's the new flight paths that have accompanied the upgrades and the extra flights that have my constituents up in arms. More particularly, it was the way that the new flight paths were introduced with no consultation that has people livid.

The new routes fly over formally quiet towns on the Tasman and Forestier peninsulas, areas that have been developing vineyards and boutique accommodation experiences. The last thing they expected was to see jumbo jets flying overhead, but now they fly overhead along very narrow designated flight paths, increasing the impact significantly for people in towns like Dunalley. The noise has been so loud, so negatively impactful, that the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman initiated an investigation, resulting in a report which included 13 recommendations, all of which made operational suggestions to address poor consultative processes, poor complaint handling and the absence of impact consideration. My office continues to advocate strongly for a better consultation process and, as a result, the Hobart Airport and Airservices Australia have organised a number of more appropriate consultative events, providing the opportunity for the community to interact with the service and raise their concerns.

I must stress I do not accept consultation as a tick-and-flick exercise. If Airservices thinks it can mosey into town, have a meeting with the locals then mosey on out and simply continue to do what it wanted to do in the first place, it is badly mistaken. I expect community views to be properly taken into account and acted upon. Where community expectations cannot be met for legal, financial or operational reasons, I expect those reasons to be fully explained and local concerns not simply brushed off.

I am pleased to note that within this bill before the House today is a demand for new Australian noise exposure forecasts in every new airport master plan. I hope there will be limits placed upon permitted noise and noise mitigation policies explored to ensure better community satisfaction. Airports, like other major developments and public infrastructure, have significant implications for the wider community, as I've outlined with Hobart and Launceston. Although they generate income and play a crucial role in transporting goods and people, their operations and construction must be considerate of local amenity.

Wherever possible, airports should work with, not against, the interests of their host communities. I would like to see, as part of this new master plan process, not just community consultation but also a genuine move towards community partnership, including an ongoing role for local community leaders in airport management, where there are wider impacts to be considered. The master plan process is currently a bit short-sighted and narrowly focused. It requires a strategic approach to the airport every five years—soon to be eight years—but it doesn't require nearly enough attention to be focused on the airport's impacts on the wider community.

Airports should be required to assess what their operations are likely to mean for local roads, for example, or for local public transport infrastructure, for nearby creeks and inlets, for shops and for other commercial activities. It is certainly a fact that the road infrastructure in and around both Hobart and Launceston is wanting, to say the least. I don't think there'd be many tourists and visitors coming out of those airports who'd look at the road shoulders coming out of those two airports and think, 'Gee, this is topnotch'—it certainly is not. But those upgrades and management of those things should be a shared responsibility. It's a bit much to expect local councils to carry the cost of these upgrades, and it's certainly a bit much to expect it when the airport corporations are refusing to pay their fair share to those councils.

In order to access Hobart's airport, you must first navigate a dangerous and busy roundabout on the Tasman Highway, which is a major thoroughfare for people exiting Hobart and heading towards some of the state's growing suburban areas in the south-east of my electorate and along the beautiful east coast and beautiful Tasman Peninsula, also in my electorate. Because of the demands placed upon this section of the road and the ongoing dissatisfaction of road users—and, I must say, after some pressure from Labor members, on this side of the House—the roundabout is to be replaced with a four-lane overpass intersection. Typical of this government, however, the overpass project is already months behind schedule without even the first sod being turned. And if rumours that I hear are correct, the budget is also being recast without any work already having been done—not a very good indication of the way that project is going under the joint management of the federal Liberal government and the state Liberal government. Importantly, when that interchange finally happens, it will improve access to the airport and it will be better able to handle the growth in visitor numbers, air freight transport and any commercial developments in the area. Anticipating the demands that will be placed on the surrounds of airports is critical in ensuring that they are equipped to manage and mitigate future growth and increased demands.

Far, far from my electorate is Sydney. Sydney airport is the world's 20th-busiest airport. In 2017 it saw 43.3 million passengers go through it—in one year. Just the year before, Sydney was the world's 23rd-busiest airport, so it's jumped three spaces globally in one year. That is a phenomenal increase. The growth is not incidental and it is demonstrative of Australia's increased visitor numbers, thanks to our country's global reputation as a tourist destination, with high domestic and overseas tourist numbers. While it is positive to see such growth, there are challenges, including environmental wear and tear and the fact that public infrastructure and transport systems struggle to cope with higher demands. It's little wonder that with that growth and, given the size of Sydney, we are now looking at a second Sydney airport. It makes sense, but so does the implementation of a range of new requirements for airport infrastructure, including better environmental assessments, better management and oversight processes and certainly better community consultation and community partnership. I know from speaking to my colleagues on this side of the House who represent some of the communities out in Western Sydney that they are very critical of the fact that their communities have been effectively sidelined with the planning for Badgerys Creek and the way it's essentially being imposed upon them. I'm not sure whether it will be a 24-hour flight plan, but there will certainly be very late flights and very early flights—things that residents in Sydney are not subjected to. So we support this, but we will be seeking amendments.

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (12:25): The Airports Amendment Bill 2016 amends the Airports Act to streamline the process for development at and around federally leased airports. While Labor mostly welcomes this bill, we are proposing two amendments: 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 around airports be removed.

Labor supports investment in aviation, and we're committed to growing this crucial sector in our economy. Airports are economic powerhouses. I know this because I represent the electorate that has Australia's largest and busiest airport. I'm very proud to represent the electorate of Kingsford Smith, which bears the name of Australia's most famous aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, the legendary Smithy, who lost his life at the all-too-young age of 38 in 1935. My electorate also hosts Australia's largest and busiest airport, which bears Kingsford Smith's name. Last year, Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport was used by 43.3 million passengers. That's an increase of over five million passengers each year from 2013. As the previous speaker mentioned, Kingsford Smith airport is now the 20th busiest airport in the world. Today, more than 40 per cent of overseas travellers visiting Australia pass through Kingsford Smith airport.

The airport, like many others across Australia, is seeing an increasing number of visitors, in particular, from Asia. In particular, it's Asia's rising middle class who are now making the most of new opportunities to travel, and for many that choice of travel is to our great southern land. It's a big-picture trend that's likely to continue, with 88 per cent of the world's next billion entrants into the middle class coming from Asia. That's 380 million people from India's middle class, 350 million from China's middle class and 210 million in the rest of Asia. We know that when people move out of poverty and into higher income brackets, into the middle class, they gain an appetite for services, particularly healthcare services, education services and, importantly, tourism and travel services. For many in Asia, Australia is now a very popular destination because it's in their backyard, it's within the same time zone and it's easily accessible by air. So it's clear that our airports are vital to Australia's economy in helping to boost tourism and trade as well.

Later this month, Sydney Airport will release its latest 20-year draft blueprint for the future of Kingsford Smith airport. The airport says it's forecasting passenger numbers to reach 65 million in 2039. Yet Sydney Airport says the No. 1 community concern facing Kingsford Smith now and over the next two decades is the crippling road congestion and poor public transport links to the airport. There are very few other international airports that I know of where, if you leave the international airport, you are straight onto a domestic and suburban street, but that is exactly the case at Sydney's international airport and domestic airport, particularly when you leave the domestic terminal. You're straight onto Robey Street in Mascot. People live in Robey Street. It's their life. Their houses are there. Their garages are there. They park there. Yet we're dumping all of this traffic onto local streets from the busiest airport in the country, without any real public transport links and without any consideration for those that live around the airport.

The suburban streets around the airport are now clogged with traffic on a daily basis. If you go to Sydney airport any time after 5 am, you are almost guaranteed to get into a traffic jam. Once again, we've seen that the New South Wales Liberal government has failed the public when it comes to key infrastructure and planning and when it comes to spending around taking some of the pressure off our community—the community that I represent—in respect of the airport. I'm getting a number of letters and emails from constituents who are telling me that people who are going overseas or going on a flight will simply park in their street and leave their car there for weeks or, in some cases, months and walk with their bags to the airport, and they can do this because the airport is only down the road. For some areas, it's less than a 500-metre walk to the terminal from some of the suburban streets that people are now parking in.

As I mentioned earlier, Kingsford Smith is, of course, Australia's busiest airport. Yet, when you talk about busy airports throughout the world, the one thing that they all tend to have is very good public transport links. That's certainly not the case with Kingsford Smith Airport in Mascot because, believe it or not, there is only one bus route that services Sydney airport. The 400 service bus that comes from Bondi Junction and Burwood remains the only bus service that gets in and out of Kingsford Smith Airport. For years now, the operators of the airport, Sydney Airport Corporation Limited, have been crying out to the New South Wales Liberal government saying, 'We need additional bus services if we're going to get more people in and out of the airport on public transport rather than using cars.'

Four years ago, the New South Wales Liberal government unveiled their so-called long-term plans to improve bus access at Kingsford Smith Airport. And what have they done about it since then? Zero, zilch, not a thing. It's clear that Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been asleep at the wheel yet again on infrastructure policy and planning when it comes to the future growth of Kingsford Smith Airport, and often it's the airport workers that are left in the lurch as a result. There are 30,900 people who work at Kingsford Smith Airport. As I said earlier, airports are economic powerhouses, and they provide a lot of jobs for people in the surrounding community. Forty-four per cent of those who work at the airport live in the St George-Sutherland area, represented quite ably by the shadow minister that's sitting with me here at the table, the member for Barton. Yet, there are no direct public transport links from that area to the airport. Where most of the people that work at the airport live, there is no direct public transport link for them to be able to get on public transport to actually get to work. That is an absolute disgrace. For a large metropolitan capital like Sydney, with the busiest airport in the country, to not have a public transport link to where most of the people work to access the airport is beyond a joke.

When it comes to rail services, it doesn't get any better, unfortunately. Around 24 per cent of passengers and people working at Kingsford Smith catch trains to and from the airport, and that's up from 13 per cent a decade ago. Yet most airports around Europe and Asia have between 40 and 60 per cent of passengers travelling to and from them by train. Why does Sydney airport have such low numbers of both passengers and workers accessing the airport by train compared to global benchmarks? One good reason is that workers and passengers are slugged a one-way fee of $18.10 to travel to the airport during peak hours. To travel what is really a five-minute trip on the train from areas like Hurstville or the City of Sydney to the airport will cost you $18.10 during peak hour, and that's a single trip fare. And $13.80 of the fare is the station access fee that's paid to the New South Wales government. Is it any wonder that the non-existent bus services and the rip-off that is associated with the train fare into Sydney airport has forced all of that congestion onto local roads? The community and the people who I represent are bearing that congestion and are fed up with it. They want the New South Wales Liberal government and, indeed, the Turnbull government to do something about it.

The New South Wales Liberal government say that they are improving the road network via the wonderful WestConnex. Isn't that going to be just sensational for the community that I represent? Here, you've got WestConnex—believe it or not, it is the largest road project in Sydney—going straight past the second busiest container port in the country, at Port Botany, and straight past Sydney international airport with no connection at all to those two vitally important pieces of infrastructure. For anyone who is travelling from the west and wants to access Sydney airport, guess what? They will get off at the St Peters-Tempe interchange, which is about four or five kilometres away from the actual airport. How do you think they are going to get to the airport, if they're travelling there? I tell you what they're going to do: they're going to come down the suburban streets that I mentioned earlier—particularly Gardeners Road and Botany Road, which are already clogged with traffic as it is—and they are going to dump an additional hundreds of thousands of cars per month on those suburban streets.

The other point to make is, because there is no access to the second biggest container port in the country, many of those vehicles that will be travelling down those roads will be the big B-doubles that carry freight in and out of the port. Not only are you going to have passengers from Sydney airport competing to go down these roads but you are also going to get these big freight trucks that take freight to and from the port coming down Botany Road, Gardeners Road and Robey Street—the streets that I mentioned earlier—putting additional congestion on our roads. It is any wonder that, with the non-existent bus services and the rip-off to get a train, workers are forced onto these congested roads? Every day around 160,000 people are going to and from the airport and yet the New South Wales Liberal government have no plan on how to solve the current congestion crisis, let alone a plan for future growth and the numbers that are coming over the coming decades.

Aircraft noise is always an issue around airports. I probably have more complaints than most MPs, given the busy nature of Sydney airport. I have written to the respective transport ministers. I know that there is a long-term operating plan for Sydney airport and that the majority of flights are meant to go out over the sea rather than over homes; but regularly, when we check on the Airservices Australia website, they are not meeting the targets that are set down under the long-term operating plan. We get complaints from constituents, understandably, for the increasing noise that we're seeing around the airport. With the advent of modern aircraft, flights have become more efficient, more powerful and quieter. We should be able to send more of those flights out over the water rather than over people's households.

We've seen a massive increase in the traffic from helicopters over Sydney airport as well. There were 5,776 helicopter trips in 2010 to and from Sydney airport. That has now risen to 15,730 in 2017, which is about a 173 per cent increase in helicopter trips over the last seven years. Most of them are coming from the airport straight out over Mascot, Pagewood and Maroubra. Once they get out to the sea, they do a left-hand turn, go straight up the coast, do a joy ride around the harbour and then come back and do the same trip. By the time that they are getting back to Sydney airport, they're flying very low when they're coming in over households. We've had a lot of complaints from constituents about this.

Our airports are pieces of critical national infrastructure. They deserve better. Our airports don't operate in isolation. They are part of our community. They can have significant impacts on people and places. That's why the development of our airports needs to be well planned and done in consultation with communities. That is the key: ensuring that there is consultation with communities. Labor supports investment in aviation infrastructure. As I said earlier, airports are economic powerhouses, but it needs to be done in consultation with communities. That's why we're proposing that the trigger for development plans be dropped from $35 million to $25 million and that this proposal to ensure that the time line can be reduced for consultation with communities be rejected. Consultation with communities is the key to ensuring that we have viable, workable airports that provide jobs for people and also important travel and tourism services.

Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (12:40): It's safe to say that the issue of airports is a hot one for my electorate in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, so I look at the Airports Amendment Bill 2016 in the context that it probably does little to reassure communities I represent, particularly in the Blue Mountains and those who value their night-time silence in the Hawkesbury. But I also look at it from the perspective of other airports I know quite well, including Hobart, Alice Springs and Darwin, which are keen to see appropriate commercial development around their sites. I will speak of Western Sydney Airport later.

In terms of meeting the needs of other airports, I want to talk about the additional measures Labor has indicated that we are moving with this bill. One is the monetary trigger. It's pretty reasonable to see $25 million, rather than the $35 million that the government proposed, as a trigger for a separate major development plan. It reflects CPI but also maintains the commitment that we have to have to people who live alongside an existing airport. They need to be assured that their scrutiny won't be reduced.

The other amendment—which the government has seen the merit of and, I understand, will support—is around proper consultation. At the moment, with draft major development plans, the public consultation period is 60 business days. The minister, though, can approve a shorter period of not less than 15 business days if asked in writing by the operator to do so, as long as they are satisfied that the proposed development is consistent with the approved airport master plan and that it doesn't have significant impact on the local or regional community. The government has proposed that, if the minister doesn't make a decision on the request within 15 business days, the minister be deemed to have approved that shorter period. We can't support that. It has the potential to take away the rights of local communities to have their say. I think a minister should be able to consider a request for reduced consultation within 15 business days—that's three weeks. But where that doesn't happen, rather than the request being deemed approved, it should be deemed not approved. A lack of decision should go not in favour of the airport operators but in favour of the community's right to scrutiny. Certainly Labor has increased the rights for communities when we've been in office. It was Labor that required federal airports to establish community aviation consultation groups. Before then, they just didn't exist. Whilst some airports do it better than others, it's right that they're all required to have a robust consultation process.

That brings me to the fact that, in spite of having a set of rules for existing airports, none of this will really help the residents of the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury who are concerned right now about Badgerys Creek Airport. One of the key issues is flight noise. The legislation talks about noise, and the ANEF is the official Australian measure of flight noise. More importantly, the ANEF standards suggest that, outside the ANEF 20, housing construction doesn't need to be modified due to aircraft noise. But I want to put on the record concerns about the ANEF. A former Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, Ron Brent, appointed by the Australian government in 2010 to help improve the handling of complaints around aircraft noise, to improve the information about aircraft noise and to improve the consultation about changes in air traffic that alter the impact of aircraft noise, is considered something of an expert. I've turned to his work, as I struggle to convey to people who live outside the Blue Mountains the genuine fear about the impacts of 24-hour aircraft noise, which will ultimately be the result of building an airport at the foot of the Blue Mountains.

As Mr Brent points out, the first thing to note about aircraft noise is that the experience of it—or any noise for that matter—is highly subjective. Unbearable noise for one person might not be of concern to another. He points to research in the US that has shown that, even in areas below the ANEF 20 noise rating, up to 45 per cent of residents are likely to be moderately or severely affected by aircraft noise. The other really important thing about noise from planes is that it's different to the noise created by railways or roads. It will reach a much wider area. It can't be shielded by barriers along the route, and it's not restricted to a narrow and predictable path. It doesn't fall in a straight line but spreads over an area that gets wider as the aircraft gets higher. It also gets quieter as the aircraft climbs. This means that the noise can reach more people once the aircraft is further from the airport, yet it can be many kilometres from take-off before the noise stops being intrusive for most people.

We are living that experience in the Blue Mountains right now with A380s and the newer aircraft. There's been a marked increase in the annoyance factor from planes travelling from east to west across the mountains. At the same time, people say, 'Oh, the new planes are so much quieter!' Well, they might be quieter on the ground, but the heavier planes take longer to get to their cruising height and so are now flying over the mountains at not 20,000-plus feet but as low as 13,000 feet, and they are much noisier. Many people tell me that they don't bother with an alarm clock, because the first flights out of Sydney airport in the morning head across at about 6.20 am and serve as a wake-up call. The same can be said of the last flights, crossing the mountains usually before 10.30 pm—and of course they are at those times because Sydney airport has a curfew.

Back to ANEF: the ANEF comes from a complex formula, including how loud the noise is, how frequent it is, and the distribution of the noise across the day and the night, because aircraft at night make more noise than in the day, when there are fewer competing noises. Mr Brent explains that the final average level won't tell you whether you'll get occasional loud noises, frequent quieter noise, lots of high noise or most of the noise between six and seven in the morning, when you hope to sleep in. What's more, the ANEF level will not tell you how bad things will be on the worst days. So, it's important to ensure that when evaluation is done on the Western Sydney airport's proposed flight paths it's not based on ANEF alone. N70 contours, which outline areas within which there'll be a given number of times a day that will get noise loud enough to disrupt a reasonable conversation—something that will drown out conversation around the barbecue, which is around 70 decibels—must be included, as well as maximum and minimum daily forecasts.

But of course we're not going to see these things for the Blue Mountains or the Hawkesbury for years. There is an airport under construction, yet there are no flight paths. The community is not going to be given this information about a 24-hour airport. Heathrow Airport has certainly realised that as flight volumes grow and more communities are more profoundly affected they need to do more. Their Fly Quiet and Green program focuses not just on noise but also on emissions, which would seem to be a sensible thing to be targeting. My point is that there is much more to be done by this government in the context of its plans for a huge new airport in Western Sydney. This bill is based on the idea that there must be a social compact between airports and the communities that live around them. Unless this government is transparent about the true impacts the airport will have on the Blue Mountains, there will never be a social compact.

Let's start with community engagement—the forum on Western Sydney airport drop-ins. This was multiple boards of information put around the room on a Friday night so that people could come and see it—lots of pretty pictures but, I have to say, I could find only one mention of the fact that the airport is a 24/7 airport with no curfew. It might suit the government for hundreds of thousands of people to not know that the planes will fly all through the night, but it is not an honest way of moving forward. In fact, I know that not everyone in this chamber has really got the message that this is a 24-hour airport in one of the most densely populated parts of our country. It is a blatant lack of transparency.

I'm going to quote from D Southgate from Airport Operations in the Commonwealth Department of Transport and Regional Services, writing in the year 2000—18 years ago—about aircraft noise, which should serve as a warning to this government. He said: 'There is little doubt that if the public believes it has been misled on noise predictions then there's going to be a negative reaction which far exceeds that which would otherwise be expected from a particular level of noise exposure.' I think that warning holds true, if we don't see honesty and transparency.

Nor has there been any attempt to really address publicly why there is no curfew—why it's okay for the people in the west of Sydney to have planes flying above them as low as a few thousand feet, even across the Blue Mountains, when it would be completely unacceptable in the east of the city. For goodness sake! The Prime Minister got upset with his local council for considering a skate park operating in daylight hours because the noise would disturb local residents. Yet he has not a qualm about subjecting the ever-growing Western Sydney population to sleep-disturbing noises through the night.

Given the 24-hour nature of this airport, nor can I accept that the project is barrelling on ahead without the release of flight paths. We're told that the ones in the IES were not the real ones. Really? Can anyone tell me that 100 per cent of incoming flights to this airport won't go across the Blue Mountains at any hour of the day? No-one is able to give that guarantee. Even with the promised night-time no-fly zone, where is the data to show how many nights of the year it will be able to be implemented? The reality is that, given a single runway, there are only two ways that a plane can fly in and take off—and, given prevailing winds, probably only one way most of the time. I was concerned to hear the previous speaker talk about how many times the long-term operating plan at Sydney Airport is not kept in the way it's meant to be. Is that the sort of thing we can expect to see in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury? These are all questions that people deserve the answers to, so be honest, get real and tell people so they can make their own judgement about whether the price they pay is an acceptable one.

People also expect transparency around the jobs figures that are being touted. A research report for the Jobs for Western Sydney working group written by Dr Ian Watson, who specialises in labour market research, has found that, contrary to the claims of a jobs bonanza, only 120 construction jobs and 800 airport jobs would be targeted to Western Sydney workers in the first stages of the project. That is a lot lower than the expectations people in the community have about how readily they're going to be able to get work, and it's been confirmed to me that anyone who takes a job on the airport project and relocates to the region for the duration of that work will be considered a local. So you don't have to have been born in that area or gone to school in that area or live in that area now with your family. You just have to be able to move into the area, and they can tick a box and say, 'Oh, there's another local.' So there isn't even any guarantee that the local jobs will go to an existing local employment pool. Dr Watson's report, to be released in the next week, finds the overall job claims, such as 8,700 aviation jobs by 2031, are vastly exaggerated, and his analysis is that the proposals for the adjacent business park and for the aerotropolis appear unrealistic. I congratulate the group on the serious work they've done to work through the numbers and what they're trying to do to get behind the spin, to get to the bottom and to paint a realistic picture, because that's what people deserve.

Nothing in what I have learnt of this airport plan since it was first talked about, nothing I have seen in the data and nothing I have seen in researching projects around the world has given me very much peace of mind. Nothing I've seen or been told changes my view that there are profound negative impacts from the flight paths across the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. As a community, I believe, we will have to fight hard to protect the peace and silence that we have until now been able to take for granted as something that we have when we choose to live in a World Heritage area. But you can't only stand here and fight for the things you know you are going to win, so I'm here to fight for what I believe is right for the community that I'm privileged to represent. The community is concerned not just for itself but also to ensure that future generations have the same privilege of being able to live and play peacefully in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (12:54): I speak in respect of the Airports Amendment Bill 2016, and I note that this bill has been before the parliament since December 2016, almost two years. Perhaps it will get through today. I make that point because it was only earlier this year that a master plan for the airport within my electorate, Parafield Airport, was finally approved. I suspect, had this legislation been in place in 2016, there might have been some differences with respect to the treatment of that master plan.

There are 21 federally leased airports around Australia, of which 19 require a master plan to be prepared every five years. This legislation makes several changes to the Airports Act, and I will go through them very briefly. Firstly, it increases the processing time for master plans from five years to eight years, so there will be an eight-year cycle instead of a five-year cycle. Secondly, updated noise exposure forecasts will be required with each new master plan application. Thirdly, there will be a lifting of the monetary figure from $20 million to $35 million and the introduction of a three-yearly construction indexation for the requirement of a separate major development plan. Fourthly, it will establish a decision time frame of 15 days for the minister to consider reduced periods for major development plan approvals. Fifthly, it will enable the minister to extend more than once the period during which developments are required to be substantially completed. And, lastly, it will allow airport operators to notify the minister if exceptional circumstances mean that a major development cannot proceed.

I speak in support of the comments already made by the member for Grayndler in respect of this legislation. And I understand that there'll be some amendments moved, perhaps in the committee stage of the bill, particularly with respect to the $35 million matter and the 15-day approval proposal that I referred to earlier.

This legislation is very relevant to the people that I represent, because, within the Makin electorate, lies Parafield Airport. It is a general aviation airport established in 1927. Until 1960 it was located in what was considered to be outside the metropolitan area of Adelaide and surrounded largely by open farmland. Today that is no longer the case. Urban Adelaide now surrounds Parafield Airport, with homes and industry right around it. In 1998, the airport was leased to Adelaide Airport Limited for 99 years. It was effectively privatised, with the only control reserved by the federal government being the approval process of the five-yearly master plans, a process that appears to be little more than a box-ticking exercise, which I expect comes at great expense and time to airport management.

Airports are exempt from all state and local government laws, as are all Commonwealth properties, and therefore there is little input that state and local government authorities and residents can make with respect to the plans. Yes, the plans are put on display, and, yes, there is a consultation period that the operators have to go through, but ultimately the airport can still determine what it wants to do on its land without having to be accountable to the local community. The master plan process is therefore really a mechanism—and it's the only mechanism—available to the federal government to limit any airport development, because, as I made clear a moment ago, airport developments are not limited by local authorities. In fact, when we see what is happening at airports today, they are not only used for aviation activities, to which the exemptions originally were meant to apply, but are now also used for wide-scale, non-aviation commercial developments.

In January this year, the former Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the member for New England, approved the 2017 Parafield Airport Master Plan. In his letter of approval, the minister stated, 'In making my decision, I considered the views of the South Australian government as well as all relevant federal agencies and other interested parties.' Many residents were aggrieved by that decision. Indeed, many residents contacted my office with respect to it. They felt their views had been ignored, that their concerns were not heard, and that, in reality, they had no say. I sympathise with those residents.

Parafield Airport management went through the public consultation process required of them. It culminated with a public forum held in Salisbury, attended by senior airport representatives and around 100 local residents. At the forum, airport representatives provided detailed representations of the master plan and how it was to be developed. Regrettably, insufficient time was provided to allow all of those people present to raise their personal concerns, ask questions or make verbal submissions. Several people that spoke to me when the forum had ended expressed their disappointment about not having been given an opportunity to speak in the public forum—albeit that, in fairness to them, the airport management staff offered to stay back and speak to people privately about the matters of concern to them.

The dominant issue of concern that was raised was the incessant noise generated by circuit training around the airport, particularly by trainee pilots, most of whom are being trained by an international training college based at Parafield Airport. It is in the middle of suburbia, and flight-training activities which were once not a problem are today, for many, incompatible with residential living. It is particularly a problem for those homes that are directly under the flight-training air paths. Flight training is, however, important for the aviation industry and I accept that. It's not only an important economic driver for South Australia, with most of the student pilots coming from overseas, but it's important that we have sufficiently well-trained pilots to work within the air industry. I accept that it remains a fact that the airport has been at Parafield since 1927, prior to residents moving in, and that flight training has always been a core business of the airport. I understand that, at present, there are about 215,000 aircraft movements at the airport per year, and that most of them are attributed to the flight-training activities. There have also been commendable efforts by airport management, through its technical advisory committee, to reduce noise impacts on surrounding residential areas. However, I believe that more can be done.

In particular, the airport's Fly Friendly Program could be improved. Daily commencement and end times of flight training, particularly on weekends and public holidays, could be made much more family-friendly. Several other suggestions that would reduce noise impact have also been made over the years, but it always seems that there is an unconvincing reason as to why those suggestions cannot be adopted. More recently, I note that the state member for Playford, the Hon. Michael Brown, has proposed that the aircraft used for circuit training should be replaced with electric aircraft. I understand that electric aircraft are currently being trialled at Jandakot in WA with services to Rottnest Island. My understanding is that they can stay in the air for about an hour, perhaps with a reserve of another 30 minutes after that, so that may well be the way to go. I don't know if they will make a difference to noise, because I'm not an aircraft engineer. But if they do improve the situation, then that is, perhaps, another matter that could be considered into the future.

At the core of the residents' concern is that they felt that their voices were simply not being heard, and that the changes they were proposing with respect to the master plan were not in any way adopted within the plan. And, to my knowledge, I'm not aware of any notable changes having been made to the master plan as a result of the consultation process—which highlights the point I made earlier: is it really a consultation process? Or is it really an information process, for the surrounding public to be made aware of what the airport management propose into the future?

The other matter that I will speak about is the issue of the noise exposure forecasts. I note that, under this bill, the noise exposure forecasts must be lodged with every master plan update. What effect that will have on the approval process is, in my mind, unclear. Again, will they simply provide more information or do they change the nature of the master plan that is to be approved? Bear in mind that, if no change is made to the master plan, the existing plan continues in operation: the fact that a master plan is not approved does not restrict the airport owners from continuing with development on airports; it simply restricts them from making developments inconsistent with the currently approved master plan.

Another matter has more recently emerged in respect of this issue, which is also very relevant to the question of master plans. I understand that the government is currently consulting with respect to what are referred to as public safety zones. In short these safety zones are intended to ensure that areas at the end of each runway at airports around the country might have restrictions placed on them with respect to the types of buildings that might go onto that land. I also understand that, where a development has already occurred, that will not be affected. If developments are already in place, those developments will be able to continue regardless of what changes are made in respect of public safety zones.

Clearly this proposal will create a limit on the types of developments that can be constructed at the end of the runways. I'm referring to land at the end of the runways outside of the airport itself—in other words, privately-owned land that lines up with the airport runways. That will clearly have an impact on the value of that land. People in the northern suburbs of Adelaide have already expressed concerns with respect to the impact the public safety zone proposal will have on their land. In particular, a lot of the land in the northern areas of Adelaide lies between Parafield Airport and Edinburgh air base, so it's actually trapped between two airports. That in turn means considerable tracts of land may be subject to whatever recommendations arise out of this proposal.

I understand its purpose. In the past my understanding was that any developments were restricted only on the basis of the noise exposure forecast grids created around the airports. This adds a new dimension to the restrictions, which was not foreseen at the time local governments put in their own citywide development plans, when many people made investments and planned for their future in the knowledge that the noise exposure forecast grid determined what could be built on their privately-owned land around the airports. I accept that the broader community is currently being consulted on this matter and no final position has been reached, but it is clear to me that if public safety zones are to be included in future developments around airports then the public safety zones would have a direct impact on the master plan process and the master plans currently applying to each and every one of those 19 airports. How will the public safety zones be incorporated into the master plan process in the future, and what impact will public safety zones have on them?

I will listen with interest to the debate in respect of the amendments. I believe that the amendments proposed to be moved by the member for Grayndler are very sensible, as other members on this side of the House have made clear, and I once again endorse the comments made by the member for Grayndler when on behalf of the opposition he responded to this legislation.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Leader of The Nationals) (13:09): I thank those members, including the member for Makin, who have contributed to this debate on the Airports Amendment Bill 2016. The federal government regulates planning and development on federally-leased airport sites through the Airports Act 1996. On 1 December 2016 the former minister, the member for Gippsland, introduced the bill into the House of Representatives. The bill proposes several measures developed in consultation with key industry stakeholders to streamline certain administrative arrangements in the Airports Act 1996 relating to master plans and major development plans that are currently generating inefficient outcomes for industry as well as imposing unnecessary and onerous administrative and compliance costs. In particular, the bill proposes to implement a differential master plan submission cycle, thereby requiring the major airports, such as Brisbane, Melbourne, Tullamarine, Perth, Sydney's Kingsford Smith—and I note the comments from the member for Kingsford Smith in this debate—and Western Sydney airport to maintain the current five-year submission cycle while the remaining airports will prepare a master plan every eight years.

The bill also proposes to increase the current $20 million monetary trigger for a major development plan to $25 million. The monetary threshold will be reviewed and revised via legislative instrument every three years, having regard to changes in construction activity costs and associated indexations to ensure that the monetary trigger accurately reflects and keeps pace with economic and marketplace conditions. The bill reinforces the government's commitment to improving the capacity of our regulatory framework to ensure that it continues to deliver a proportionate and efficiency-based approach that reduces administrative and compliance costs for operators, creating regulatory certainty for industry and maintaining appropriate and effective regulatory oversight.

On 9 February 2017 the bill was referred to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 March that year. Following an aviation accident at Essendon Airport, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting, to 19 March 2018. In March 2018 the committee recommended that the Senate pass the Airports Amendment Bill 2017. The committee's report has made it very clear that there is no linkage between the accident at Essendon Airport and the matters under consideration in this bill. I thank the shadow minister for infrastructure and transport for working constructively in a bipartisan way to ensure passage of this legislation, and I acknowledge his amendments to the bill, which he's just about to put to the House. The government contends that the bill will bring about positive changes for the aviation industry and airport users whilst still maintaining appropriate regulatory oversight and that this bill should be supported. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (13:12): I ask leave to move amendments (1) and (2), as circulated in my name, together.

Leave granted.

Mr ALBANESE: I move amendments (1) and (2), as circulated in my name, together:

(1)   Schedule 1, item 19, page 6 (line 6), omit "$35 million", substitute "$25 million".

   [lower threshold amount]

(2)   Schedule 1, item 22, page 7 (lines 9 and 10), omit "then the Minister is taken, at the end of that period, to have approved that shorter period", substitute "then, at the end of the period referred to in paragraph (b), the request is taken to have been refused".

[refusal of shorter consultation periods]

I thank the minister for the constructive way in which we've engaged on this legislation to make sure that what is, I think, a good piece of legislation is made better by dialogue. These questions shouldn't be partisan; they should be the subject of proper scrutiny—hence these amendments that I'm moving today, which the government will accept, I think will improve the bill before it goes to the Senate and should ensure that passage is expedited in the other place with the support of all of the adults in the room.

Amendment (1) changes the lower-threshold amount in schedule 1, substituting $25 million for $35 million. The rationale for this is quite clear: 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 in 2007. The bill originally proposed to increase this threshold by 75 per cent, to $35 million. In my view, that's excessive and it's also problematic. While the government has argued that this increase reflects changes to construction industry costs, and other economic conditions that have occurred, I believe that a 75 per cent increase doesn't accurately reflect the changes in construction costs since 2007. According to the ABS construction CPI, costs have increased by 20 per cent. A number of major and sizeable airport construction projects would fall under a $35 million threshold, and such projects would be exempt from public consultations and other assessments. A $25 million monetary trigger is far more appropriate.

I will say to the minister that one of the first things I did upon coming to the high office that he now holds, of transport minister responsible for aviation, was go to an opening of a number of projects at Melbourne Airport. I asked what the process was for the MDP. What had occurred was they'd broken up what was a very large expansion into a series of smaller projects in order to not have an MDP. The truth is that we, as public office holders, have a responsibility to ensure that there's public scrutiny available. That's what the government's acceptance of this amendment will do. I thank him for the spirit in which it's put forward. It is to ensure that there's no diminution of accountability as a result of the expansions, of which there are a number of very considerable expansions to aviation around this country.

What I see, and I know the minister sees when he sees those expansions, is jobs and economic activity. It's a good thing, but it needs to have that scrutiny to make sure that whilst we maximise the economic benefit of aviation we also minimise the impact on the community, because from time to time infrastructure projects do have a negative impact on the community and that's why it's important that they be able to be consulted.

The second amendment is to change the issue of shorter consultation periods. It is:

Schedule 1, item 22, page 7 (lines 9 and 10), omit "then the Minister is taken, at the end of that period, to have approved that shorter period", substitute "then, at the end of the period referred to in paragraph (b), the request is taken to have been refused".

This is an important amendment. It's about ensuring that the power of the minister is retained and that you don't have, through a default circumstance, consultation periods being cut off, or approval being deemed to have occurred, without a conscious decision of the minister to examine the proposal that is before him or her, and to be able to therefore— (Time expired)

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr S Georganas ): The member's time has expired. The member for Grayndler.

Mr ALBANESE: Due to a range of circumstances that can occur—the minister is very busy with a very large portfolio—it is important to have proper examination. I know that the minister will take his duties very seriously and examine each of these plans. With a range of plans, particularly for the secondary airports, I found they can have a real impact, because—whether it be the Parafields, the Jandakots or the Bankstowns—they tend to be located around a lot of residences. I certainly took my responsibility seriously and on a range of occasions basically sent it back effectively with a mark of 'needs to do better before it's approved'. And guess what? They did do better. That provides a confidence there for the public.

Currently the public consultation period associated with draft MDPs, as specified in subsection 92(2A) of the act, is 60 business days. The minister can approve a shorter period, not less than 15 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 master plan and does not raise any issues that have a significant impact on the local or regional community.

The bill seeks to insert 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 can't support that amendment, and I'm pleased that the minister's been very much open to having some dialogue about this. This is one of the pieces of legislation in this parliament which won't change a vote either way. Most legislation is like that. We should be able to consult, have dialogue and come out with better outcomes in the national interest. In the words of the Bills Digest that was 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.

It should be within a minister's capability to consider a request for reduced consultation within 15 days. In circumstances where this doesn't occur, it's appropriate for it to be deemed that the request is not approved, is refused. That achieves a better balance. The whole philosophy behind the aviation green paper and white paper process was to ensure that you had proper planning around airports. In some of the debate that's taken place about flight paths, for example, with Western Sydney airport, I note that of course there aren't flight paths yet, because they're done every five years under an airport master plan. There is a constant review. There is a constant need now, and indeed a legislated requirement, to have community consultation and engagement. Interestingly, at the time that that was done, a lot of the airports weren't exactly fans of this reform. They all acknowledge now that, as a result of this reform, their processes have been substantially improved and the relationships with the communities around their airport have been enhanced.

I commend the amendments to the House and I thank the government, and the minister, in particular, for their support.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Leader of The Nationals) (13:23): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr DICK (Oxley) (13:24): During the term of this government, we've seen its complete lack of compassion, lack of thought and lack of attention to vulnerable Australians doing it tough. Rather, we've seen those opposite instead looking after their mates at the top end of town with the budget, as we know, for big business—a tax handout of $80 billion to the big multinationals and the big banks. But what we have here today is something on a new level, even for those opposite. Not only does the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 neglect vulnerable Australians doing it tough, but it goes on the attack to degrade and demonise those people, who instead should be receiving our support. This bill, instead of helping them, will only hurt them.

In the face of zero evidence, what we see before us is this government's second attempt to establish a two-year trial of drug testing for 5,000 recipients of Newstart allowance and youth allowance in three trial locations, including Logan in Queensland, which is in the electorate of my friend and colleague the member for Rankin, just next to my own. Don't be fooled. If the government gets its way, this will only be the beginning. This is despite the government being unable to provide any evidence supporting the establishment of their drug testing trial or revealing the cost. We're talking not just about the cost to the budget but also about the cost to individual Australians, the cost to families and the cost to communities who will bear the brunt of this reckless policy.

The government previously tried to introduce this measure as part of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. That bill was subject to a Senate inquiry which reported on 6 September last year. The report of this inquiry stated that a number of serious areas of concern 'were raised in submissions and oral evidence in relation to the proposed establishment of drug testing trials', including:

a lack of evidence to support the use of drug testing;

the cost, availability and reliability of drug testing;

availability of treatment services to meet potential increased demand; and

reliance on delegated legislation to set out significant detail about the operation of the trial; and

income management.

This feedback should ring alarm bells that this legislation is poorly thought out and poorly designed.

Labor opposed many of the measures in the welfare reform bill, including the drug testing trials, the first time around, and we are doing so again this time. Many concerns have been raised about this measure by health and welfare groups, including St Vincents Health, the Royal Australian College of Physicians, ACOSS and UnitingCare, just to name a few. Not one health or community organisation has come out publicly in support of the trial. Let me say that again: not one health or community organisation has come out publicly in support of the trial—not a single one. There is not a single strand of evidence to support this vindictive policy and not a single health or community backed organisation that supports it. This government is on its own on this one, and clearly it must think it knows more than the experts do.

Instead, medical professionals and the drug and alcohol treatment sector have raised significant concerns not only about the impact these measures will have on jobseekers but also that they won't be effective in identifying those with a serious problem or providing them with treatment. Experts warn that these changes will not help people to overcome addiction, because that is not how addiction works. Instead, they will be pushed into crisis, poverty, homelessness and potentially crime. Let me repeat that: they will be pushed into crisis, poverty, homelessness and potentially crime.

Nonetheless, the government persist. Even in the face of this overwhelming evidence that people will not be better off, they persist with this poorly thought-out policy. The director of the St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne Department of Addiction Medicine had this to say on the measures proposed by the government:

There will be more crime, more family violence, more distress within society.

That's right: there will be more crime, more family violence and more distress within society. She continues:

We can expect at Centrelink offices there will be aggression and violence as people react to this. Had [the government] spoken to the various bodies who work in this area—

who know best, they would have listened.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, when the member for Oxley will have the right to continue speaking.

The SPEAKER (15:20): I present the Speaker's response to the recommendations of the report of the Standing Committee on Petitions entitled Making voices heard: inquiry into the e-petitioning system of the House of Representatives Petitions Committee.

The SPEAKER (15:20): I present the report on the Commonwealth Ombudsman's activities under section 65(6) of the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Act 2016 for the period 1 July to 30 September 2017.

Mr IRONS (Swan) (15:22): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, I present the committee's report on the 2016-17 annual reports of bodies established under the ASIC Act.

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

Mr IRONS: by leave—The committee has examined the annual reports of the bodies established under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001:

The Companies Auditors Disciplinary Board;

The Takeovers Panel;

The Financial Reporting Council;

The Australian Accounting Standards Board;

The Auditing and Assurance Standards Board; and

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

The committee focused on the statutory requirements, pertinent operational matters, and other matters that in the committee's opinion parliament should consider.

The committee notes that this complements and does not duplicate the Senate Economics Legislation Committee's examination of the annual reports under Senate standing order 25(20).

The committee considers that the bodies have fulfilled their annual reporting responsibilities.

However, the committee has reserved its judgement on whether the Financial Reporting Council, the Australian Accounting Standards Board and the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board have fulfilled their regulatory functions due to continuing concerns about audit quality.

The committee also remains concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of the Companies Auditors Disciplinary Board (formerly the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board) being such a small body, with such a small and irregular workload.

The committee notes that the explanatory memorandum for the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 indicates that one of the arguments for removing the liquidator functions from the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board was the perceived inefficiency and cost of its processes.

The committee also notes that the reforms associated with the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 were focused on insolvency and may not have adequately considered the adequacy of the Companies Auditors Disciplinary Board continuing in its current form.

ASIC has also continued to raise concerns about audit quality in its audit inspection program.

The committee therefore recommends that the government review the adequacy of current arrangements for auditor disciplinary functions.

Mr DICK (Oxley) (15:25): In continuation regarding this bill today I was commenting about remarks made by the Director of the Department of Addiction Medicine at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne in direct relation to impact of this bill. I place on the record again what Associate Professor Yvonne Bonomo said in her remarks regarding this bill. I hope those opposite are listening carefully, because she said:

Pushing people to the brink won't make it better.

We know that the government has not even announced the cost of this, nor do they know the detail of what types of tests will be conducted. I again ask for the evidence. Where is it? Where is the detail? When considering new trials such as these we can often look to other countries who have implemented similar programs to gauge their success, but on this occasion what we find is not success but rather a track record of this system simply not working. That's what the experts at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians have to say about this:

In 2013, the New Zealand government instituted a drug testing program … among welfare recipients. In 2015, only 22 (0.27 per cent) of 8,001 beneficiaries tested returned a positive result for illicit drug use or refused to be tested. This detection rate was much lower than the proportion of the population estimated to be using illicit drugs in New Zealand … Similar results were found in the United States … In Utah, 838 of the state's 9,552 welfare applicants were screened with 29 returning a positive result.

That's just 0.3 per cent. These were costly initiatives that simply drove people into poverty and crime.

This bill has also been the subject of a Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry, which recently handed down its report. This included a statement from Clinical Associate Professor Adrian Reynolds, an expert in addiction medicine, who said that the drug-testing trial is:

… unlikely to bring about any sustained changes in patients' drug use behaviours and may even be counterproductive.

Again, I hope those opposite are listening. Drug and alcohol addiction experts have said this measure may be counterproductive. Associate Professor Adrian Reynolds went further and told the committee:

… this drug testing trial is clinically inappropriate and not designed in a way that will address the issues of substance dependence.

Expert after expert has shared similar views. The report also included the following statement about the cost:

Labor Senators on the Committee are concerned that the Government has not revealed details about the cost of the proposed drug testing trial and have serious concerns based on international experiences and the stated cost of testing in Australia, that the drug testing trial will be very expensive to administer and represent poor value for taxpayers.

The experts are not coming forward to back the claim of those opposite, who like to cloak themselves in responsibility and responsible behaviour. In fact not one expert has come forward for this. The report went on:

The Committee heard evidence that the funds for treatment to be provided for the Government were insufficient to meet the current need, let alone the increased demand that is expected to be generated by the drug testing trial.

Through the committee we also learned that my own home state of Queensland is:

… about $75 million short of what would be considered an adequate treatment system to meet the needs of those people who voluntarily want to enter the system.

and:

… this figure does not take in to account an amount to enable services to meet increased demand.

The evidence is simply overwhelmingly against this piece of legislation, but perhaps none more so than the tragic story told to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee by Mr Matthew Noffs, from the Ted Noffs Foundation, about an 18-year-old girl. He says:

She was raped by her father repeatedly since the age of four. She was then forced to become a sex worker at 14. By 16, she was using ice to get by. She is continuing to use ice at 18 and she is on the dole.

This is the only thing that is keeping her alive. The drug is the one thing that is keeping her alive. She had broken countless laws by the time she was a teenager. She doesn't care about being arrested for this … She will find any which way that she can.

It is stories like this that show the government's misunderstanding of the issue. The Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies—

Mr Laming: Try it!

Mr DICK: I will take the objection from the member for Bowman, who is from the LNP in Queensland. They savagely cut health funding from front-line doctors and nursing. When the LNP were in state government, they closed centres in my own electorate, like the Barrett Adolescent Centre. Are you going to apologise for that? No, he is saying he is not apologising for that. I say: read the report. The member for Bowman should read the report about the impact of what the Newman administration did about the closing of those centres. Read the report. Take the advice from experts. Stop coming in here and pretending you know the world when you don't. Time and time again—

Mr Laming interjecting—

Mr DICK: This is the member still defending these savage cuts, the millions of dollars worth of cuts under the Newman administration. We see the disrespect shown to the medical fraternity—doctors, nurses—by people like the member for Bowman. They never apologised for those savage cuts to front-line services.

Mr Laming interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Andrews ): The member for Bowman will desist.

Mr DICK: And you wonder why you were thrown out of office. You wonder why the people of Queensland saw through your litany of cuts.

Mr Laming: I think we're in office.

Mr DICK: I'm talking about Queensland—keep up. You wonder the LNP were comprehensively rejected in the Longman by-election. They were wiped out because of their savage cuts to front-line services. They then come in here and want to lecture anyone about health funding. Take a lesson from what's happened in Queensland, about the disgraceful performance by the LNP.

We know that residents who are selected for testing will be notified of a requirement to attend an appointment with the Department of Human Services. At this appointment, they will be notified of a requirement to provide a sample of saliva, urine or hair for the purpose of a drug test. Testing will be undertaken by a contracted third-party provider. Recipients who fail to attend this appointment will have their payments suspended. Should a jobseeker refuse—

Mr Laming interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Bowman will desist or leave the chamber.

Mr DICK: He doesn't like the truth. He doesn't like the fact that I'm pointing out that his party has cut vital health funds in Queensland, in his own state. He knows it is this time again; it is the walk of shame while he scurries out of this chamber, because he knows what I'm saying is correct. We know that the government can't provide the costs. We know it. The government either doesn't know it themselves or won't say. These people are already doing it tough. The people who the government are victimising as a result of this legislation are only going to be pushed further into poverty by this government, who appears to be hell-bent on sending them there. This government's ignorance of the experts is simply astounding. We've heard reports that the trial could put Centrelink staff at risk of aggression and violence as they attempt to enforce surprise drug testing on participants.

In closing, I would like to quote the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine, who said the following:

The RACP and AChAM are concerned that these measures are not based on evidence of what works—either at a policy or a clinical level.

In our view, they will not only fail to achieve the Bill's stated aim of assisting people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction to access treatment and secure employment, but will harm an already vulnerable group of people and increase their social and financial disadvantage.

To the government sitting in the chamber today, I urge them to reconsider their ill-fated stance taken on this important issue and the harm that it will inflict on vulnerable Australians, families and communities. We know that there is not a single piece of evidence that suggests this policy will do anything but cause harm. I'm proud to say that Labor and myself will not be supporting this bill.

Mr MORTON (Tangney) (15:34): I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018. This bill establishes a two-year trial of drug testing for 5,000 new recipients of Newstart allowance and youth allowance other for illicit substances like ice and ecstasy. The trial is compassionate. It is about making lives better. It is about getting people with drug issues and drug addiction the services and treatment they need to beat their addiction.

Substance abuse impacts on so many people, not just the drug users themselves. Their families and their friends all experience the heartbreak, the anger, the financial strain and the safety issues that come with someone with a serious drug addiction. One of the worst barriers to a productive life and to getting a job is drug addiction itself. Doing nothing isn't an option. Doing nothing isn't helping Australians to address their drug addiction and to get off welfare and into work. Newstart and youth allowance are designed to help people while they look for work, but, if you are bombed out of your brain on drugs or booze, you can't search for work. Even if you get the interview, you're not going to get the job. That's the sad reality.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's National Drug Strategy Household Survey shows that drug use is higher for unemployed people than those with a job. Quite frankly, you shouldn't need a survey to tell you that. If you are unemployed, you are three times more likely to use ice. People with substance abuse issues deserve government support and intervention to help them get clean, into work and back to a productive life, not just for them but also for their family. The community also has the right to expect that taxpayer-funded welfare is being used by jobseekers to do everything they can to find a job—not used to fund harmful drug addictions. Compassionate drug testing will identify the people who need help, and the treatment fund will make sure that those people have what they need to get clean and to get job-ready.

The drug testing trial will operate in three locations: Canterbury Bankstown in New South Wales; Logan in Queensland; and Mandurah in my home state of Western Australia. These three communities were carefully chosen, using evidence and data from a number of sources which showed that they were the communities most in need of intervention. This included data from the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission's National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's National Drug Strategy Household Survey, state and territory crime statistics on drug use and possession, state and territory hospital data and data from the Department of Human Services.

The National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program gives us concrete data informing drug policy. Wastewater testing estimated the consumption of illicit substances. More than 8.3 tonnes of methamphetamine, three tonnes of cocaine, 1.2 tonnes of MDMA and more than 700 kilograms of heroin were consumed between August 2016 and August 2017. Regionally, methamphetamine and MDMA consumption exceeded capital city consumption. These numbers are alarming. The three trial locations already have strong support services in place, but this government recognises the scale of the issue and has announced, as part of this trial of those 5,000 welfare recipients, a dedicated treatment fund of $10 million for additional treatment services for those affected jobseekers.

This support is a really important part of the drug-testing trial. Isn't it amazing how those opposite just do not mention the fact that it isn't just the welfare recipients who will be tested? The support services will also be tested to ensure that they are adequate for those people identified with a drug abuse problem to help them get into a productive life of work. There will be $1 million for case management services for people who test positive more than once under the trial. There will be $3 million to boost drug treatment capacity in the three trial communities, and $6 million for additional accredited treatment support to supplement the state and Commonwealth services that are already in place. This is in addition to the almost $685 million this government has already committed over four years to reduce the impact of drug and alcohol abuse on individuals, families and communities. This includes an investment of almost $300 million as part of the National Ice Action Strategy to improve prevention, treatment care and education to tackle ice.

Expert advice from the drug-testing provider and the drug and alcohol treatment sector will also be assessed when developing procedures and safeguards to get the trial right. This considerable investment in the health and wellbeing of our community recognises that, by supporting jobseekers to address their substantial substance abuse issues, it is the most essential step in their becoming productive again, getting a job and getting back into life. Jobseekers themselves, their families, the community and the economy will all benefit.

I want to pay tribute to my good friend the member for Canning. The Mandurah trial location is in his community, and he is committed to tackling drugs and ice in his community. Methamphetamine consumption in regional WA is the highest in Australia. The number of welfare recipients in Western Australia who try to claim drug or alcohol use as an excuse for not meeting their mutual obligations increased by 475 per cent over five years, with 1,075 applications submitted in 2017 alone. The member for Canning's community in Mandurah will benefit greatly from this drug-testing trial, and the Canning community, like mine in Tangney, tell me that they want real action on drugs.

Before parliament right now is a program that could make a big difference for all of our communities. Some of our colleagues opposite have chosen to speak about the drug-testing trial in isolation, without any mention at all of the other programs and services being delivered as part of this trial. The treatment and support services with this trial are very significant. But let's remember: this is a trial. The drug tests and the support services are being trialled together. If more needs to be done, or if more resources need to be allocated, then this trial will show that. That will be a benefit of this trial.

There will be consequences for people who deliberately miss an appointment without a reasonable excuse, or refuse a drug test in order to avoid a possible positive result. Jobseekers who test positive to a drug test will have their payments placed on income management. This restricts their access to cash and limits the jobseeker's ability to use their payments to fund further harmful drug use. There is no reduction in the amount of support they get from the Commonwealth, but there is a change in the way that support from the Commonwealth provided by the taxpayer is applied to them. Jobseekers who test positive will also be subject to a second drug test within 25 working days, and may be subject to further tests. This will identify people who have an ongoing problem and who require that help, that intervention and that treatment. Jobseekers who test positive to more than one drug test will be referred to a medical professional experienced in drug and alcohol treatment, who will assess their individual circumstances, and identify appropriate treatment and support options. If the medical professional recommends treatment, the jobseeker will be required to participate in that treatment. This is an important intervention. Without this, the trial may not happen. This is an intervention that could actually change the course of somebody's life, and the treatment services can form part of their job plan. As I said earlier, there's no point going to job interviews if you have a drug addiction problem. You may as well be supported by this government, get support, and get the treatment services that you need.

This trial is not about penalising people or demeaning jobseekers with drug-abuse issues. The trial is about making sure that jobseekers get the support and treatment they need to find a job and to make their life better. I know about the intersection of welfare and drugs from my own family experience. I spoke about that in my maiden speech, and I've spoken about that in other debates on this particular topic. I reflect back on the intersection of drugs and welfare in my own family, and I wonder whether or not, if this drug-testing trial had been in place 20 years ago, some of the outcomes in my own family would be very different today. Do I know they would be different? No, I don't. Do I know they could be different? Yes, I do. And because there is a chance that this intervention can improve the lives of drug users and move them off drug addiction, we need to take that chance, we need to try this trial, and we need to learn from it.

Often welfare was 'cash for compensation', simply set and forget. I don't believe at all that our welfare system should be set and forget. I don't believe that our welfare system should be compensation for the circumstances in which someone has found themselves in life. Our welfare system must always be an investment in somebody. That investment has been funded by the Australian taxpayer through the Australian government, and when you're making an investment, you want to make sure that investment is going absolutely to the outcomes you desire—and the outcome we desire isn't a life of drug abuse and addiction; it's a life of productivity and engagement with family and our economy. And you can only do that through engagement through work.

I'm absolutely of the view that this intervention and support will make a big difference to so many lives. The best form of welfare is always a job. More than one million jobs have been created since the coalition government was elected in 2013. The government has reduced welfare dependency for working-age Australians to the lowest level in 25 years. In the three years to June 2017, the number of working-age Australians on income support fell by 140,000, to 2.4 million people. This represents a reduction of around $23 billion in future lifetime costs to the welfare system. This is something that we're very proud of on this side of the House. This is something the government is committed to. This is something that is actually making lives better. I'm in parliament to empower people to take control of their lives, and for the government, where it needs, to co-invest in their future. So, if you're a young person on welfare, you can be an aspirational hardworking Australian. You can apply your effort, get a job and get ahead. And if drugs are an issue, we should be there as a government to have that intervention, to give that individual the intervention they may not ask for but may need in order to get the support that they need to change and turn their life around.

The best thing we can do is to help someone off drugs, off welfare and into work. And we cannot be blinded by ideology like those opposite. We should give the drug-testing trial a chance. I ask and I plead with the opposition and the crossbench to support this important trial. We must support these jobseekers. It's about helping people, and a failure to identify and assist people who have drug-dependency issues will leave them rot in a cycle of lifelong welfare. So we've got to get out into our communities with an open mind. We need to see what people think and get the facts. We need to support this trial and get the learnings from it.

The community, in my view, is very supportive of these measures. Millions of Australians are used to accepting drug testing for jobs in mining, construction, transport and many of our large companies. Why should it be any different for someone on welfare? We know that there's a problem in our communities, we know that that problem is exacerbated for those who are on welfare and we know that drug use and welfare do intersect. We know that the lazy application of cash as welfare isn't working. It isn't helping people that need that help.

I'll always look for the best ways to support people on welfare, particularly where welfare dependency exists alongside the harm of drug and alcohol abuse. This drug-testing trial delivered by this legislation is about helping people get the treatment for their drug issues, to get them off welfare and into a job. It's about making a better life for them and their families, and this parliament should support this trial.

Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (15:47): At the core of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 are the three drug-testing trials which are planned for Canterbury Bankstown in New South Wales, Mandurah in Western Australia and my own community of Logan City in Queensland. This bill is not a genuine or meaningful attempt to help out some of the most vulnerable people in our community. It's all about denigrating, demeaning, diminishing vulnerable people and pushing them to the brink. It's all about chasing a cheap tabloid headline at the expense of community cohesion. And it's all about a government so blinded by ideology that they won't listen to expert after expert after expert in the health field, the law and order field and beyond who say that this won't work and that it will be counterproductive.

This is a dangerous approach to people on social security payments because it will further marginalise them and it will push them to the brink, and that will have all kinds of consequences not just for the person immediately affected but for communities right around the country. This is a bit personal for me, because I do represent, proudly, the community that I was born in, grew up in, live in and love; I am raising my family there now. I tell you, we are a little bit sick as a community of being singled out by this out-of-touch Prime Minister and the LNP time and time again for this kind of denigration.

We are sick and tired of the fake concern shown by those opposite, including in the most recent contribution—this pretence that they care about vulnerable people. It makes us sick, Deputy Speaker. We are sick and tired of the lectures from Point Piper about what it's like to be on a low or a fixed income and battling with drug addiction. We are sick and tired of being the first port of call every time—and it's quite frequent—those opposite need a distraction from the latest scandals, whether it be half a billion dollars going to the Prime Minister's mates or by-election failures and other humiliations. We are sick and tired of being the first port of call when the government needs a distraction.

I will be voting against this legislation, as will every one of my colleagues, because we understand that what's being proposed here won't work, because we've listened to the experts and the experts have said that this will actually lead to worse health outcomes, it will lead to more crime, it will lead to more marginalisation and it will lead to more poverty. I think it speaks ill of those opposite—it says everything about those opposite—that, in the face of overwhelming expert opinion, they are so blinded by their extreme ideology and so keen to chase that cheap headline that they want to persevere with this ridiculous bill anyway.

This is not the first time that these drug-testing proposals have been before the House. They were attached to the broader social services legislation, and they failed then because those on the crossbench, thankfully, listened to the experts, as we did. So they have failed before. This bill is a little bit different in that it actually names the three sites—the three sites I mentioned at the outset. The trials were supposed to commence on 1 July this year, and that deadline has obviously been missed. The costs of the trial haven't been published, but the government has announced the money for drug testing. But it isn't clear how the treatment fund will be allocated and if it will be in sufficient time before the trials are scheduled to commence. So we will oppose this bill.

Thankfully, a whole range of groups right around Australia have come out and pointed out the flaws in the approach proposed by those opposite. Let me just do you a very quick roll call. These are just some of the health experts, medical professionals and community organisations that have opposed the measures that are being proposed here: the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, St Vincent's Health, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, Harm Reduction Australia, Penington Institute, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, the Australian Council of Social Service, UnitingCare Australia, Homelessness Australia and the St Vincent de Paul Society. All of these groups are united in their opposition to the government's proposals for these drug trials.

Let's consider for a moment that the other piece of paper I'm holding contains all of the groups who have come out in support of this legislation: absolutely none. Across the board, no community organisation, no expert group, no peak body in health or law and order has come out in support of what is being proposed here. This is the complete list of the organisations which have come out in support of what the government is proposing! That just shows you the folly of what's being imposed on communities like mine.

Just consider some of the quotes from some of those organisations. The Director of St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne's Department of Addiction Medicine said:

International experience shows when you push people to the brink, like removing their welfare payments, things just get worse …

There will be more crime, more family violence, more distress within society.

The Australian Medical Association said:

… the AMA considers these measures to be mean and stigmatising.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre said there was 'no evidence' that any of these measures will directly achieve outcomes associated with reductions in alcohol or other drug use or harms, and indeed have 'the potential to create greater levels of harm, including increased stigma, marginalisation and poverty'. These experts know, as we on this side of the chamber know, that this has been trialled and has failed elsewhere, including in 2013 in New Zealand. In 2015 in New Zealand, only 22 of 8,001 participants returned a positive result. This was a detection rate much lower than the proportion of the general New Zealand population estimated to be using illicit drugs. Similar results came back in trials in the US states of Missouri and Utah.

There are other very real concerns that testing could encourage people to use less-traceable drugs. There are a whole range of other issues around long waiting lists, meaning that people testing positive might not be able to get the help they need. There are all kinds of issues around Centrelink staff possibly being put at risk of aggression and violence as they attempt to enforce drug testing of participants, and that's before we even get to the fact that those opposite haven't been able to organise anything in the social services space without getting it horribly wrong, whether it's robo-debt or right across the board in IT—things like the Census, or Medicare information being sold on the dark web. Even if this was a good idea, those opposite wouldn't have the capacity to implement it properly. So, what they're proposing to do is to commit a whole bunch of money to something that won't work, hasn't worked overseas, won't work here, would be counterproductive and is not supported by any of the experts—which is a pretty remarkable situation that they've found themselves in.

In addition to the national peak organisations, in my community of Logan City, to the south of Brisbane, there has been a fierce local reaction to what's being proposed here. And I commend the local council; I commend Acting Mayor Cherie Dalley and all her colleagues for the way they've gone about this, and all the community groups. They weren't even given the courtesy of being notified that they'd been singled out for these trials. They found out about it when they read about it in the newspaper, which is a pretty appalling way to treat a community in which you'd like to implement your drug trial. If you think about some of the most respected people in our community, they have come out fiercely in opposition to what's being proposed. For example, Cath Bartolo, the CEO of YFS—a terrific group in my electorate that helps disadvantaged and vulnerable people—has described the measure as 'punitive and not backed by evidence'. Here is Cath on the front page of our local paper last year. The story says:

A Logan-based social services group has slammed last week's federal government decision to test welfare recipients in Logan for drugs.

Cath Bartolo also came to a Senate committee hearing in Logan about the proposed legislation. There she said:

For young people, I'm really worried if they lose income and are not linked to positive things about trying to get employment they'll turn to crime or other means, like prostitution.

These fears are shared pretty broadly in our community. Julie Fursey, from LECNA, the Logan East Community Neighbourhood Association, said:

We see this as a discriminatory policy. It's going to discriminate against the most vulnerable people in the community. It's going to really hurt Logan City. We'll be looking at increased crime, increased domestic violence and robberies.

Geoffrey Davey, of the Queensland Injectors Health Network, said to the committee:

It may actually have the effect of increasing socialisation, stigma, discrimination and marginalisation of what is already a very vulnerable population.

Rebecca Lang, of the Queensland Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies, said:

There will be a proportion of people who will move into activities that maybe previously they wouldn't have thought about doing, like sex work or crime, usually property crime, to get things that they can pawn or sell to buy drugs or swap with their dealer to get drugs. The reality is that people who are experiencing drug dependence live fairly grim lives.

The list goes on and on. People have come out against this. The acting mayor of Logan City, Cherie Dalley, said:

In the light of concerns raised by the medical community, the lack of consultation and the lack of evidence about the effectiveness of similar measures internationally, Council believes there is further work to be done in order to be able to proceed.

Logan City also has very serious concerns about how we as a community have been selected for this drug trial. The member for Tangney in his contribution talked about the testing of the local sewage to determine which communities were picked. He may not appreciate—and I mean this respectfully—that the testing done to pick my community in Logan City was actually done on the Brisbane sewerage plants to which many communities, many councils, feed into. So there have been errors in that part of the selecting of the site. The relevant council officer, Nick McGuire, Acting Director of Community Services, said:

It became apparent that the data was really about the convenience of choosing a location like Logan rather than the data actually putting together a strong business case for Logan being one of the locations.

He also said:

The data doesn't really stack up from a Logan-specific purpose: it points to some wastewater treatment reports that are really targeting towards Brisbane and it points to the Logan district police service district, which is really not the entirety of Logan either.

So there are a whole range of flaws with how we've arrived at this absurd proposition not just as it relates to my community but as it relates to all three of the communities.

I want to commend Senators Lisa Singh, Murray Watt and Louise Pratt, because they have done an excellent job highlighting the problems with these trials in their dissenting report to the Senate committee report. They pointed to a lot of the issues that I've talked about in some detail so far.

Finally, the government is unable to tell the Australian people how much these trials will cost taxpayers, which is a pretty reckless approach when you consider we've got record debt in this country. It's pretty amazing that they won't fess up about what they're spending on the ideologically-driven proposals that we're debating today. The reason they can't tell us how much it costs is that they don't know what tests will be used. They don't know a whole range of things. There is a whole range of unanswered questions, including the cost of these tests. We're not going to give the government a blank cheque to demonise jobseekers in my community.

For all those reasons, Labor opposes this bill and the drug testing that it seeks to implement. We have listened to the experts, we have consulted with the communities and we genuinely care about helping people who need help. We don't want to see more of the punishing of those people, more of the demeaning and demonising of them that we've seen from those opposite. We're up for a genuine discussion about how we help people battling addiction, how we help ensure they receive the treatment they need and how we stop kicking people in the guts when they're down, which is at the core of what the government is proposing in this legislation which should not be supported.

Mr HASTIE (Canning) (16:02): The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 is sensible, practical and popular legislation. It's a popular idea in Mandurah, the city in my electorate that will be one of the three trial sites and fits with the broader action that this government has taken to tackle drug abuse in our region. There is no reason—no good reason—why this parliament should not pass it.

What is the drug testing trial? The drug test trial will apply to new recipients of Centrelink's Newstart and youth allowance payments. Both of these payments are for people either preparing for work through study and training or trying to get a job. Under the trial, a person receiving Newstart or youth allowance may be randomly asked to take a confidential drug test. If they pass, nothing happens. If they test positive, their payments are in income management for 24 months. Income management is used by Centrelink to limit the amount of money from a recipient's payment that can be withdrawn in cash. In the case of the drug test trial, 80 per cent of that benefit would be put on income management. It would still be accessible for the essentials like rent, child care, school uniforms and the like but unable to be spent as cash on illicit drugs.

It's important to understand that no money is taken away from the person who takes the test. They will still receive their payment; it's just not all provided in cash. Twenty-five days after their first test, a recipient who tests positive is required to take a second test. If the results are negative then they proceed through the rest of their 24 months on income management with no further action. If they test positive then they're referred to a medical professional who assesses them to develop a personalised treatment plan. That treatment plan could include rehab or counselling, and Centrelink will work with them to ensure that they get the help that they need.

This is immensely practical legislation. If a person is on Centrelink and looking for work but at the same time struggling with substance abuse, they are clearly going to have a difficult time finding and then holding a job. Drug addiction is a huge barrier to long-term employment. Many jobs today require regular drug tests. I was tested in my previous career, alongside many others, in the ADF. Drug testing is common in the mining industry, one of the biggest employers in WA. Even the City of Mandurah, who has opposed this trial, drug tests its employees. So if a jobseeker can't pass a drug test then they're going to find it very difficult to get a job and hold that job, and helping people to get a job is the entire point of Newstart and youth allowance. So rather than letting these people be forgotten in the system, potentially for years with no change, the drug-testing trial identifies people early and gets them help that they need so they can become drug-free and job ready. This is about a new start for people, helping them on the road to recovery.

How will the drug-testing trial impact Mandurah? As the representative for one of the trial sites, I've obviously had a lot of feedback from the local community about the plan. The feedback I've received is overwhelmingly positive. People intuitively see the sense in this plan. Many have already randomly tested themselves at work and can't see the controversy. Others are actually surprised that this doesn't happen already. The fact is that the people of Mandurah know that drug use is an issue in our community. They've been telling me that they want action on it since I was elected in 2015, and that's what I've been doing.

I've heard some in this place argue that what's really needed is better local drug support services and more job opportunities to tackle unemployment. These people say that the government should focus on these issues rather than the drug-testing trial. These are lazy arguments and cheap politics. These people haven't bothered to look at what the government is already doing on the ground in Mandurah. The fact is we are already acting to provide better drug and health services and to tackle unemployment. Since 2015 I've campaigned against drug abuse in Mandurah and the Peel region. Working with local government, community groups and healthcare providers, we focused on services that achieve prevention and early intervention, and we have had success.

In 2016, the federal government delivered $2 million for the construction of the Peel Youth Medical Service health hub, thanks to the combined advocacy of a lot of other community groups. The state government also committed funding in 2017, and that has ensured that our plan would become a reality. The health hub is currently being built in Mandurah. Once completed, it will provide a one-stop shop for young people in the Peel region struggling with physical and mental health issues. Inside the health hub will be the Peel region's first ever headspace, approved and funded by this government. This project is endorsed by the local council, Mandurah locals and healthcare professionals.

The federal government has also funded the Mandurah local drug action team, as part of the National Ice Action Strategy. The Mandurah drug action team is working with its Communities That Care partners to educate local parents and students about the dangers of alcohol abuse. So, contrary to the claims of the opposition, the government is expanding providing health in Mandurah and taking positive action to tackle substance abuse in the Peel region.

We've done a lot to boost local employment as well. Last year Mandurah was identified as one of five key regional areas that would have access to the federal government's $10.3 million Stronger Transitions package. Under this program, workers facing retrenchment are given assistance transitioning into their next job. The Stronger Transitions program provides funding for training and supporting, relocation options and access to small business opportunities. The point is to prevent retrenched workers falling through the cracks.

But that's not all. The government has also spent record amounts on infrastructure investment in our region. $581 million will be spent by this government to extend the Tonkin Highway south into the heart of the Peel region. This is going to create thousands of new jobs and foster the expansion and development of local industry. There will be more jobs in the Peel region thanks to the Tonkin Highway extension funded by the coalition. We're also funding the creation of a new train station in Lakelands which will improve access to jobs further north in Perth, particularly for young people.

It should also be said that in Mandurah the unemployment rate has fallen from 11.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent in 2017 thanks, in no small part, to this government's pro-small-business policies. So it's just lazy to suggest that the government should focus on drug services and unemployment rather than the drug-testing trial. We can do more than one thing at once, and indeed we have the record to prove it. In fact, the drug-testing trial will actually deliver additional funding for local drug and rehab services. The program also includes $10 million to boost drug-treatment capacity and treatment support in the three trial sites, of which Mandurah is one. This is to make sure that the people who test positive under the trial have access to adequate support.

One of the more common objections that people have made about the drug-testing trial is to suggest that politicians should be drug tested too and that we should be setting the standard. After all, if it's good enough for Centrelink, why not members of parliament and senators as well? I understand the sentiment. Recently, I met with Brian Lloyd of Drug-Safe Workplaces Western Australia. Drug-Safe Workplaces collaborates with workplace leaders, staff and unions to implement drug and alcohol testing that is safe and comfortable for all parties involved. Brian believes that drug testing should not be punitive and that it should be pre-emptive. By identifying early when someone has encountered substance abuse, we can act and help them before things get out of hand. After speaking with Brian, and in light of some of the feedback I've received from the community, it seemed appropriate to lead by example. So on 3 September, I've organised for Brian to do a drug test of my office. My team and I will undergo the same test proposed by this legislation.

For Mandurah, the drug-testing trial is part of a multipronged approach to local drug abuse. We're improving health services, expanding job opportunities and, with this program, identifying and coming alongside the people who need help. The drug-testing trial helps Centrelink, Newstart and Youth Allowance programs effectively achieve what they're designed to do. It provides further funding for drug treatment services, and, crucially, it helps keep taxpayers' money out of the hands of drug dealers.

Finally, let's remember that this program is a trial. The government is trying something new in a further attempt to help some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Shouldn't we just give it a go? The drug-testing trial is a sensible, practical and popular policy. The people of Mandurah support the plan and want this parliament to pass it as soon as possible. Labor will have to answer to the Mandurah community if they continue to block the peoples' will.

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (16:12): What do you do if you're a government who's in trouble in the polls? What do you do if you're on the way out, you've been caught out looking after your big corporate mates at the expense of everyone else and you're pressing ahead saying, 'Let's give tens of billions of dollars worth of tax cuts to the big banks at the same time as they're being hauled before the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry and potentially facing criminal actions'? What do you do if you're a government who's sitting watching pollution go up at a time when we have a record heatwave in the Northern Hemisphere and everyone's telling us we need to make sure that we don't leave a planet and an Australia for our kids that are worse than the ones that we inherited? What do you do if you're a government under whose watch youth unemployment and underemployment have reached crisis levels so that we're at the point now where just on one in three young people in this country either hasn't got a job or hasn't got enough hours of work? What do you do if you're this Liberal government? You find someone else to go and beat up on—preferably someone who isn't going to be in a position to defend themselves. If you're this Liberal government, you don't go after the crooks in the corporations, you don't go after the big banks and you don't go after the big polluters—you go after the people who are doing it tough and who are trying to find a job and can't get one. And you blame those people, if you're the Liberals, for not finding jobs that just aren't there.

In this bill, they've decided that the way they can hopefully get a bit of an uptick in the polls—and perhaps get some votes back from right-wing parties that they're leaking votes to—is by treating everyone who's on welfare as a potential criminal. If you are on welfare, if you are looking for a job—you might have lost a job, through no fault of your own, or you might be one of those one in three young people who can't find a job or can't find enough hours of work because, since the GFC, youth un- and underemployment in this country has got worse, not better—well, what's the answer? We're going to treat you as a potential criminal and give the right for government to force you to have compulsory drug tests. You are a person who's suspected to have broken the law through having done nothing more than being in receipt of welfare, and we are going to take away your rights—that's what the government is saying to people in this country who are doing it tough—we're going to call you a potential criminal and we're going to take your rights away.

You don't lift people out of poverty by taking away their rights. You don't solve youth unemployment and underemployment in this country by blaming the victims for not finding jobs that aren't there because this government has other priorities. If you take those steps that the government is proposing in this bill, you actually make the problem worse. The government might as well rename this bill the increasing-crime bill, because that is what is going to happen. Once you say to people that if you have taken drugs and you don't follow some other steps that the government's now imposing on you then we're going to take away your money, then you force people further into poverty. If you say to people, 'We are going to take away your money,' that does nothing to diminish addiction. What it does is push people further and further away from the government system, including potential government systems of support, and it will increase crime.

I don't know how much time this government has spent dealing with people on the front line of drug addiction services, but what these services will tell you—and there are quite a few very good ones in my electorate—is that when someone is truly an addict they will start doing things that you wouldn't expect of that person when they were not subject to addiction. Addiction is like a disease. It forces you to do things just to maintain the addiction. So if you say to someone, 'You're going to have to do X, Y and Z, because we've subjected you to a drug test, you've come back with a positive result and you haven't complied with these other steps, and we're now going to cut your payments'—if someone is in that situation, where they are that in thrall to a drug, then there is every chance that they're not going to respond to it in a rational manner, as a rational, calculating, economic individual might do. They're going to make decisions driven by the addiction. As a result, this government is going to say to them, 'Well, no money for you.'

What do you think someone who is in the grip of an addiction, who now no longer has any money because the government is taking it away from them, is going to do? They are going to turn to crime to get themselves the money for the next fix. That is what the agencies in my electorate are telling me. That is what the health professionals are saying. But this government does not listen, because this is all about the politics for this government. This is all about trying to get the attention away from the fact that they're doing nothing to create meaningful employment for young people in this country. They're doing everything to give money to the big banks and the big corporations, and they're on the nose because of it. So, what do you do? Well, you try to blame someone else in order to shift the conversation. That is what this government is doing.

We have been very worried for some time about the income management proposals that lie at the heart of this bill—which says that because you're someone who's doing it tough, because you're someone who's vulnerable, we're going to take your money and tell you how best to spend it in ways that we wouldn't ever dream of doing for anyone else; we're going to treat you as a second-class citizen and take away your money. We have said from the beginning that when those proposals were first introduced—and they've been trialled and pushed down the throats of Indigenous Australians in this country—look out, because not only is it a bad idea for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders but it's a bad idea for everyone. Once the government says, 'We are now in a position to be able to dictate to you how you spend your money, and if you don't do it the way we like or you don't comply with the conditions that we put on you, we're going to take away your income—and force you to have a card, with the stigma of having to go to the shops with a card to particular shops, where they can dictate their own prices. Because you've now got one of these government-marked cards—or worse; you might have no income at all—and, once the government starts going down this road, it is going to expand to the broader population. We have said that from the beginning, and now we are seeing it in practice. Someone who has done nothing more than fall prey to addiction, who deserves our help to get out of that, and who deserves to have their situation treated as a health issue, will now not only be treated as a potential criminal but potentially find themselves in an even worse situation than they were in to start with—thanks to this government.

There are many things the government could do if it was serious about addressing the root causes of drug addiction. It could stop cutting funding to agencies. It could start with serious programs to tackle our youth unemployment and underemployment crisis in this country—and I'll come back to that, because that is absolutely crucial. Since the GFC, it has become harder for young people to find work, and the work that they find is very often part-time and, as a result—as I said before—one in three young people either hasn't got a job or hasn't got enough work. This is a national crisis. That is what we should be focusing on. What government programs can we put in place to create employment?

Why can't the government spend some of the $50 billion that it wants to spend on corporate tax cuts on building new houses for the homeless instead? That could employ some of the young people in apprenticeships, so that they could learn a trade and we could solve a social problem, all at once. That's a better way of spending the money than giving it to the big banks for a tax cut. Why don't we use some of the money that's about to go to the big banks for a tax cut to build new renewable energy in this country, like government authorities used to do in the states? And again, we'll create some apprenticeships on those, so that young people can get new jobs as apprentice electricians and get apprentice trade work. Why don't we do something about the fact that the mining boom decimated manufacturing in this country, and give some tax breaks to industry so that they can put it into building new manufacturing capacity and tie it to job creation? So instead of a big handout, we say: 'You only get support from the government if you're going to give people new jobs.'

What we've done in this country since the GFC, including under this government's watch, is scrap all of the entry-level jobs that people who finished year 10 or year 12 used to walk into. We've made it more expensive to go off and get a trade or get a degree and, as a result, we now have hundreds of thousands of young people who—at the moment—have never known a steady, full-time, permanent job, and who may never know one in the future. What should we do with them? Let's get them engaged. Let's get government back to some of the things that government is meant to be about. But instead, all this government does is run around with a big stick and say: 'It's that person's fault if they can't find a job.' And if, because they can't find a job, they've found themselves with more time on their hands than they otherwise might have and they've fallen into addiction: 'Well, we're going to punish them for it by cutting them off even further from the system.'

The thing is, probably everyone in this place—probably most people in the country—know someone in their family or in their street or in their workplace who's had a son or a daughter who has fallen prey to addiction. What you want in that situation is to know that everyone has that person's welfare at heart, first and foremost. You want to know that that person is not being treated as a political football and you want to know that the services are there to help those people get healthy again.

I think if it were anyone in this chamber's son or daughter who was addicted, was struggling to deal with it and needed assistance, if they knew that what the government was going to do was say to that person, 'You no longer have any money to live on. That's the sum total of our contribution to you. We are taking away your income', we would be horrified. If, as a result of this government, a person with drug addiction now can't pay the rent then they're going to become homeless. If, as a result of this government, a person with a drug addiction doesn't have any money at all to meet the bare necessities of life, let alone meet their next fix, then they're going to turn to crime and it will be on this government's shoulders.

For the basest political reasons, this government has taken the sons and daughters of Australia who have fallen on hard times and is making their lot even worse, all because they're struggling in the polls and don't have a positive agenda to sell. We will stand up to it. We've stood up to income management from the beginning. We'll continue to stand up to it now. We've stood up against demonising people who have issues with drugs, and we will continue to stand up to it.

Just like the previous time that the government tried to get this through and got knocked back by the Senate, I hope that this gets rejected by the parliament again, because there is a reason you can find next to no-one lining up with the government to support this. A whole string of people, who work in this field and who look after people who are doing it tough, are lining up to say, 'This is a very bad idea' and they are ringing the warning bells very loudly.

I hope that when it comes back to the Senate it gets rejected soundly again, because this is a bad idea that will hurt people. I hope beyond hope that someone I know and care about is never in the situation where, because of this government, they can't deal with the demons that they're facing and, in fact, this government turns around and makes their problem worse. I ask everyone to think if it were your own son or daughter, who was facing these issues, would you really want them to be forced to live with no money at all just because the government wanted to make a political point?

Mr FALINSKI (Mackellar) (16:27): I understand what the member for Melbourne is saying. He is saying that, if this policy were to remove income from people, the result might be that they would find themselves homeless because they cannot afford rent and that they might turn to crime because they cannot afford the basics of life. So it is my hope that the Greens would reconsider their opposition to this bill on the basis that we will not be removing income from a single person. No person will not be able to afford rent because they will not have income removed from them. No person will need to turn to a life of crime, because they will have income removed because no person will have their income removed.

Mr Bandt interjecting—

Mr FALINSKI: I would hope that the member for Melbourne would spend less time interrupting and more time listening. Perhaps he and his party would find it possible, find it in their hearts and find the compassion that is necessary to help people who are trying to make a better life for themselves, instead of walking from the chamber and sticking their heads in the sand when people are crying out for help. Is that the Greens' way?

He asked the question: what if your son or your daughter found themselves in the horrible position where they couldn't get away from the scourge of drugs, that they had become addicted to a substance that was destroying their lives? Let me answer that question on behalf of every member of the Liberal and National Party in this place: we would want a compassionate government to help; not to be driven by ideology and, when confronted with facts, not to run from the chamber, as he has done.

We need the Greens, we need all members of parliament, to support a policy that speaks of compassion and that seeks to help all Australians, especially vulnerable Australians. Drug abuse is an issue that affects all aspects of the life of a user. It cripples relationships and families. It damages mental and physical health, whilst directly impacting an individual's finances and, importantly, job prospects.

Substance abuse is undoubtedly a problem that is indiscriminate, suffered by Australians of all backgrounds. However, it cannot be denied that the prevalence of drug abuse amongst those out of work and receiving welfare payments is a particularly concerning issue, with studies showing that such Australians are three times more likely to have recently used illicit drugs than those with a job. In these cases, not only is drug abuse perpetuating the cycle of unemployment and dependency on welfare but you, the taxpayer, are also subsidising it.

While this government is certainly opposed to taxpayers indirectly funding drug dealers and the black market economy, addressing this is not the primary focus of this bill. In fact, it's not the focus of this bill at all. This bill is about saving lives, not saving money. This government will not stand by and continue to allow Australians with drug and alcohol addictions to suffer in silence. Welfare is supposed to be a hand-up, not a handout, and most certainly it's not intended to fund actions that hurt the very people we are supposed to be helping.

The trial of drug tests for welfare recipients proposed by this government is only one step in addressing this scourge, breaking the cycle of addiction and abuse for drug users. If a positive externality of that ensures taxpayer funds are no longer being wasted on such detrimental drugs, no doubt the Greens would oppose it. If we could stand here and say it's going to cost more, that would ensure the support of the Greens. Well, I'm here to say it will actually cost more, because this government is willing to invest and spend to help those who need our help. We want to make it clear that we are not punishing those suffering from substance abuse; we are helping them. By taking away their ability to purchase the very drugs which have ruined and continue to ruin their lives, their families' lives and their friends' lives, we are making a difference. That is what true compassion looks like.

Opposing this bill is, quite frankly, confounding, because by opposing it the Greens are permitting people to continue habits which are making their lives worse. We are not going to stand by and allow vulnerable Australians to be victimised by criminal drug dealers. We recognise the need for support and rehabilitation, and it will continue to be available, and we will continue to encourage those who need it to use it. What we are doing, however, is ensuring that those who return positive results for illicit substances no longer have the means to keep buying. Through tried and tested programs such as income management, we can make sure that the majority of welfare payments made to such an individual are spent on necessities rather than harmful drugs. In this way, we can not only ensure taxpayer money is spent appropriately but also cultivate positive attitudes that encourage wiser spending and remove all obstacles and hindrances to finding work. After all, research shows the best form of welfare is a job.

Jobseekers on Newstart and youth allowance will not be required to pass a drug test in order to commence their welfare payments. When making a claim for a payment, jobseekers will simply have to acknowledge that they may be subject to drug testing as part of their ongoing payments. Those who do test positive, of course, just as with an RBT on the roads, will be given an opportunity to request a second test. All drug tests will be conducted by qualified third-party drug testing providers in accordance with normal drug testing standards. Pre-test interviews between the drug tester and the jobseeker are mandatory in order to identify any factors which may interfere with the test, be they prescribed medication or any other factors. If a jobseeker receives a positive drug test, they will continue to receive the same payments.

Let us be clear: no-one loses money from this. No-one will be thrown onto the street or suddenly lose their financial support, as those in the Greens will have you believe. That is not what this bill is about. We are not trying to punish drug users. Rather, we are helping them break the cycle of addiction. Jobseekers whose test positive to a drug test will be placed on the proven income management program. Income management does not alter the amount the jobseeker receives. The jobseeker's ability to look after themselves and continue to search for a job does not change. Only the way they receive their payments will change. A jobseeker on income management will have 80 per cent of their payment restricted to paying their bills and purchasing essential items. The remaining 20 per cent of the payment is paid into their regular bank account and is accessible to pay for discretionary items. Those who are placed on income management will still be able to make purchases at approved merchants. The only discretionary items which they will not be able to buy are alcohol, smoking products and cash-equivalent products like gift cards, as well as not being able to withdraw cash itself. As well as this, income management will restrict people from spending on any form of gambling, because this is about saving lives and helping people get their lives back on track.

Income management and the cashless debit card both have the same end goal of saving people from the scourge of drug and alcohol addiction but go about it in different ways. Income management provides a more tailored approach to welfare management, as opposed to the cashless debit card, which is a community-wide program providing less individualised support for the participant. Income management is designed only for those who truly need our help and support, those burdened with the scourge of drug and alcohol abuse, those who will not be unaffected by this trial.

This bill includes a measure to introduce a two-year trial of illicit drug testing of 5,000 randomly selected recipients of Newstart and youth allowance in three specifically selected local government areas across the country. These areas are Canterbury Bankstown in New South Wales, Logan in Queensland and Mandurah in Western Australia. These areas were chosen after a thorough selection process by this government identified them as key problem areas for drug abuse by welfare recipients. In doing so, we can ensure the trial is conducted efficiently, responsibly and in the areas that need it most. These drug tests will test for ice, ecstasy and marijuana as well as opioids. These drugs are a vicious trap which ruins lives, limiting a person's ability to find a job and their capacity to lead a happy and healthy life, fulfilling their full potential.

Highlighting the gravity of the issue and its impact on the community is that, in 2017 alone, there were 4,856 occasions when a jobseeker named drug or alcohol addiction as the reason for not being able to maintain their job. That's nearly 5,000 people who would be productive members of the Australian workforce if it were not for the terrible affliction of substance abuse. Throughout the trial, there will be a comprehensive evaluation of impacts and outcomes for jobseekers. The benefit of holding these evaluations throughout the trial compared to after is so that any unintended consequences can be handled as they arise. The results of these trials will advise any future extensions as well as any potential rolling out of the drug-testing program more broadly.

I am committed to helping those in need, including in my own electorate of Mackellar. I would welcome and encourage a drug-testing trial to take place in the local government area of the Northern Beaches without hesitation. I say this because I know that, like me, the people of Mackellar and the Northern Beaches truly care about everyone in their community, in our community, especially those trying to get back on their feet. We are committed to reducing the impact of drug and alcohol abuse on our community's most vulnerable, not only preventing its continuation whilst out of a job, but ideally creating and reinforcing positive habits that will assist struggling Australians when they are working again, preventing any relapse into drug abuse.

To further support those who are struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, the government is providing nearly $10 million to the creation of a dedicated treatment fund. This fund will provide support where the current Commonwealth, state and territory government support services are not sufficient. It will ensure the government is able to supply additional support services to the areas of the trial which are not meeting the additional demand for drug and alcohol support. This is, of course, on top of the $689 million the government has already committed to reducing the impact of drug and alcohol abuse on communities, families and, of course, the individual. This includes a near $300 million investment as part of the National Ice Action Strategy aimed at improving treatment, after-care, education, prevention, assistance and community engagement to tackle ice.

Illicit drug and alcohol abuse is a problem which affects many Australians across all different socioeconomic backgrounds, but it is most prevalent among the unemployed. These trials and the measures in this bill will save lives by getting people out of their addiction and back to work. Drug dealers will no longer be subsidised with taxpayers' money, and people who truly need treatment will get it. No-one—I repeat, no-one—whether they test positive or negative, will have their payments reduced at any time. This bill is a magnificent initiative of a government that cares about people, that wants to help people stop harming themselves and give them the skills to help them live their lives to the full. We're not passing a value judgement on those Australians who are out of work and struggling with drug abuse. We are simply ensuring that such detrimental activities are discouraged and that the Australian taxpayer no longer carries the burden of financing them. I support the trials, and I would support them being held in my own electorate of Mackellar. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr FREELANDER (Macarthur) (16:41): Governments should not be wilful. They shouldn't be arbitrary, they shouldn't be cruel and they shouldn't be petty. Rarely should a government mandate procedures that are physically invasive or otherwise intrude disproportionately on the person or the rights of the individual. Nevertheless, we have before us today, not for the first time, a proposal that in ways large and small offends those principles. I do not want a drug-testing trial in my electorate to demonise those already most disadvantaged. Despite our many differences, I'd hope that the Turnbull government might be better than this legislation, but it's not.

The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 establishes a two-year drug-testing trial for 5,000 new recipients of Newstart and youth allowance. 'Participants' in the trial will be selected at random and those refusing to be tested will have their welfare payments cancelled immediately. This is the sort of measure that often has government members opposite salivating or expressing lots of righteous indignation which even they know isn't going to make much practical difference. The leisurely pace for passage through the parliament would seem proof of that. It's also an issue that, in my world, defies simplistic explanations. The scourge of drug addiction is not just a simple problem; it's a complex issue with many causes. It is primarily a medical problem. Newstart and youth allowance recipients who test positive to a first drug test will be placed on so-called income support measures for two years and will also be subjected to another test within 25 days. Being placed on income support, in effect, means that only 20 per cent of a recipient's welfare payments are paid in cash and the rest is only available via the government's BasicsCard. Those who fail the second test or test positive again during the two-year income management period will be referred for possible medical treatment, and that treatment, if recommended, will form part of the recipient's job plan. In my electorate, those resources certainly are not available. There's sometimes a wait for rehabilitation that measures years rather than months.

The government says that the trial will address what it says is the link between drug abuse and unemployment, so that taxpayer-funded welfare payments are not being used to fund drug addiction and so that jobseekers do all they can to find a job. This is another demonstration that the government does not understand drug addiction as a medical problem. For good measure the government has lobbed in some decidedly very iffy claims that the bill is in line with community expectations. Just ask people who are involved in drug rehabilitation what they think about the bill, and they will tell you that this is not the right way to go.

The minister concluded his second reading speech by challenging the opposition and the crossbenchers to be brave enough to change their minds and support the trial—another demonstration of the lack of understanding of drug addiction itself. With the greatest respect, Minister, you should stop being tendentious and stick to the facts. No-one in this place wants to stand in the way of effective and affordable measures that will tackle drug abuse—least of all those of us who have spent a lifetime dealing with real-life medical issues and emergencies sometimes exacerbated by the abuse of illegal and legal drugs. No-one wants to see welfare payments used to fund drug addiction or fatten the pockets of drug dealers, but this is a very simplistic treatment for a very complex issue. It should go without saying that no-one has a closed mind to new or imaginative solutions that have a decent prospect of making a difference, yet none of the experts tell us that this will make a difference.

What Labor and the many critics of this bill, both in the medical profession and in the community, want is for drug-related problems to be treated as a health issue and not as yet another way of disciplining the undeserving poor, which those on the government benches seem to think is the way to go, nor as a political bromide to placate its own populist rump. The proposed mandatory drug trial was first hinted at in the Treasurer's 2018 budget speech. It had been bobbling around on the edges of loony-right politics for many years before that. I can remember proposals from the hard Right some years ago about what we should be doing to people with drug addiction. It has fallen in and out of view on the right wing as similar trials were pushed overseas only to be found both costly and of very little value except when narrowly applied within the criminal justice system. Even in such controlled environments the outcomes were often limited or ambiguous. Such has been this government's faltering commitment to its own proposal that the Treasurer has now presented in the 2018 budget, and the drug-testing trial is little further advanced than it was 12 months ago.

Drug-testing formed part of the government's Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 but was dropped from that bill in December 2017 on the government's own motion. This bill was presented to the House in February this year by the Minister for Social Services, and its contents were immediately referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, which reported back on 7 May. Unlike the mandatory drug-testing trial proposed in the earlier welfare reform bill, this measure at least manages to identify the three local government areas where the trial will be conducted. It also stipulates that a person who fails a drug test would not be subject to the income management strictures of the bill if, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Department of Social Services, that would pose a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing. Who makes that judgement? Suffice it to say that all three local governments who were selected to host the trials have been critical of the Commonwealth's proposal in many varying degrees, and all have pointed to a total lack of prior consultation by the minister. While the newly minted legislative requirement that the Secretary of the Department of Social Services not place those at special risk on income management may open up some decisions to judicial review, that provision nonetheless leaves those who lose their allowance with the burden of demonstrating they are a special case, further demonising, stressing and punishing them for a medical problem.

The government has failed to address the two substantive concerns raised by the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee regarding the proposed measures—that matters which ought to have been dealt with by the bill would be left to delegated legislation, and that contractors and not accountable government officials would determine who could be placed on income management arrangements under the scheme. Sadly it is not just the criticisms of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee that the government has largely chosen to ignore. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights has voiced criticisms too, though largely to no avail. Government senators on the Community Affairs Committee note that the present bill interferes with and limits the rights to privacy, bodily integrity, social security, equality and nondiscrimination. I think the government members should really think about this. The government's own senators even go on to note:

… the Australian Human Rights Commission endorsed the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' analysis.

To their credit, the government senators on the Senate committee recommended that the government 'establish and publish the evaluation strategy of the drug testing trial prior to the commencement of the trial' and that the government also 'publish the outcomes of the drug testing trial after it has been completed'.

In August this year, the former minister, the current Attorney-General, claimed that there was lots of evidence that suggests that behavioural change can grow around drug-testing regimes. When challenged to provide that evidence, his office referred to six reports and studies. Four of those related to mandatory drug treatment of offenders inside criminal justice systems. Those results are not directly relevant to the proposed trial. The other two reports actually counselled against the drug testing of welfare recipients. So even the previous minister has got it all wrong when it comes to this bill.

Drug testing trials in Canada, the United States and New Zealand have all come up empty. This is not backed by evidence, yet again the government wants to punish the most vulnerable. Expert submissions to the Senate inquiry into welfare reform were scathing of drug testing, pointing out that there was no local or overseas evidence to suggest that mandatory testing will induce unemployed drug users to find treatment or to find work. We know that the only systems that work are those that are voluntary and that enable people to submit themselves to drug rehabilitation of their own volition. Once again, the government have not only failed to listen to the experts but failed to understand the science. They have failed to see drug addiction as a medical problem. They continue to use really discriminatory ways of dealing with what are societal and health problems.

One might be tempted to ask whether the proposed Australian trial is simply unique, because no other country has been silly enough to contemplate such an approach. Helpful community organisations have not come out in favour of the government's proposal, and organisations such as my own Royal Australasian College of Physicians have come out against the trial. Other organisations like ACOSS, the Uniting Church, St Vincent's Health, Anglicare and the National Drug Research Institute oppose it, yet again this government has failed to listen to the experts and to understand the science. Professor Adrian Reynolds, the President of the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, summed up the position rather nicely, noting:

… the Chapter of Addiction Medicine are quite honestly at a loss to see why a drug testing trial is considered a necessary or effective way to address these issues.

Concerns extend to whether the trial process will add to existing queues for remedial drug treatment and therapy across the country, meaning that those who are voluntarily seeking help will be turned away or have to wait longer for help. The situation is already critical. There are long waits for rehabilitation, even for those who want to voluntarily undergo rehabilitation. Professor Alison Ritter, the Director of the Drug Policy Modelling Program at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, told the first Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry that Australia currently treats about 200,000 people for substance abuse each year but an additional 200,000 to 500,000 people each year would like to receive treatment which is unavailable to them.

Despite repeated questioning at estimates hearings in 2017 and March 2018, the government remained unable or unwilling to identify even a ballpark figure for the cost of the trial; say which illicit drugs will be covered by the trial and why alcohol and legally prescribed opiates will not be part of the trial; specify benchmarks for determining what would make the trial enough of a success to warrant an extension; and provide a rational explanation as to why particular trial sites were preferred to others. Given this sorry history, it is entirely unremarkable that the evidence to the recently completed Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry only reinforced the criticisms detailed previously. For me, one witness observation from the latest Community Affairs Legislation Committee report sums up the Orwellian world being proposed by this government rather neatly:

… the treatment sector has been chronically underfunded for a number of years now … I would be very surprised if you didn't find that a number of the folks who test positive and who are indicated for treatment hadn't, in fact, tried to access the treatment system voluntarily in the past and were turned away, or discouraged by long wait lists or a lack of access.

What is remarkable is that the government senators could somehow have managed to support the passage of this bill notwithstanding the criticisms contained or alluded to in their own report. The government senators confirmed that the only evidence that such trials may work comes from inside the highly controlled environment of the criminal justice system, noted the singular lack of success of overseas trials, confirmed that an evaluation strategy has not been developed and acknowledged but failed to address fully the human rights and procedural concerns raised by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. They even recorded the grave concerns over the lack of human and other resources to conduct the trial.

Not only would a full rollout of this scheme be prohibitively expensive; there just aren't enough qualified people to administer the test or provide the necessary treatment services for anything more than a trial. At the start I mentioned five principles that you don't expect a government in a free society to do. A government must not be arbitrary, wilful, cruel or petty, and it should rarely sanction government action that interferes with the physical and bodily integrity of the individual, yet this is exactly what this government is proposing. It is shameful, as are some of the other measures this government is proposing for our most disadvantaged citizens. I really feel government members should rethink this bill, rethink what they're doing and, for once, listen to the experts and the science.

Mr VAN MANEN (Forde—Government Whip) (16:56): It's always a pleasure to follow the member for Macarthur. I acknowledge his long time in the medical profession prior to coming into this House, but I do disagree with the member for Macarthur on the notion that this measure is not worth trialling for the benefit of those who have a drug dependency.

I acknowledge there will be those who will not be happy about it, but, at the end of the day, it is my firm belief—I spoke on the original bill some 12 months ago—and it remains my belief that we have a responsibility to try and find ways to assist people with a drug dependency break that drug dependency. It's important to remember that as part of receiving the Newstart allowance, which is a payment made from taxpayers' funds to those who are unemployed for whatever reason, they sign an agreement. The new agreement will include a provision for drug testing. If they don't wish to be drug tested, maybe they can look for another way to provide funding for themselves.

The purpose of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 is to introduce or to set up a trial. Surely the opportunity to set up a trial and try something new or different has merit. This bill is not about punishing those who are unemployed or who have a drug or substance abuse problem. It is about working with those people to ensure that we can provide them with the support services necessary and the assistance necessary to break that substance abuse habit, find meaningful employment and return to the workforce to ensure they can provide for their families and contribute to their community.

I've spoken to many people across my electorate who believe this policy is a good step towards not only helping people with drug related problems but ensuring their taxpayer welfare dollars are being used to support people in the right way. A welfare system is designed to provide a safety net for those who find themselves out of work or unable to participate in the workforce. It is not there to perpetuate people's drug habits or, as the member for Macarthur said, line the pockets of drug dealers.

While there have been outspoken naysayers who fear that targeting Logan as a trial site stigmatises the region, I say to them that the status quo has done nothing, and the stigmatising of the region—sadly, from many people outside the region who don't know the Logan area well—had already created difficulties. We don't want to stigmatise people on welfare; that is not the objective of this bill. We want to help those people with identified drug issues and get them the support that they need. To that end, recently the government invested $1 million in family units at a drug rehabilitation facility—at Logan House, in Chambers Flat in my electorate. So there is investment being made in services to our community to assist people that have a drug dependency issue.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2013 showed that those who were unemployed were 2.4 times more likely to use ice and other drugs than those who were employed. In 2016-17, there were some 22,000 temporary incapacity exemptions given to over 16,000 jobseekers because of a drug and/or an alcohol dependency issue. On top of that, Australia's expenditure on alcohol and other drug treatment services in 2012-13 was $1.2 billion, with about one-third of this spending coming from the Australian government. Imagine what that funding could pay for if we succeeded in reducing drug and alcohol abuse. If we ignore these statistics, bury our heads in the sand and do not address the underlying issues, nothing will change.

The three trial sites chosen are Logan, in Queensland; Mandurah, in Western Australia; and Canterbury Bankstown, in New South Wales. As I touched on earlier, along with the member for Wright and the member for Rankin, I represent Logan in this House. There have been a variety of views expressed across the Logan community about the trial, but predominantly the feedback to my office has been in support of it. Less forthcoming has been support from Logan City Council. However, interestingly, Logan City Council do drug test their employees, and we don't hear any complaints about the drug testing of employees at Logan City Council or, for that matter, the drug testing of employees in many workforces across the country.

These sites chosen for the trial, as I said before, were not chosen to stigmatise the region or those on welfare. This proposal, as I said at the outset, is for a trial that seeks to identify and support the people we need to assist in breaking the habit of drug and alcohol abuse. To do this, the areas of Logan, Mandurah and Canterbury-Bankstown were identified as trial sites. It is important that part of the proposed legislation ensures that we build counselling, health and rehabilitation services in those areas to support the people who are identified as having an issue. I would say that, in the City of Logan, we already have some outstanding counselling, health and rehabilitation facilities. I touched on Logan House briefly, but there are many others.

We are committed to bolstering those services with a dedicated treatment fund of up to $10 million to support jobseekers in those drug-testing trial areas. This fund will provide additional treatment support in the trial locations where existing state or Commonwealth services and supports are not equipped to meet the additional demands as a result of the trial. The reason this is important is that, as we get people off drugs and, hopefully, by extension, off welfare, they can re-enter the workforce. In re-entering the workforce, they build or rebuild their self-esteem, they rebuild their capacity to provide for their families and they build, possibly, the capacity for their children to play sport or get involved in community groups that they otherwise don't have. It actually provides a far greater opportunity for these people to contribute to our communities in a positive way. That is important, because all of these people have skills, talents and capabilities which, if they're able to be utilised to their fullest extent, make our community a better place for all of us to live in.

In the Logan community, sadly, there is a drug problem. But we know that if we can continue to provide those supports and provide additional opportunities through this proposed trial, we can break some of these cycles, including the cycle of intergenerational welfare dependency, which I think plays a large part. In Logan, over two years through the trial, around 2,500 people are expected to be tested. If a Newstart or youth allowance recipient does test positive, they'll receive their payments via income management. This measure is designed to restrict the recipient's access to cash and limit their ability to use their payments to fund further drug use, while not reducing the amount of payment received. A jobseeker who tests positive will also be subject to a second test within 25 working days, and may also be subject to further tests. This will help identify those that require treatment with an ongoing program. If the report from the medical professional recommends treatment, the jobseeker will be required to participate in one or more treatment activities to address their substance abuse as part of their job plan. This could include rehabilitation, counselling or case management.

I believe this plan will ensure that our welfare recipients' payments will help them pay for their rent, food, medical and basic needs, rather than lining the pockets of drug dealers. But how will we know if the trial is a success? The government will be running an evaluation of the trial at the same time as the trial is being undertaken, so that if we see problems with the trial, we can make changes if need be. I'll reiterate: in supporting jobseekers who have a substance-abuse problem, I believe we're actually upholding our mandate as a government to support those people who need it most, when they need it most. The importance of a trial is to understand, through doing something different—something that we haven't done before—whether this works and whether it genuinely helps people in this situation. At the end of the day, as an assessment of the trial, that is the most important aspect: has the trial succeeded in helping people who are on Newstart, who have a substance-abuse problem, breaking that habit of substance abuse and being able to re-enter the workforce and use their skills and talents to the best of their ability, to create a life for their families, to contribute to the community, and to re-establish and restore the self-esteem and the self-respect that we know that people with a drug dependency frequently lose as a result of that dependency?

This bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018, has the potential to provide an opportunity for some to live a much brighter future than they would have if they remained stuck in that mire of drug dependency and welfare. I commend this bill to the House.

Ms McBRIDE (Dobell) (17:09): I rise today to oppose the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018. This bill reintroduces a 2017-18 budget measure to establish a two-year trial of drug testing for 5,000 recipients of Newstart and youth allowance and now identifies the three trial locations: Canterbury Bankstown in New South Wales, Logan in Queensland and Mandurah in Western Australia. The government previously introduced this measure as part of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. Labor opposed many of the measures in the welfare reform bill, including the drug testing trial. The drug testing trial measure was subsequently withdrawn from the welfare reform bill due to lack of support in the Senate, but this government seems determined to proceed with this measure, which the Australian Medical Association has described as 'mean and stigmatising'.

I spoke against this cruel and mean-spirited measure last year, and I speak against it again now. I speak from my firsthand experience of working with people with substance dependency over the last 20 years. Since my second year as a pharmacy student in the mid-nineties, I have worked with people living with addiction and dependency. Addiction and dependency is a health issue. Dependency doesn't discriminate between those who are working and those who are looking for work. The government's attempt to conflate drug misuse with unemployment is not just wrong; it's harmful. While I was training as a pharmacist, I worked in a community pharmacy—one of the first in New South Wales to provide an opioid treatment program. This program, underpinned by the principles of harm minimisation, has led to many people being able to rebuild their lives and their relationships and to gain employment, and it has been provided by community pharmacies since the late 1970s. I met teachers, chefs and executives all turning their lives around, with the support of GPs, pharmacists and addiction specialists.

More recently, I worked as a mental health pharmacist, providing clinical support to an OTP clinic and a withdrawal management clinic in Wyong Hospital. This in-patient unit provides withdrawal management from an evidence based, clinically-proven harm minimisation approach. It works. The problem is that there are just 15 beds at Wyong Hospital for the entire Central Coast. This unit is also part of the state-wide referral process receiving clients from all across New South Wales, particularly from areas where there are no local services. If the government is genuine in its claim to help those burdened by dependence, a good first step would be to properly fund units like this one and not attack welfare recipients. The current services are stretched and there are long waiting lists. Clients wait anxiously by their phone for a text message so that they can enter the unit as soon as there is a bed. If there is to be any likelihood of success, the government must work with the states to ensure that there are sufficient places for people entering treatment and that the necessary mental health and social services are available.

The government are still unable to provide any evidence to support the establishment of their drug testing trial, and they have still not revealed the cost. Clinicians in the drug and alcohol treatment sector have raised significant concerns about these measures, not only their impact on jobseekers but that they won't be effective in identifying those with a dependency or referring them to appropriate treatment. A former colleague, a drug and alcohol clinician whom I spoke to, described this proposal as 'technically flawed and socially irresponsible'. She fears it will punish people by taking away their only means of financial support and is concerned it will send them underground—in her words—'forcing vulnerable people into further disadvantage, homelessness and potentially crime'. As she sees it, this is the government using drug testing as a punitive measure. She is also concerned about technical aspects of the proposal. She asked: 'We know the drug testing will be contracted out to a third party, but will they have the right expertise? Will they be skilled drug and alcohol clinicians who can thoroughly assess the extent of substance use? Will people who are quite legitimately enrolled in opioid treatment programs be caught up in this trial?'

This legislation is yet another attempt by the government to demonise jobseekers and is likely to be at significant cost to the budget. Experts warn that these changes will not help people overcome dependency. This is not how dependency works. Instead, they will be pushed into crisis, poverty, homelessness and potentially crime. The government wants to trial drug testing of 5,000 recipients of Newstart and youth allowance in the Canterbury Bankstown, Logan and Mandurah regions. We are told that testing will be undertaken by a contracted private provider. The government have not announced the cost of this, nor do they know the detail of what types of tests will be conducted. Where is the evidence and where are the details? The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre commented:

There is no evidence that any of these measures will directly achieve outcomes associated with reductions in alcohol or other drug use or harm, and indeed have the potential to create greater levels of harm, including increased stigma, marginalisation and poverty.

Let's look now to overseas examples. Drug testing of income support recipients has been trialled in several countries, and there is no evidence that it has been effective. In 2013, the New Zealand government instituted a drug-testing program amongst welfare recipients. In 2015, only 22 of 8,001 recipients tested returned a positive result for illicit drug use. This detection rate was much lower than the proportion of the general New Zealand population estimated to be using illicit drugs. Similar results were found in the United States. In Missouri's 2014 testing program, of the state's 38,970 welfare applicants, 446 were tested with 48 testing positive. In Utah, 838 of the state's 9,552 applicants were screened with 29 returning a positive result. These were costly initiatives—costly initiatives that drive people into poverty and potentially crime. We don't know the full cost of the government's measures yet, and we haven't seen evidence to support it.

The Department of Social Services' own figures show that very few jobseekers are likely to test positive. A recent Senate estimates hearing heard that overall the department expects only 100 to 120 people to test positive a second time across the three trial sites. That's $1 million committed for an evaluation of a trial that is likely to impact up to 120 people, before we know how much the contract to the private provider will cost. Concerns have been raised about these measures by health and welfare groups, including St Vincent's Health, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, ACOSS and Uniting Care, amongst others. Not a single health or community organisation has come out publicly in support of this trial.

Addiction medicine specialists I've spoken to, and others who've been reported on, are concerned about the technical aspects of the trial. For example, the government is yet to confirm what sort of test will be used—urine, hair, saliva. With lower-cost tests there is a risk of false positives. Reliable tests can be extremely costly and likely unaffordable. For example, according to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, a gold standard urine tests costs been $550 and $950 to administer. The testing could potentially encourage people to use less-traceable but more-harmful drugs or increase alcohol consumption, which is not being tested as part of the trial. Consultation with the treatment sector suggests that there are long waiting lists for treatment around the country.

I want to turn now to speak particularly about women and children who may be caught up in this trial. In New South Wales, there are only three residential treatment programs for women with children experiencing addiction—Kamira in my electorate, Jarrah House in Little Bay, which has a short 10-week program, and Kathleen York House in Glebe, which has only eight beds. I spoke to the CEO of Kamira, who also sits on the Network of Alcohol and Other Drugs Agencies' subcommittee for women, where this proposal has already been raised as a concern. In her view, this trial is set up for failure. She said to me that it will marginalise people already on the bottom rung of the ladder. Currently Kamira, like other treatment centres, is full, which would mean a two- to four-month wait for treatment. These are the questions she thought should be answered: What will happen if a woman tests positive? Will her children be removed by FACs? Will she lose housing after losing her children and become homeless? This is the harsh reality of this drug treatment trial. And, in New South Wales, all of these services are NGOs; there are no government funded residential rehabilitation services for women in New South Wales.

These trials will put increased pressure on the system, and, where treatment is unavailable, jobseekers identified as having a problem with drugs will have difficulty accessing the treatment prescribed. Further, health professionals warn that treatment is not successful unless a drug user is ready to seek treatment. Forcing people to turn up will not address their drug issues. It will put pressure on an already stretched sector and displace people genuinely seeking treatment. John Ryan, CEO of the Penington Institute, commented:

I strongly urge the Government to reconsider and reverse this retrograde approach to welfare before we see the increase in crime it is likely to create.

In Australia there is a real lack of funding for drug treatment services—including medically supported drug treatment. The Government would have been better off making stronger investments there rather than attacking the vulnerable.

If the government was genuine about trying to help people overcome addiction or seek treatment, it would do this differently. Labor is open to considering genuine attempts to help people into treatment, but these changes will impact people with serious illness, pushing them into financial hardship and, potentially, crime. The trial could put Centrelink staff at risk of aggression and violence as they attempt to enforce drug testing on participants.

Associate Professor Yvonne Bonomo, the director of St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne's Department of Addiction Medicine, has said exactly that:

International experience shows when you push people to the brink, like removing their welfare payments, things just get worse. There will be more crime, more family violence, more distress within society. We can expect at Centrelink offices there will be aggression and violence as people react to this. Had [the government] spoken to the various bodies who work in this area and know about this work, we would have been able to advise them this is not the right way. Pushing people to the brink won't make it better.

In conclusion, this bill is risky. As I mentioned at the outset, I've worked with people living with drug dependency and addiction for 20 years before entering this House. From my second year as a pharmacy student, I worked with people on the Opioid Treatment Program in community pharmacies. In the last 10 years before I came into this House, I worked as a mental health specialist pharmacist and also was a clinical support to an OTP clinic and an inpatient rehabilitation service. As I said at the outset, addiction and dependency are health issues. Dependency doesn't discriminate between those who are working and those who are looking for work. This government's attempt to link drug use or drug misuse with unemployment is wrong and it is harmful. I oppose this bill.

Mr RAMSEY (Grey—Government Whip) (17:21): I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018. I spent some time in my electorate meeting with local action groups and people trying to deal with the scourge of drug addiction in our community. I remember sitting down at a meeting one day with parents, with survivors and with a handful of people trying to kick the habit. A mother looked at me and she said, 'My daughter is trying to get off drugs. She's really trying hard, but every one of her friends uses drugs. She makes a bit of a break and then the friends are all around her, and she falls back.' Then she looked at me even more intently. She looked into my eyes, I suppose you could say, and she said, 'And you keep giving her money.' When she said 'you', she meant that the government kept giving her daughter money. It was money that she couldn't control and money that went directly into drugs. She's right: it's a challenge—it's a real challenge. We do give money with no strings attached. There's no compulsion to spend it on food, on shelter, on education or on help to get off drugs. We just give them cash.

We know this is not what Newstart and youth allowance are meant to be for. Newstart and youth allowance are meant to sustain a person and to help them prepare to get into a job. One thing you can't do—or not in too many places—is get into a job if you're on drugs. If you do get into a job, OH&S will probably rule you out pretty quickly and you won't be in a job anymore. Let me tell you, it can be hard enough to find workers in regional Australia—perhaps that too is part of the debate. Why is it that we have pools of regional unemployment, where in fact we can't seem to shift those people that are in that regional pool of unemployment into work when we know there is work available? I know local businesses that have reached out to these groups of people who are unemployed and have had a red-hot go at trying to get them into the workforce. They need workers, so they were willing to give it a go. They've taken starters in for training, educated them, assisted them and counselled them, only to have them fail at a drug test either in training or on the job.

This scourge of drugs in our community is a cancer. The members on the other side are right: it is a health issue. Absolutely, it's a health issue. Absolutely, it's a drug addiction that is beyond the means of those who are suffering from it. But we have to identify them, we have to find out who they are and we have to try to get services to them so that we can actually interrupt that lifestyle to make a real difference. Every time an employer is burned in the way that I've just described, it makes it that much harder next time to get that employer to consider someone with similar problems. It is that much harder for them to take the risk. Every time a worker is struck out, their record of failure is extended. Every time they fail, their self-esteem is further eroded. Every time they fail, the call of the drugs becomes ever stronger.

We simply have to try. At this place, of all places in Australia, we simply have to try. We've tried many things over the years—so many programs. The previous speaker was speaking about her life in trying to work with people in rehabilitation programs. Boy, there have been some resources thrown at it over the years, and I would have to say the record isn't all that good. So we have to try something different, I think. It is time to really try something different, because, if we can't keep that trainee or that employee off drugs, they will lose their job and they will fail.

I've had the privilege of seeing the merits of the cashless welfare card trial in Ceduna. I know it's not the same, but there are enough similarities here to draw a parallel. Certainly the 80-20 split on income is the same split that operates under the cashless welfare card, so in that case it's directly comparable. In Ceduna, the introduction of that card has made a real difference. It's certainly made a difference to alcohol consumption in the community. It's made a difference to the way that children are treated in their homes. It's made a difference to the amount of money that is spent on food in that community. So I think we can easily draw that parallel to this program for drug testing of those on Newstart and youth allowance and those who enter the programs.

This bill is about a trial of 5,000 people. It's not nationwide. We're not doing it everywhere in Australia. It's a geographically discrete trial for Canterbury-Bankstown, Logan and Mandurah. I say let's give it a go. Absolutely let's give it a go. I wonder what those on the other side of the House are scared of. Perhaps it might be that it would work. What if it works? It is a trial of 5,000 people. What if it actually works and starts making a significant difference in getting these people off drugs and getting them into the workforce, taking control of their lives? For pity's sake, let's move to help our young and most vulnerable. Let's help that mother who looked into my eyes and stop sending cash. Let's help those people try to kick their drug addictions.

Step 1 is failure of the first drug test. That leads to 80 per cent of income going on the BasicsCard, which is just like the cashless welfare card, and 20 per cent to spend as the recipient wishes. Sadly, that can still be spent on drugs. There is no reduction in income at all—not one cent. There is just a requirement to spend the money on the good things in life.

I'm reminded, Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews—and I think you were probably there too—of when we had Twiggy Forrest come into our joint party room to brief us about the cashless welfare card. He was suggesting at that time that it should apply to 100 per cent of income. Subsequently, after negotiation in the Ceduna community with various people—the leadership of the Indigenous groups and also the local council and other people in the town—it was decided there would be an 80-20 split. I raised the question with Mr Forrest. I said: 'I get what you're saying, but you don't think 100 per cent's a bit harsh? You don't think maybe we ought to give a bit of money to people to make decisions about their lives, to have a bit of cash to go to the pub or whatever it might be?' He said: 'Well, you can if you like. It's up to you. You could make it 80-20 or fifty-fifty. You do whatever you like. But you should ask yourself the question: is it the taxpayers' responsibility to fund somebody's alcohol, drug and gambling addictions?' That's a very good question. I think you clearly understand, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I think those on the other side do as well, that that is not what Newstart and youth allowance are for. They are not to fund drug addictions. They are to try and get people through a tough spot and then get them into the workforce. That's step 1.

Step 2 is the second failure: no loss of income at all as long as the recipient is prepared to stay involved and engaged with the scheme. Where there is a loss of income is if they refuse to engage—that is, refuse a drug test. That would most certainly cease the payments, because somewhere in this pile of tools we have to have some stick; there are plenty of carrots. That would mean that their payments cease until they re-enter the program. However, the most important part of step 2 is that the recipient is referred to medical assessment and then rehabilitation. This is where the rubber hits the road, where we help these individuals take control of their lives and take the first steps to getting rid of their dependency on drugs. The government has provided $10 million for that medical assessment and rehabilitation service, which is around $2,000 per person for the 5,000 people that will be involved in the trial.

The whole program is about identification. It is about finding those people in the community who are abusing their bodies. Step 2 becomes about wellness, the steps to recovery and putting people in control of their lives. Those who oppose medical assessment and treatment for people with drug addiction should probably stand up and say so quite clearly. They shouldn't prevaricate, saying it is not fair and is victimisation; they should state how they don't mind if taxpayer funds are used to feed drug habits. It is pretty depressing. The trial is to be evaluated by an independent body, information on individuals will remain discreet, and drug users will not be referred to the police. As I said, the drug testing is an identification tool. Once we find out who these people are, we can get the right people in their lives to help.

We want people to engage and to attend treatment courses, and we are going to treat that as a jobseeker activity. As you would well know, people on Newstart are required to engage: to attend interviews or be in education. If the person involved is attending treatment, that will count as a jobactive activity. That's because the government wants the individual to change and take control of their life. Young people in Australia are perhaps those most heavily suffering through drug use. Out of 18 comparable European countries Australia has the second-highest usage of methamphetamine. Only quite recently have we seen those figures about the sewage content of our major cities. It is really scary stuff. We need to take action.

It is time to stop wringing our hands and say, 'We're going to do something; we're going to have a go at some early intervention.' Let's hope it works. Maybe it won't work or make a scrap a difference, but it is a trial, just as the cashless welfare card is a trial, and the runs are on the board with the cashless welfare card. We know it is a good thing and we are looking to extend that trial into other areas. We want to do the same with this: just give it a go. If it's no good, those on the other side can knock it down as a complete failure and say, 'We told you so,' but at least let us not stand here in a few years time and say, 'We had a good idea, but we were all too gutless to give it a go, quite frankly.' We need to get on board.

According to Newspoll 73 per cent of voters back the trial. Why? The voters see the damage on a daily basis. They are the parents of children in trouble. People know what's going on in our communities. I get told constantly—as just about every member of this House does, I bet—about the ravages of drugs in their community, and to do something about it. Well, this is a chance to do something about it. It's a chance to give it a red-hot go, a chance to try to get people to take control of their lives and to give them the tools to do so. But we can't do that if we refuse to engage with them. If we're just waiting for them all to step forward and have the moment of realisation that they're no longer in control of their life, then we're going to lose a lot of them along the way. This is the early identification program. This is the thing that can change your life. If you've been unemployed for five, six or seven years and you've got a drug habit, there's a fair chance it'll be for the rest of your life. We need to get in earlier than that and make a difference earlier. So, I implore those on the other side to think about what it is they are trying to oppose here and come on board and give this trial a fair dinkum go.

Ms BURNEY (Barton) (17:35): I'm sure to the great disappointment of the member for Grey, Labor will not be getting on board with the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 and we will oppose it—absolutely oppose it. We will do that not on the basis of ideology but on the basis of evidence that has been given to us and to the government from many experts who work in the area of addiction and treatment—welfare experts and also people who are affected by this terrible health issue. As the member for Dobell made very clear—and she is better placed than most people in this place to make it clear—this is a health issue. Dependency will not be managed or sorted out by this particular measure.

I will firstly say that it is the view of the Labor Party that the government is making a second attempt to pass this measure, and we hope it ends up as disastrous as the first attempt. Last time around the community, the medical experts and the addiction treatment experts said that this will not work. Nothing has changed from that position, and nothing has changed from the position Labor has taken. This piece of legislation and this trial will drive vulnerable people away from income support. It will drive people who are suffering from addiction away from rehabilitation. It will drive desperate people to do desperate things. The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association said in its submission on the bill:

The bill is premised on a range of assumptions regarding substance use and implies a connection between substance use and unemployment. This connection is overly simplistic and tenuous at best and does not account for the range of elements contributing to entrenched unemployment, such as regional variance in opportunity, family violence and mental health issues. It implies that illicit substance use is a key driver to unemployment and it fails to acknowledge that substance use and dependence is ubiquitous across a range of demographics.

Anglicare Australia said:

There is no evidence that people using welfare benefits and looking for a job generally have a higher incidence of drug use than the general population.

As I said, the government is confusing a healthcare issue with welfare, and the government is fabricating a narrative that is grossly and maliciously misleading and harmful. I will have more to say on that in a moment.

On the question of this bill, this government is ignoring the experts and it is ignoring the evidence. This bill proposes a trial of random drug testing among some 5,000 income support recipients at selected locations around Australia—as has been articulated, Logan in Queensland, Mandurah in Western Australia and Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney, an area that I am incredibly familiar with. In establishing this trial, the government, through the Department of Social Services, says it consulted with various government and non-government stakeholders. I question that. Of the 53 submissions received on this bill, opposing submissions were received from a number of community groups, including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. the Australian Injecting Illicit Drug Users League, Anglicare Australia, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, Logan City Council, UnitingCare Australia, the Australian Association of Social Workers and the St Vincent de Paul Society.

In 2013 the then peak Commonwealth advisory group, the Australian National Council on Drugs—the government's own body—reviewed evidence on the impact of drug testing welfare recipients and concluded:

There is no evidence that drug testing welfare beneficiaries will have any positive effects for those individuals or for society, and some evidence indicating such a practice could have high social and economic costs. In addition, there would be serious ethical and legal problems in implementing such a program in Australia. Drug testing of welfare beneficiaries ought not be considered.

That was in 2013. This is an extract that is almost universally cited among the opposing submissions received from the community on this bill.

In 2013 the New Zealand government instituted a drug-testing program among welfare recipients. The member for Dobell spoke about this, and I won't go over the statistics from New Zealand, except to say that, of the 8,001 participants tested in New Zealand, only 22 returned a positive result. We saw the same in Utah and also in Missouri, where the testing outcomes were about the same.

The submission from the Department of Social Services estimated that up to 10 per cent of those tested will test positive to an illegal substance. Yet the College of Psychiatrists says it believes this is a gross overestimate and that it is more likely to be less than one per cent. You've got to ask: is it best to put the money into this or to put the money into rehabilitation and programs that are going to help people with a drug addiction? St Vincent de Paul says that, given the disproportionately large number of people who will test negative, it will inconvenience an unreasonably large number of people applying for income support.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has questioned the scientific basis and research standards and integrity of this so-called trial. The centre questioned the geographical focus of the trial, the lack of a trial protocol, ethics approval, the independence of the research team and the absence of auditing or trial monitoring. That says to me that, if a trial is going to be a genuine trial, you would think that those measures were in place. The centre also went on to question the arbitrary nature of drug testing of welfare recipients:

The "reasonable excuse provisions" is one example of how this Bill fails to understand the nature of drug dependence. "Reasonable excuse provisions" will apply but not where the reason is wholly or substantially attributable to drug or alcohol use. This is the same as suggesting that if a patient with cancer fails to attend for a chemotherapy session … they are penalised because it is the cancer that has prevented their attendance.

It is grossly misjudged and ill thought through.

Many groups have also expressed their concern about the disproportionately costly nature of this measure. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists estimates the cost of testing to be approximately $500 to $900 each. The college said that the time and money and resources projected to be sunk into this trial could be better spent on treatment services, and that is certainly the view of the Labor Party. Anglicare Australia says the costs could be up to $1,600 per positive result and cites the New Zealand trial, which spent $1 million testing 8,000 welfare recipients and, as I said, returned 22 positive results. That's over $45,000 per positive result.

At a time when the government has slashed 2,500 jobs from the Department of Human Services and is crying a budget emergency, the government is really cutting off its nose to spite the face of vulnerable income support recipients. Even the efficacy of this approach to rehabilitation has been brought into question by Anglicare, which says, 'Mandatory drug rehabilitation has been repeatedly found to be one of the least effective ways for people to overcome a drug addiction.' How can the government be so blind to not be listening to people that know what they are doing in this space?

They know better than the government. They know better than this side of the House, which is why we have taken so much time to listen to people who actually know what they're doing.

One of the submissions was received from a Sydney social worker named James Clarke, who observed:

I often see my clients drop out of their reporting obligations due to existing reporting requirements and red tape. By enforcing testing, these amendments will create further bureaucratic hurdles for people to clear before receiving the meagre rate of pay that Newstart affords. Not receiving a Centrelink payment prevents an unemployed person from secure tenancies or participating in community, and increases the risk of homelessness and long term unemployment.

The Public Service Research Group says:

Punitive responses to test refusal or positive test results risk driving drug users towards "even more dangerous ways of living."

The focus on illicit drug use is an obstacle to employment and also distracts from the multitude of factors impeding employment. The Centre for Social Research in Health states:

… other barriers to self-sufficiency are more prominent, such as poor physical health, poor academic skills, mental health issues, transportation barriers and language barriers.

The member for Jagajaga, in her contribution to this debate, talked about risk of false positives and the burden of costs which may be placed on the jobseeker, and they are patently obvious. More than 982 doctors, nurses, addiction specialists and allied health professionals signed an open letter calling on the government to end its mandatory drug testing for people receiving income support—982 people that know what they're talking about. Amongst the signatories were 109 addiction specialists, 330 doctors, 208 registered nurses and hundreds of other allied health professionals. How much louder does the call have to be for this government to grow some sort of sense and sensitivity about this and understand that this is a fraught proposition?

The government has confused addiction, a healthcare issue, with income support, and it is not fair. It is not appropriate, and I am sick of this government demonising people who from time to time throughout their lives have to rely on welfare. It is unbelievable when you look at the litany of the outcomes in Centrelink and the fact that there have been so many jobs cut. There have been people accused of owing money that they didn't owe. There has been mistake after mistake. There have been 55 million unanswered calls, and under this government we have seen Centrelink wait times increase. In that context, the government pushes ahead with this ill-informed trial in three sites. It's ill informed, and I would urge people to vote against this, particularly when it goes to the other place. Listen to the experts. Listen to people that find themselves in these very difficult situations, and make a distinction between what is a health and welfare issue and what is an employment issue.

It is just unbelievable to me that this government would not listen to the experts and would not understand that the government's commitment of $10 million is a drop in the ocean when it comes to treatment. Anyone that has tried to support someone to get into treatment will know how difficult it is. Whilst the government say, 'Oh, well, this will be seen as part of a person's mutual obligation,' I question whether the government thought those things through and whether they've actually tested them. I've questioned the government on whether or not there are going to be the available facilities out there to support people who need this support.

I want to understand how the government has thrown together unemployment, people needing to rely on welfare assistance and drug addiction. There is no connection. We know that drug addiction affects all demographics, we know that drug addiction does not discriminate, and we certainly understand that drug addiction is a healthcare issue. It will not be fixed up by further penalising people who are relying on Newstart and other payments. It is a ludicrous proposition that the government has put in front of itself. Time will show that this trial is a waste of taxpayers' money and that the money spent on this trial, if it ever gets up, would have been better spent on services that support people with addiction and that look at as a healthcare issue and not as something which can be controlled through people's access to Centrelink payments.

Mr LAMING (Bowman) (17:50): It is an exciting evening in the federal parliament, where I'm quietly optimistic that the trial being proposed in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 will go ahead. This trial was originally conceived back in 2013. I remember the member for Gilmore was right there in the coalition welfare reform group, which was formed in that year. The member for Braddon, a young whipper-snapper, the member for Pearce, who had just joined the parliament, and I were also in that group. Together, we started to conceive what we thought was the next step in the Work for the Dole mutual obligation. We slowly worked our way through to make sure that there was hope for every Australian, where they could one day hold down a job and have a chance in the brilliant economy that this current government runs. Of course, that is not the case at the moment.

There are large proportions of the population, particularly in poor electorates, which are completely distanced from the opportunities that Australia offers. That's just not bad for them; we know through epigenetics and intensive social policy research that that is bad for their kids as well. This is an intergenerational challenge that needs to be broken. In the 1990s, just as we were starting to make progress as a coalition government in the area of Work for the Dole, the possibility that a person would be made to be active in return for their payment was considered anathema. It was people like John Howard and Tony Abbott, the then employment minister—and even my father, Bruce Laming, who brought down the new employment policies from Queensland—who were urging businesses to take on an extra worker and find a way to connect people to work, because, fundamentally in the Liberal Party, we never give up on anyone. We will never give up on an individual and say: 'You're on drugs. There's nothing we can do.'

What we've seen over decades from those on the other side of the chamber, the Labor Party, and from peak welfare groups is a persistent behaviour whereby they throw up their hands and say: 'There is just nothing we can do. If they don't feel like doing it, we're not going to make them do it.' This was the attitude of a large number of the employment service providers in the 1990s. Anyone who has been around long enough will remember how it was utterly unfeasible to contemplate that an individual would be made to actually get out of bed and turn up somewhere for work. All the same excuses were trotted out. By golly, on the coalition side, we have seen, thank goodness, from government most of the time, some of these ridiculous excuses—and haven't we heard them all?—being trotted out almost hysterically by peak welfare groups. I'm most disappointed to see a select group, even within learned medical colleges, dancing to this same tune. There are probably highly selective experts within a greater profession who strongly support these initiatives, because they understand: 'What is the alternative? What is the alternative to raising a white flag as ice is being trucked around in vehicles on a passenger seat and sold to young kids, who then fall out of school, or to young girls, who then fall to prostitution or who turn to crime?' They are using those same excuses to say, 'Let's not do anything about it, because it might make that happen.' For goodness sake, that is already happening! That is the status quo.

Australia has the second-highest use of methamphetamine in the OECD, where we have suitable comparative data. Australia is literally awash with it. I don't mean to be hysterical about this, but we've heard read speeches from the Labor Party and we've heard non-noted speeches from the coalition, because we speak from the heart about this. We know that 83 per cent of coalition voters are behind us on this issue. We know that 65 per cent of Labor voters distance themselves from Labor representatives on this issue. We know that nearly three-quarters of Australians fundamentally look at this problem and say: 'Ice is a bloody tragic thing. I've seen mums and dads who, the minute they leave home, watch their son pull out the stereo and try to hock it to drug dealers.' This is a really hard issue.

To be told by those on the other side that there is no evidence for an initiative that is fundamentally a trial speaks to their inability to simply understand what this is. It is world-leading. It is groundbreaking. And it has the word 'trial' in it for a good reason. There is nothing similar between the Australian proposals and the US states that made quite energetic but ultimately futile attempts, with quite perverse and damaging outcomes for those who were found to be positive. It is also quite different from the New Zealand actuarial models, where they introduced drug testing if one were applying for a job where drug testing was already happening. These are completely different concepts. What we have here is effectively a non-punitive measure that forms, in the brief of intervention science, that opportunity to say to someone, 'You know you have a problem here, because we have the drug test.' Up until now, what the welfare system relies on is someone walking forward and saying, 'You do know that I'm on drugs, and I'd really like to get off them.' There are people like that, but there are not very many.

Ice is characteristic of this feature: people don't genuinely believe that they can just simply go and get help and everything will be okay. For many people it is futile, hopeless and desperate. For many people, they are looking after minors, dragging them into child care at noon, engaging in prostitution from home, ducking back to pick up the kid again and then having the door kicked in as drug dealers are seeking payment. What three-year-old deserves to have that treatment? There is someone pushing past a three-year-old, watching a drug deal trying to settle debts, because they know there is money in the house somewhere. This is the status quo that we are trying to break.

By breaking the status quo, there were three or four key considerations. That first consideration is that we must respect the privacy of the individual and adhere to the legal obligations of this nation. We're not profiling people. We're not saying, 'We don't like the cut of your jib. We want you to step into the side room.' This is about a prospective, grandfathered, signing up of new Newstart recipients to the possibility of that test. Because that particular cohort is up to three times more likely to be on recreational drugs, they have got to be prepared to face a simple test. It's a non-invasive test. It doesn't go on your criminal record. Someone doesn't pick up the telephone and tell the police. No, people can't rummage through your files and find out the result.

In a career of drug taking, where one is building a criminal or a dislocation resume faster than they are building an occupational or educational one, we are trying to find that opportunity to break into the cycle somewhere. The whole point is that at the moment there is nowhere to break into the cycle. If the state has a chance to say, 'This could be the moment. You are losing your house. You are losing your kids. Your job is long gone. At what point do we keep paying for your drug habit using taxpayers' money?' That is possibly one last chance before a drug addiction continues unabated and out of control for years.

That's why instinctively Australians like the idea. They appreciate that there is not the evidence, because it has not been tried before. They want to see something done. As soon as we know that someone has a positive test, nothing is taken away and the payment goes on. It's a BasicsCard; about 80 per cent of it is onto a BasicsCard. There is still the liquidity to do pretty much everything one needs to do. You have intensive case and financial management available. Finally, and let's remember this, it becomes awfully hard to pay the drug dealer. It's not impossible. You can go out and flog stuff, but you will be picked up by the police and you will have another problem on your hands. You will be going cold turkey in jail. There are no easy ways out of this.

What I'm saying here is not to simply throw your hands up and say, 'I wouldn't want to step between a drug taker and their drugs. I wouldn't want to get between them and their habit. Let's keep paying them taxpayers' money so we don't have any trouble from them.' That's the counternarrative coming from the other side. That's not the narrative of Australia, of hope, of justice and of giving it a red-hot crack. We will do everything in our power, as the state, to help people off ice. It is not a public good. It is not something to be protected nor something to be feared. When we initially designed this policy in 2013, we could not have dreamed that the great party of the Labor Party would actually oppose it. We never thought one could be that politically lucky, but in fact we saw Labor literally and figuratively wet their pants over this issue. It was really, really unbelievable that they did everything they could to stop the smallest and most modest of trials.

This is a trial. If it's not financially or clinically effective, it will not continue. But what was the first objection put up by the Labor Party? There may not be enough treatment facilities out there. The treatment facilities will be overrun with queues going around the corner like in Cuba. At the same time, you have another individual up here saying, 'The pick-up rate will be so low. It will be down to 0.0001 per cent. It will be catastrophic. What a waste of money with no positives.' Of course, you can't have it both ways, can you? What you can have is every single excuse you can dream up distilled into a Labor Party policy. That is what has been presented. 'It is an invasion of privacy. It erodes all morals that we have in this nation up to this point. It's a complete intrusion. It'll lead to an outbreak of crime around the nation where the idea is trialled.' To ask for evidence out of this policy but then to purport that their counternarrative is in any way evidence is just really, really ridiculous. They have dreamt up, as a Labor Party, every possible objection, but it doesn't stand scrutiny.

We as a coalition have designed a forward, prospective, grandfathered approach systematically and without any selection bias, doing a simple trial. We know that rates of drug use are high in this cohort, and Australians would expect us to do everything within our power. Once the first positive is received, then, of course, we have the financial intervention. There isn't the ability to use the cashless debit card in some of these trial areas. Then there is obviously the possibility of a second positive test. What's forgotten by the other side is not so much the impact on the individual being tested or testing positive but the signal that sends through the entire half a million people on Newstart who are signing up prospectively that it could happen to them. It makes the likelihood of them being work ready every Monday morning that slight bit higher.

The testing could well be in a longer form, using hair bulb testing rather than saliva or a buccal swab. If that's the case, they're going to be looking at a far longer period of recreational drug use, which is almost impossible to hide. We've moved now into an era of extremely high-level and effective technology. It is incredibly cheap and extremely accurate, and, in a single test, it is able to pick up up to eight different recreational drugs. That was never used in any of the previous tests. That wasn't used in New Zealand. It wasn't used in the US, and that is a nation that still gets people to walk in a straight line to see if they're over the blood alcohol level.

This is brand-new, cutting-edge technology. I have to acknowledge that the nation's drug testers, who are doing amazing work in the major occupations of mining and industry, have said this is a simple process to step it into those who are looking for work. Isn't it the coalition policy that, if you can't get a job but you are receiving a government payment in lieu of one, you should be ready to turn up on Monday morning and do a job? This feeds into that very simple mentality that, 'No, not everyone has a job, but everyone should be ready to go to work if they're physically and mentally fit and able to do so and in the appropriate age range.'

I will finish where I started. This is a party of hope and belief. What you've heard from the Labor Party is a disappointing rendition of resignation, which is the futility that ultimately there will never possibly be enough service providers out there and there'll be queues. It just denies the fact that, with the national ice initiative's $685 million and with $10 million directly invested into these trial areas, there will be people screaming for patients. There will be people scrounging around and looking for ice addicts who could possibly receive counselling and treatment. If an MP in this chamber doesn't understand that, they're clearly not connected to their PHN locals—formerly Medicare, a conception of the previous government—and the good contracting work they do in my area with after-care in particular, not necessarily primarily focused on drugs but where it is secondary to a mental health issue. They are desperately looking for people to avail themselves of their services. If there is one area for which the coalition could pat themselves on the back, it's these services available through our PHNs all over the country. This complete fiction that there are just no services out there hearkens back to an era when many of us thought the only way to recover from drugs was to go into a Hollywood-style residential facility for 30 days. It's true that that used to be the way it was done; it no longer is. There are very few residential facilities, rightly or wrongly, but it is increasingly hard to prove their cost-effectiveness because they're super expensive and ice is super addictive. They get short-term results, and then people are addicted again, which means their numbers don't look so good.

We have an incredibly hard battle here. If there's one thought that I leave this chamber with, it is that we need to try everything. What you have is a Labor Party desperate to stop us trying everything in our power to take an ice addict and try and break that cycle. They will present, as the member for Oxley did, a young woman, tragically, raped at an early age, who says, 'I live for ice and nothing will ever stop me taking it.' That's the hardest of the hard. I'm not saying it's going to fix every case. We're talking about those right down at the margins, intermittent recreational users, who last year used that excuse nearly 2½ thousand times to not show up for work, but they still got paid with taxpayers' money. For those on the margins that are just opting in and out, using ice as a convenient excuse not to work—we know there are around 85,000 persistent evaders and many of them use drugs and alcohol as an excuse—your time is up. The holiday is over. We will, through a series of reforms, eventually prevent you leading that life. Maybe not you—maybe under that roof you've never understood the importance of holding down a job and supporting a family. But all of us will realise that one day, and we don't want to see children damaged while we wait those years for people to come off addiction.

Ms O'TOOLE (Herbert) (18:05): I'm not speechless because I'm speaking but, let me tell you, I've never heard such complete and utter ignorance than what I have just heard from the member opposite. Peoples' lives are complex. The reality is that drugs and alcohol misuse occurs across our community in every sector at every age. I will share some facts that will prove that. It is completely unacceptable that we can stand in this place and trivialise the lives of people whose existence is so complex that it is beyond the ability of most of us to understand. It is simply unfair.

I want to stand in this place today to make my view on this bill very, very clear. I will always welcome genuine and effective efforts to assist and support people who are struggling with drug and alcohol dependency to access appropriate treatment. I don't believe that income support is best utilised to support a drug habit; however, as I have said, peoples' lives are complex. What is very clear to me is that this bill is not a genuine attempt to assist people struggling with drug dependency. It will do nothing to stop the use of illegal drugs, it will do nothing to prevent ongoing drug misuse and it will not deliver appropriate treatment. For people who seek treatment for dependency on drugs, they have to be in a position where they are ready to make change in their lives.

The changes in this bill will have a severe impact on people who have extremely complex lives and needs. The impact of this bill will push them further into serious financial hardship and potentially crime. This bill is based on a misunderstanding of the data which is so full of holes that you could drive a truck through it. I cannot and will not stand in this place and support legislation that will do absolutely nothing to address a serious and complex social problem, a health problem in fact. I cannot believe that in 2018 this government still considers drug testing people on Newstart and youth allowance as a real solution.

We have all seen the national footage where former Prime Minister Tony Abbott admits to Annabel Crabb that he passed out drunk whilst on the job and by his own admission missed a very important division. Yet, the same person who passed out drunk whilst on the job wants to enforce drug testing on people struggling with drug addictions. This is nothing short of double standards and entitlement. Does the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott not realise the hypocrisy? Does the Turnbull government not see the hypocrisy in this situation? Not to mention the blanket prejudice of assuming that people on youth allowance and Newstart must be the people who are misusing drugs.

A study by the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction found that drug use is significantly more prevalent among those in the paid workforce in comparison to those not in paid work. Furthermore, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the median age of illicit drug users has risen from 32.8 years in 2001, to 36.5 years in 2013, for any illicit drug. Research has also shown that the numbers of people over 50 years of age are responsible for the largest rise in illicit drug misuse and were the only age group to show a statistically significant increase in misuse. The most common age for illicit drug misuse is 36.5 years of age, but the Turnbull government is choosing to test those on youth allowance, where you have to be under 24 to be eligible. This just does not make sense.

This bill is clear evidence that the Turnbull government doesn't give a damn about vulnerable jobseekers or young people; nor are they interested in assisting people struggling with drug addiction to access treatment. If the Turnbull government was in any way genuine or cared one iota about helping people struggling with drug addiction, they would increase funding into prevention and early intervention programs. Medical professionals, along with the drug and alcohol treatment sector, have raised significant concerns about these measures and the negative impacts that they will have on jobseekers. More importantly, these measures won't be effective in identifying those with a serious problem; nor will they provide them with appropriate treatment options. This is yet another attempt by the Turnbull government to demonise vulnerable job seekers, without any evidence that these measures will work, and it's likely to be a significant cost to the budget.

Experts warn that these changes will not help people to overcome drug misuse; this is not how programs to assist people to address their addiction challenges work. Instead, people will be pushed into crisis, poverty, homelessness and, potentially, crime. And yet the Turnbull government is pushing ahead with its plans to trial the drug testing of around 5,000 welfare recipients at three sites across the country: Logan in Queensland, Canterbury Bankstown in New South Wales and Mandurah in Western Australia. Those who fail a test will be forced onto income management for 24 months. This means that 80 per cent of their welfare payment will be quarantined and can only be spent on specific items. A second failed test will prompt a referral to treatment. Failure to comply with the drug-testing regime could see the welfare recipient lose his or her welfare payment. The proposal has been met with strong opposition from doctors, psychiatrists, welfare advocates, community groups, local mayors, charities and the United Nations. Of course, this approach also assumes that there are drug and alcohol programs available for young people in their communities. Many fear that taking a punitive approach to drug addiction and misuse will simply drive people away from the welfare system and further into poverty. The question must be put to the Turnbull government: where is the evidence—where is the detail? Surely the government should be looking at evidence-based practice.

Overseas examples of drug-testing income support recipients have clearly demonstrated that there is no evidence to support these measures as being effective. In 2013, the New Zealand government instituted a drug-testing program for welfare recipients. In 2015, only 22 of 8,001 participants tested returned a positive result for illicit drug use—that detection rate was much lower than the proportion of the general New Zealand population estimated to be using illicit drugs. Similar results were found in the United States: in Missouri's 2014 testing program, of the state's 38,970 welfare applicants, 446 were tested with 48 testing positive; and in Utah, of the state's 9,552 welfare participants, 838 were screened with 29 returning a positive result. These were extremely costly initiatives. They are costly initiatives that will drive people further into poverty, homelessness and crime—yet the Turnbull government is determined to implement this regime with no detail on real costs.

Concerns have been raised about these measures by health and welfare groups, including St Vincent's Health, the Royal Australian College of Physicians, ACOSS and UnitingCare. No health or community organisations have come out publicly in support of this trial. Addiction medicine specialists are concerned about the technical aspects of the trial. While people taking prescription medicine could be exempted, this would not guarantee that they are not also misusing illicit drugs, thus undermining the purpose of the trial. The testing could potentially encourage people to use less-traceable but more-harmful drugs, such as synthetic cannabis, or to use alcohol, which is not being tested as part of this trial. A long-term cannabis user who is attempting to address their drug misuse will still test positive for up to six weeks. How will Centrelink know if they have actually stopped using cannabis?

The Turnbull government claims that the availability of treatment will be the criteria for selecting trial sites. But Senate estimates revealed that the Commonwealth does not have access to data on the availability of treatment, and will need to rely on the states to provide this information. How is this going to work? For example, if you are a young person tested in Townsville and return a positive test, where would you go? The Salvation Army built a youth detox centre, but they are now struggling to secure funds to operate it. Our youth have to travel to Brisbane or Melbourne, because North Queensland just does not have these facilities. The Turnbull government would not match Labor's initial commitment to fund the Townsville Salvation Army detox centre for young people, and they have not come to the table to fund the operation of the new centre, so there are no services to offer our young people in the north, if the government chooses to run a trial in my community. There are very lengthy waiting lists for treatment around the country. These trials will put increased pressure on the health system and, where treatment is unavailable, jobseekers that are identified as having a drug-misuse problem will have difficulty accessing the necessary treatment. The flaws, gaps and traps in this bill are enormous.

But one thing is evident: the Turnbull government don't have a plan to address any real drug misuse issues, but they do have a plan to attack vulnerable jobseekers and to make the poor poorer whilst appearing on the surface to be doing something—something that delivers nothing more than distress, anxiety and disadvantage. This is a government that don't want to help the sick, as is obvious in the cuts to Medicare. This is a government that don't want equal access to quality education, as is obvious from the savage cuts to education. This is a government that don't want the poor to become middle class, as seen through the cuts to universities.

When you are sick, you should always have access to health care. Where you live shouldn't matter regarding your child's access to a quality needs based education. The size of your wallet or trust fund should not determine whether you can or cannot attend university. When you lose a loved one, someone close to you, you should be allowed time to grieve without fear of not being able to pay for the simple costs of living. But the Turnbull government are completely out of touch with vulnerable citizens, especially in their big talk about supporting the aspirations of Australians. They are not a government of aspiration but rather a government that is hell-bent on making life harder. They are a government that puts aspiration out of reach for some of our most vulnerable citizens. The Turnbull government are a government for the wealthy, not the battler.

To all of those people that the Turnbull government is neglecting I say: you need to know that you matter to the Labor Party and that you matter to me personally. I will fight every minute of every day in this place for you. I will continue to fight against the Turnbull government's savage cuts. I will continue to fight for real action to help people overcome their drug misuse challenges, not rubbish bills like this one. I will continue to fight against the Turnbull government's top hats approach, and I will take up the fight for hard hats. I will continue to fight for jobs in Townsville. I will continue to fight for a fair go for our veterans and ex-service personnel and their families. I will continue to fight for aged care, child care and Medicare, because Labor does care. Labor is the only party that gives people something to aspire to, and that is the opportunity to create a better life for themselves and their children. This bill certainly does not do that. Punishing the most vulnerable at the most difficult time in their life is anything but a solution to get people moving on with their lives.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (18:17): Centre Alliance has not changed its position in relation to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018. Despite it being a scare tactic used by members of the Liberal Party in my community during the recent by-election, we will not back down from our position. The bill before us is a rebadged extract of schedule 12 of the Social Services Legislation (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017, which has already been extensively debated and discussed in both houses of the parliament. The drug-testing component of the welfare reform bill was rejected by both Centre Alliance and the parliament. Yet here we are again, with the government attempting to pass the same piece of legislation using the same completely unsatisfactory policy arguments. We have so much to debate in this place, so I cannot understand why we are expending more time on this when this particular schedule has already been resoundingly rejected by the parliament.

In my previous speech on the welfare reform bill, I comprehensively detailed my concerns with the drug-testing element of that bill, and just briefly I wish to outline some of the salient arguments once more. The government refuses to publish the cost of the trial to the taxpayer. The government argues there are commercial implications for this nondisclosure. I do not believe this. Government knows exactly how much it intends to spend on this particular pilot study, and it should know how much it intends to spend on this program or pilot study. Every single program should have a dollar figure attached. Publish the costings. Every other program has this. Why not this? In the absence of exceptional circumstances, I and my Centre Alliance colleagues will never support legislation without knowing how much it's going to cost the Australian taxpayer. We believe it is irresponsible, and we believe we would be doing a great disservice to the Australian taxpayer if we did that.

I also think that not detailing those costs is actually quite arrogant, to the parliament and to the Australian taxpayer, who is expected to foot the bill for this policy. I can only assume that this legislation is likely to have a hefty financial cost, given the enormous cost of similar programs in the United States of America. In other jurisdictions, drug testing programs have been proven to be highly ineffective in discovering drug addicts, completely failing any reasonable cost-benefit analysis benchmark. For example, in 2015 research undertaken by the ThinkProgress project of the Center of American Progress discovered that, collectively, 10 US states spent more than US$850,000 on their testing regimes but uncovered only 321 positive tests. In more than one of those American states not a single positive test was found. Based on America's experience, it costs approximately US$2,650 for each positive test secured. How much will it cost us? Experts suggest it will cost us approximately $1,600 per test, per recipient. I'm sure that when we collectively look at how many recipients may test positive the cost will be higher than the US cost.

Again, we have no information about who will perform these tests and how they will be performed. Will Centrelink recipients be expected to go to the Centrelink office with a specimen cup? Will they be mouth swabbed? Will this be outsourced to a private company? How can we ensure the integrity and the veracity of such testing? We just don't know. Is this the best use of taxpayer funds? Centrelink is already aware of who has a serious drug addiction and who is on welfare with a serious drug addiction, because, until recently, addicts were able to rely on drug addiction as a reasonable excuse when failing to attend job provider appointments. We supported changes to legislation that no longer allowed addiction to be used as an excuse for missed appointments. We supported changes to legislation that meant that Centrelink recipients receiving a working-age payment have one of two pathways to go down. Either they can actively engage and look for work and connect with their jobactive provider, or they must seek rehabilitation to address their addiction if that addiction is stopping them from meaningfully looking for work. These are very important levers that we were keen to support. With this legislation now in place, why would we waste what I can only assume will be millions of taxpayer dollars—and when we've already tightened the activity requirements?

I'd like to raise a serious but often missed point in relation to drug addiction. Existing drug addiction services are utterly swamped. One of the most concerning findings raised during the Senate inquiry into the welfare reform bill was that unmet demand for treatment of addiction in Australia was estimated at between 200,000 and 500,000 Australians—half a million Australians. That is why, in our negotiations with government over the welfare reform bill, we ensured that $40 million of funding was put to one side and provided for specialist drug rehabilitation, including $20 million over three years for specialist methamphetamine rehabilitation facilities in South Australia and $20 million over three years for drug addiction support and training for GPs and other allied health professionals in regional Australia. Good, sound policy analysis showed that there was a significant gap in support at the primary healthcare level for medical professionals, who are often the first and only people that a person with an addiction will go to to seek assistance.

If we have millions to spare on this random drug testing—and we still don't know how much it is—then more money should be put into addiction services. Let me be clear: Centre Alliance believes that people who are on jobseeker payments should not be allowed to sit and do nothing. This is why we supported an amended welfare reform bill. Centre Alliance believes that jobseekers should be either actively engaged in jobseeking or actively engaged in becoming job-ready, and that would mean addressing their addictions. In the case of a person with a drug addiction, this means engaging in drug rehabilitation, getting counselling and in some cases going into a rehab bed. We believed it was right and we believed it was responsible. However, what we have before us today is really poor policy formation. There is no clarity of cost or of expected outcomes, and we have already changed the legislation to deal with people with addiction. Let's face it: if the US have abandoned their drug testing, we need to learn from them. Why would we go down the same path? The US has far more populist politics than we do. Surely we can learn from them. I believe this is a crude attempt to demonise people receiving Centrelink payments. We do have long-term unemployed in Australia, but for the most part they are older Australians completing job application after job application. We also know that there is a one-to-16 ratio of jobs to jobseekers. That is what we should be addressing. In conclusion, the drug-testing trial bill is but a populist piece of legislation. I call upon the parliament to once again oppose this flawed piece of legislation. We cannot afford to waste more taxpayer money on this.

Mr HILL (Bruce) (18:25): It's almost one year since the House last debated this proposal. It's almost a sense of deja vu, but like a bad smell, here we are back again. I hope that, when the Senate again does its work, this bill will be well on the way to becoming another one of those zombie bills that hang around on the government's Notice Paper going nowhere. It's called the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018. You could just be honest and call it the 'drive up crime' bill. That's what a former Australian Federal Police commissioner said this bill will do. You still can't find one single credible expert that says this bill will do anything meaningful to address drug addiction. It will just demonise people on welfare, which serves your political purpose. We know that well, having lived through the by-elections with the rubbish and the bile that you spew out in communities. All it will do is drive up crime, and you know it. You haven't taken advice. You didn't take advice from the health minister. You have no experts on your side. It's just brain-dead prejudice.

Mr Coulton: Point of order: the member for Bruce is reflecting on the chair with the way he's speaking, he should be addressing his comments through the chair and his method of address is unparliamentary.

Mr HILL: Just be honest and admit this is a 'drive up crime' bill. You know it is, Government. The Senate rightly rejected this offensive stunt last year, yet it's back. We have a new minister but no new ideas, just the same failed, bigoted policies. We heard it in question time today. The backbench over there looked appalled. You're still on about the trickle-down economics, you're still about to bring back your racist, bigoted English language test to become a citizen, and now we have this garbage.

I'll just precis my speech from last time this was before the House. Drug addiction is a health issue. It's a health issue. It's a health issue! Addiction must be treated like a health issue, like other health issues. The evidence is clear: making it a moral issue does not help. It might make you feel good in your Liberal partyroom meeting in government, but it doesn't actually help anyone in the community suffering from addiction. Addiction cuts across every class and hits every suburb and every family in this country. Last time I spoke I outlined in deeply personal ways how my family's story in life has been touched by addiction. They're not all my stories to share, and I said as much as I could. I also outlined my experience in my 20s, as the mayor and leader of an inner-city council where the heroin epidemic saw people dying every day, every week around the city, in shops, in front yards, in laneways. The evidence then remains true: criminalising or demonising someone's addiction, whether or not they need income support, doesn't actually help. The Prime Minister's absurd claim that this is a policy born of love is ridiculous, especially with the lack of real funding for rehabilitation.

Once again, I'm left with profoundly unparliamentary words running through my head. It's really bad. If the government keeps serving up reheated, sloppy-seconds legislation, then I'll quote myself:

… ignorant, prejudiced, scuzzbucket, brain-dead moron and bottom feeders. They were the kindest epithets to describe those amongst those opposite who dreamed up this particularly special piece of public policy.

I refer the House to my previous remarks.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Order! Would the member for Bruce please withdraw that statement? That was quite offensive.

Mr HILL: I was quoting myself and it wasn't withdrawn last time, so I will not withdraw. It's in the Hansard.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the member for Bruce could withdraw it this time, that would be much appreciated.

Mr HILL: I will not withdraw!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Bruce, you will withdraw or you will leave the chamber under section 94.

Mr HILL: I will not withdraw, and I will leave the chamber proudly.

The member for Bruce then left the chamber.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Okay. I call the honourable Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment.

Mr COULTON ( Parkes — Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment ) ( 18:30 ): The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 introduces a two-year trial of drug testing for illicit drug use of 5,000 new recipients of Newstart Allowance and youth allowance in three trial sites. This trial is designed to identify and help jobseekers who have drug-abuse issues. It will help them to get treatment, to rehabilitate and to get a job. During the first year of the trial, 5,000 new jobseekers in three locations across Australia will be selected randomly and tested for the presence of illicit drugs. The trial will operate in Canterbury Bankstown, New South Wales; Logan, Queensland, and Mandurah, Western Australia.

The community has the right to expect that taxpayer funded welfare payments are not being used to fund drug addiction and that jobseekers do all they can to find a job. We don't want our welfare system subsidising drug dealers. It is important to note that people who fail a drug test will not lose one dollar of welfare money. What will happen is that 80 per cent of their welfare money will be put on income management. This involving direct debits for rent and utilities, with the remainder put on the BasicsCard, which can be spent on essentials like rent and groceries. On a second failure, they will be referred for a medical assessment and rehabilitation may be added to their job plan. The only time someone will lose their welfare payment directly is if they refuse to take a drug test. People who refuse to take part in the trial when signing on for income support will not get a welfare payment. To support jobseekers in the drug-testing trial, the government has also announced an additional $10 million treatment fund. The treatment fund will assist people to undertake the treatment recommended for them by a medical professional should existing Commonwealth or state funded services not be able to meet any additional demand as a result of the trial.

This bill demonstrates the government's commitment to the drug-testing trial, which is a unique and innovative approach to helping people with drug-abuse issues. The government believes that randomised drug testing can be an effective way of identifying welfare recipients for whom mandated treatments may be successful.

This trial is a world first; nothing like it has been attempted anywhere else. A comprehensive evaluation will be conducted in parallel with the trial. This approach will ensure that any unintended consequences can be identified promptly and addressed in real time. The evaluation will build a body of evidence on the efficacy of this unique protocol, where jobseekers with drug-abuse issues will receive income management and be supported to access treatment. This government's measure is designed to help identify jobseekers for whom drug use is an issue. The purpose of testing welfare recipients in the drug-testing trial is to find people who may need help to address a barrier to employment that they may not have acknowledged or disclosed previously.

This trial is one of a suite of measures to address drug and alcohol abuse issues in welfare recipients that the government announced in the 2017-18 budget. These measures are designed to work together and to better encourage and support these jobseekers to take reasonable steps to overcome their issues and find work. From 1 January 2018, for the first time all jobseekers are able to include drug and alcohol treatment in their job plan and have this contribute to meeting their annual activity requirement. This measure supports jobseekers with drug and alcohol abuse issues and allows them to have a job plan that is properly tailored to their needs.

The government has also passed measures to ensure that jobseekers with substance abuse issues remain actively engaged in appropriate activities, including treatment, to address their barriers to work. Jobseekers will no longer be granted an exemption from their mutual obligation requirements, including activities such as job search and preparing for work, due to drug or alcohol abuse issues. Instead, they will remain connected with their employment services provider. Seeking an exemption on these grounds will trigger a conversation with their provider about their drug or alcohol issues and enable their activities to be tailored to address their needs.

In addition to this, the government has passed measures to tighten the reasonable excuse rules and prevent jobseekers from repeatedly using drug and alcohol dependency as an excuse for not meeting their requirements without being prepared to do anything about it. Indeed, they will be encouraged to undertake treatment as part of their mutual obligation requirements.

The drug-testing trial will test an innovative method of assisting people with drug abuse issues. We know that drug use can be a major barrier to finding and keeping a job. The government believes that helping jobseekers to get the treatment that they need to overcome their drug abuse issues is a critical step in ensuring that these Australians benefit from the 1,100 new jobs that are being created.

Finally, in reviewing the bill the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has recommended some clarification to the explanatory memorandum regarding risk profiling. I now table the addendum to the explanatory memorandum that makes that clarification. I recommend the bill to the House.

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

Mr COULTON (Parkes—Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (18:48): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr ROBERT (Fadden) (18:49): The Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act was introduced in 2012 as part of a suite reforms designed to provide the Australian shipping industry with a stable framework and indeed to encourage further investment. Unfortunately that has not been the case. Since implementation of the current framework, the decline in the number of Australian flagged vessels has unfortunately continued. The reality at the moment is that many ageing Australian registered vessels are not being replaced. The sector is ostensibly in decline. This bill was intended to balance the interests of the Australian shipping industry and users of shipping services by regulating Australian and foreign flagged ships through a licensing system. Unfortunately this simply hasn't happened. Australian businesses have faced such significant issues accessing coastal shipping that they've given up and frankly started sending their products by road or rail. Something has to change.

My particular interest in the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Amendment Bill 2017, notwithstanding the important areas of coastal shipping, has to do with the framework regarding superyachts, however, because this bill also supports an increase in visits to Australia by superyachts. The current coastal trading framework makes it difficult, indeed almost impossible, for foreign flagged superyachts to offer charter services in Australia, which they would like to undertake to defray the cost of operations. This bill makes changes to the coastal trading act that better align the framework with the operating model for superyachts, allowing a single voyage application, and departure and return to the same port. These minor changes should make coming to Australia more attractive for superyachts and increase job opportunities.

Unfortunately most superyachts go to Fiji or New Zealand because of customs importation duty and taxes. A one-voyage minimum requirement will allow superyachts to operate under the licensing system and obtain exemption from the current Customs Act and not pay duty. The drama of course at present is that, when a superyacht wishes to visit, it literally has to be imported, and a cost of 10 per cent of its total cost is applied to it. Clearly, no yacht is going to come here and do that if that's the cost of them having to charter. Therefore, Australia misses out on an entire opportunity to enhance the business of sailing in this country.

Opening Australia to the superyacht market will bring important trade and tourism benefits not only to areas of the Gold Coast, where I live, but to rural and regional areas in Far North Queensland. Small businesses in Cairns, the Whitsundays and Port Douglas, amongst others, will benefit greatly from it. In 2016, Superyacht Australia and the Queensland Treasury commissioned an economic impact study of the superyacht sector for the Queensland Labor government. The Queensland Superyacht Strategy envisages that, by 2023, Queensland's share of the global superyacht industry will have increased by 10 per cent and Queensland will be recognised as a key superyacht hub in the Asia-Pacific region. This can only happen if we make these changes. This growth would create thousands and thousands of new high-skilled jobs and contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to the state's economy. The Queensland state Labor government support this inclusion, and they have come out publicly to support it. It's easy to see why they support it. Looking at the economic benefit alone, the ability for yachts to charter simply by taking away this customs impost on them will add an additional 11,800 jobs and $1.64 billion by 2021. This is the Queensland state Labor government's modelling, not this government's. The Queensland state Labor government is calling on the opposition to join us in this. The huge events in the Pacific over the next three years will mean a large number of superyachts will be in our region. There is the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019, the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and the America's Cup in Auckland in 2021.

There is no loss of GST for the government. This is despite the member for Sydney's ridiculous question before the winter break about us somehow not wanting superyachts to pay GST but GST being on tampons, like the two are aligned in any way, shape or form, when this couldn't be further from the truth. This is an issue of a 10 per cent impost through customs duty, nothing more, nothing less. The dear member for Sydney simply didn't understand what she was talking about. There's no loss of GST for the government. Indeed, current foreign superyachts come in under a control permit and don't pay any taxes at all. Permitting charter will actually see the government receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in GST. It's actually the opposite of what the member for Sydney had said. Removing this customs restriction allows yachts to come in to charter, and GST will be charged and earnt, which currently is not the case. It's a win-win all around, something the Queensland state Labor government seems to understand.

Australians dominate the industry, with over a quarter of the world's crew being Australians. By supporting superyacht charters in Australia, we'll be supporting over 14,000 crew, new-age, highly skilled and well-paid seafarers—and 25 per cent of them are Australians. Tradesmen and small businesses are the huge winners from superyachts spending time in Australia, with each vessel spending millions of dollars, or 10 to12 per cent of the vessel's value, annually in maintenance and provisions directly into—predominantly—small family-owned businesses or small businesses with union membership.

New Zealand, Fiji and Tahiti all have booming superyacht industries dominated by charter vessels. Australia needs to permit charter to allow a similar boom in our industry here, along with the thousands of skilled trade jobs and economic benefits that come with it. Regions that have a high level of charter activity receive substantial international marketing exposure, which then encourages further investment in locally based vessels, infrastructure and repair facilities.

We're talking about an industry valued at just below $2 billion to Australia. If we were to make this simple change, the annual maintenance value of what is possible is $575 million in operational expenses. Currently we're earning nothing; it could be $415 million. The number of Australian maritime jobs could be well over 11,000. The total annual wages and salaries that would derive from this would be $1.2 billion. These are Queensland state Labor government figures from its study with the superyacht industry. All we need to do is make some simple changes to stop this ridiculous customs duty impost on vessels. At present, we're getting nothing. We have the opportunity to envisage an industry that is alive and growing, an industry to support 14,000 young Australians on these boats, an industry that will see over 11,000 Australians employed in high-tech areas to support these vessels, and the government earning GST on the charter of these vessels.

It's a little bit of a no-brainer: the opportunity to build an industry we don't have. And what makes it so frustrating is that every other country in the region has moved away from these custom import tariffs. We are the sole bastion of stupidity in the Pacific, where we alone are saying, 'If you come here, your boat has to be imported, and if you wish to charter, you've got to pay 10 per cent of the value of your yacht before you can charter.' So when the Dragonfly came in—the fastest superyacht in the world—not only did it take a month of negotiation to get it in, but, when it came in, it couldn't charter—because if it had wanted to, it would have had to pay 10 per cent of its value. For an $80 million yacht, that's $8 million for the purpose of chartering: ridiculous! So it didn't charter. And if they can't charter to defray costs, they don't come here for repair and maintenance, so we lose out on an entire industry because of a nonsense of a customs regulation.

For the love of all that is sacred, can we all just look at this, and not with the eyes of envy as the member for Sydney did—so ridiculously, so stupendously—at question time before we came in here; not understanding what she was talking about, running off at the mouth, linking superyachts somehow as some enviable thing compared to tampons, which is the current great issue of GST. Can we look at this in the cold light of day: what is actually sensible? It's a customs impost. Remove it. Let's allow an industry to grow. Let's allow 11,000 high-tech workers to be employed. Let's allow GST to be collected when these yachts charter. Let's do something sensible on this. We've been talking about this for years, and we are nowhere. This is such a no-brainer, and it is supported publicly by the Labor state government in Queensland. Can we just get this particular thing done?

Mr CONROY (Shortland) (18:59): Today I rise to speak to the House about the Australian shipping industry; in particular, the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Amendment Bill 2017. Maritime security is critical to the economy and to our national interest. As an island nation with such a strong maritime history, the federal government has a responsibility to maintain our capabilities in this area. However, unfortunately, this government has consistently shown no such regard for Australian shipping and shipowners, and continues its attempts to force through legislation that would compromise their ability to compete with foreign vessels and undermine our national maritime capabilities. Labor knows how important shipping is to this country. That's why we developed and passed the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Bill in 2012, and that's why we've opposed this government's repeated attempts to degrade its protection of the Australian maritime industry.

This bill offers a raft of measures that will make it easier for foreign flagged vessels to operate in Australian waters, while providing absolutely nothing for Australian flagged vessels. The proposal before the House would increase tolerance limits from their current level of plus or minus 20 per cent of the nominated cargo or passenger volumes to 200 per cent more or 100 per cent less. It would also change the current loading window from plus or minus five days to 30 days either side of the authorised date. This drastic increase of volume tolerance limits and loading windows would make it impossible for Australian owned and operated ships that hold general licences to compete with foreign vessels holding temporary licences. These provisions would, according to the Maritime Union of Australia, totally undermine accepted commercial arrangements and make it impossible for a general licence holder to contest a cargo, as a general licence holder would not know what they were contesting.

Maritime Industry Australia Limited, which is the peak industry group for Australian shippers, also opposes these changes, claiming that the integrity of the system is undermined, as general licence holders' rights and opportunities are reduced. They go on to state that without tolerances being meaningful the system may as well be deregulated entirely. The Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers has stated that under these proposals the ultimate voyage carried out may bear no resemblance to the original voyage for which the temporary licence was granted, and AIMPE opposes these proposals. One of the biggest shipping groups in this country, CSL, says of this legislation that 'the current date tolerance seems unreasonable', and True North Adventure Cruises, a tourism operator off north-western Australia, has warned that the proposed changes would allow foreign operators to game the system.

This overwhelming chorus of opposition from key stakeholders reflects the dangers of these proposals to the future of Australian shipping and maritime capabilities. These proposals will not see one extra Australian job in our maritime industry or put one extra Australian flagged ship on our coast. Until we see something different from this government—something that allows Australian shipping to stay competitive both now and into the future—the Labor Party will continue to oppose these reforms.

This government has form on this issue. This government has tried this before, and the response from stakeholders was clear. The only way forward for shipping in this country is a policy that is founded on proper consultation and has bipartisan support. The minister has himself acknowledged this, claiming in his own discussion paper that another key message from my recent stakeholder consultations is that regulatory certainty, ideally bipartisanship, is essential for investment. I would implore the government to go back to their drawing board and listen to the industry and stakeholders and follow a proper consultation process, just as Labor did when we created the original legislation and came back to the House with something that puts Australian jobs first and Australian workers first.

Unfortunately the government's record in this area is dismal reading. I recall their previous attempts, in 2015, to tear down the Australian shipping industry—and I don't say those words lightly. They were intending to destroy the Australian shipping industry. You don't have to take my word for it. You only have to read the regulatory impact statements that accompanied the 2015 legislation, stating in black and white that under their proposition 1,000 of the 1,100 workers employed in the industry would be sacked as a result of this legislation. Let me repeat that: the RIS for the 2015 bill stated that more than 90 per cent of the Australian maritime workforce would be put out of work under plans put forward by this government. Rarely has a government been so incompetent—or maybe so startlingly honest—as to say that their legislation would result in 90 per cent of an industry's workforce being sacked. Yet this is what this government attempted in 2015, and what we see now is a watered-down attempt at the same thing.

In contrast, the coastal shipping laws that Labor put in place created a level playing field, requiring that Australian wages and conditions be observed if ships are here for a certain amount of time. Let me repeat a simple premise: if a ship were here for a certain amount of time, it would have to pay Australian wages and conditions—not an unreasonable thing. If someone wants to truck goods down an Australian highway, they have to pay Australian wages and conditions. Why is it different for the blue-water highway? If a ship works the Australian coastal trading route for a reasonable amount of time, it should have to pay Australian wages and honour Australian conditions. Anything else is an attack on Australian workers.

The bill in 2015 was essentially Work Choices on water, the driving down of wages and conditions to Third World standards. What we were talking about then and what we are back to argue for today is maintaining Labor's record and regulations in this space. We're not taking an extreme position on this. In fact, Australia has one of the most liberal coasting trading regimes in the world. The rest of our G20 partners have much more restrictive policies in this area than we do, including Japan, the United Kingdom and most European countries. Even China has closed shipping lanes. The United States, the supposed bastion of the free market and free trade, has the Jones Act which legislates that all ships that service the US coastal shipping route must hire American seafarers and must pay US wages and conditions. In fact, the ships must be built in the United States. Yet this government, time and time again, tries to drag us the other way, to the detriment of the national interest.

This bill represents yet another in a sequence of attacks on coastal shipping in this country under the Turnbull government. It is a shameful record of attacks on the maritime industry and the proud and skilled workforce that service that industry. We saw this when 30 security guards boarded Alcoa's ship the MV Portland in the middle of the night to remove five Australian crew that were protesting their sacking. The security personnel then brought aboard a foreign crew who sailed the ship immediately for Singapore. The sacking of 40 Australian workers who staffed this vessel right before Christmas was bad enough, but to employ such tactics to get rid of this issue in the middle of the night was worse still. This midnight guerrilla raid marked the low point for Australian shipping at the time, and this government has continued to oversee the degradation of Australian coastal shipping since then. In fact, a few months after the MV Portland incident, the Turnbull government issued a temporary licence to Pacific Aluminium for 30 voyages in 2016, which allowed them to sack the crew of the CSL Melbourne and bring in a Greek owned ship travelling under a flag of convenience. A foreign ship replaced an Australian vessel and a foreign crew replaced Australian workers, with no regulation or standards regarding their wages or working conditions.

These were ships that had been doing regular trade and employing Australian workers for a long time. The CSL Melbourne had been running alumina on the east coast for over five years, while the MV Portland had been shipping alumina from Western Australia to Portland's aluminium smelter for 27 years. These were well-established, longstanding Australian shipping lanes which employed Australian maritime workers and supported Australian industry. Now all this has been replaced by fraudulent temporary licensing and foreign crews with unknown working conditions, and the government wants to expand this model further. This was not temporary trade. This was regular trade. This was a trade that had been undertaken for 27 years, as predictable as night following day, shipping alumina from the refineries to the aluminium smelters. Yet this government issued temporary licences that allowed Australian crews to be sacked and to be frogmarched off the ships in the middle of the night, replaced by crews who were exploited and paid $2 a day. That is wholly unacceptable, but this is the attitude of this government.

It paints a sorry picture of the future of coastal shipping in Australia that will have consequences not just for our workers but for the nation as a whole. Maritime infrastructure and workers are not just economically vital; they also represent a core pillar of our national security. To protect our borders and ensure the safety of all Australians, we must maintain not only a strong shipbuilding sector, including maintenance and repair, but also a strong merchant navy. History has shown time after time that these capabilities are crucial to our national interest, regional security and participation in the international community. Going forward, we must look not just to protect our maritime systems but also to improve and strengthen them so as to remain not only competitive but also secure. We are an island nation. We need a skilled merchant marine if we are to maintain our national sovereignty. It is important to acknowledge at this time that the Merchant Navy had the highest casualty rate in World War II, after Bomber Command. These are highly skilled and dangerous jobs in wartime, and we need a skilled Australian workforce to maintain that capability.

In addition to the economic security and social benefits of a strong Australian shipping industry, there are tangible environmental benefits. In my region, and across the nation as a whole, we've seen that foreign vessels, when compared to domestic operators, show less regard for environmental protections in force in Australian waters. Whether it is the preservation of national icons such as the Great Barrier Reef, or ships ignoring port authorities to disastrous effect, like the Pasha Bulker in my home region of the Hunter, it is clear that an increase in the number of foreign vessels is dangerous to our maritime and coastal environment. Time after time, we have seen the results when foreign flagged vessels ignore environmental regulations, whether they run aground on the Great Barrier Reef or, as in 2007, when the crew of the Pasha Bulker ignored the requirements to move further offshore, wash up on Nobbys Beach in Newcastle. If we allow foreign flagged vessels to dominate our coastal trading, we are risking our national environmental icons.

Beyond our natural heritage areas and their associated beauty, there is a direct economic impact. The attractions of the Great Barrier Reef mean employment for 68,000 Australians in the tourism industry and drive $9 billion of gross domestic product each year. The maritime industry also provides security for workers across this country, from Fremantle to Adelaide and Melbourne, and right up and down the east coast. This bill would place workers in tourism, shipping, shipbuilding, maintenance and other related industries in an uncertain and unacceptable situation. We have seen enough examples of the poor conditions and wages afforded to workers on foreign flagged vessels to know that we must do whatever it takes to ensure that hardworking Australians are not forced into these situations. In fact, the last time the government tried to overhaul this legislation, the Senate heard that changing the law to favour foreign flagged vessels would result in catastrophic job losses across the sector and a significant drop in wage and workplace standards, and that any regulatory savings claimed would be built on the back of those. The government is again looking out for big multinationals and leaving Australian workers in the lurch.

Because I have an electorate that is on the coast, with the Pacific Ocean on our eastern border and the great Lake Macquarie, Lake Munmorah and Budgewoi Lake on the western border of the electorate, it has many seafarers, both those who are employed and those who are out of work. When I have a mobile office, I meet seafarers who haven't been able to find jobs for years on end because of this government's neglect of the industry. It does not have to be that way. We should have Australian crews on Australian ships on Australian coastal trading routes who are paid Australian wages and are under Australian conditions. That is what every other advanced nation in the world does. The fact that we do not do that is a horrible indictment of this government—a government that, yet again, is betraying workers and compromising the maritime security and the environmental integrity of this nation when there are foreign crews on flag-of-convenience ships being paid $2 a day. It is unacceptable.

I'm proud to be part of a party that in 2012 tried to change that and got important laws through. We will stand up against this government's constant attack on the maritime industry and on maritime workers, their wages and their conditions, because their families and their livelihoods depend upon it.

Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (19:14): I rise to support this bill, the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Amendment Bill 2017, which I believe will have significant benefits for my own electorate of Fisher. In particular, I believe that, as one of the nation's premier coastal tourist destinations, Fisher, along with other coastal regions in Australia, will benefit substantially from the additional tourism generated by the changes proposed to the regulation of superyachts.

While I do believe that my community of Fisher has been too dependent until now on the tourism and construction sectors, I also firmly believe that attracting tourists will always remain one of the central pillars of our region's economic success. After all, the southern and central Sunshine Coast is undoubtedly the greatest tourism destination in Australia. There is nowhere in our country, perhaps in the world, that can boast our unique combination of natural assets and our unbeatable lifestyle, and I'm committed to doing all I can to support and grow tourism in Fisher. Tourist numbers on the coast have been growing strongly, with international visitors up 20 per cent over the past three years. However, unfortunately, the average spend per visitor has not been increasing at the same rate. We need to do more to encourage high-net-worth visitors to Fisher who will spend big in our local businesses. One way that we can achieve that end would be to encourage more international superyachts to visit our community and to stay for longer. We have the perfect place in Fisher for these vessels to begin and end their cruises. That is at the Mooloolaba Spit, where facilities like the Browns Slipway operated today by the Rockliff family could offer just the place for these yachts to be maintained.

Superyachts fall into two broad categories. Some are operated by companies solely as charter businesses. They travel from port to port, picking up clients and taking them on short cruises. Others are owned by a wealthy individual or individuals, families or corporations and are primarily intended for private use. However, these too can often be chartered. When the owner has stopped at a port or during times when the yacht is travelling independently and the owner is otherwise occupied, the yacht is often made available to others to charter for short cruises. Each of these charter types can bring significant economic benefits to a particular region. For privately owned yachts which are being used by a wealthy individual or group of individuals, the presence alone of those people in a region can bring material benefits in terms of the money spent during their stay. In general, the longer the stay, the more money these individuals spend. If commercial charter opportunities are available for these yachts during their owners' visit, it will encourage them to remain longer within a region and spend more money.

Further, the very possibility of commercial charter opportunities will often make a port more attractive to owners, making it more likely that they will choose that particular city as a destination. In the case of yachts owned by companies purely as charter vessels, there are still substantial benefits to a local economy when yachts choose to operate from their port. On the one hand, the fact that a particular yacht is going to be available for charter from a port is often a strong draw to that place for high-net-worth individuals. Though primarily travelling in order to undertake the cruise, those visitors will commonly spend additional time in that city, bringing valuable tourism dollars to the local economy. However, the tourism benefits of the presence of these yachts to a community like Fisher goes beyond the income generated directly by the people who undertake the cruise. The word-of-mouth advertising created by these well-connected people can bring many more high-value tourists, while, for some, the perceived glamour of these vessels in itself can increase the attractiveness of a tourist destination. For many of the more than 300,000 people who visit the tiny city of Monaco every year, it is the image of rows of large luxury yachts and the glamour with which they are associated that make up a substantial part of the reason for going.

Finally, in both cases, the additional time that a yacht spends in a particular port due to its being available for charter substantially increases the likelihood that the vessel will undergo maintenance and repair at that very location. With some of the largest of these yachts costing millions of dollars to repair, the income generated by this activity can be significant. In February this year, for example, a single superyacht, the Dragonfly, docked at Gold Coast City Marina in Queensland for what was reported in the media to be more than $1 million worth of repairs and upgrades. However, a community like my own electorate of Fisher does not necessarily need a repair and dry dock facility to benefit from the maintenance required by superyachts. A ship which is charted requires supplies like food and consumables, fresh water and fuel. The longer a yacht stays in a port the more likely it will be to spend on these supplies and the more revenue generated for producers and dock facilities like those in Mooloolaba.

A December 2016 analysis by AEC Group, commissioned by Superyacht Australia and the Queensland Treasury, found that in total the superyacht industry already contributes about $590 million directly to Australian GDP, with $1.38 billion in flow-on activity. One hundred and ninety million dollars per annum is already generated by foreign tourists and crew expenditure, which would otherwise not have occurred in the Australian economy.

In total, more than 14,500 jobs are supported by superyachts and their supply chains. However, worldwide and particularly in our region, the demand for superyacht activities is increasing. With the growing class of wealthy individuals in China and Asia, along with economic development in other countries in the region and increasingly saturated waterways in Europe and the Caribbean, more and more people are interested in superyacht cruising in the Asia-Pacific. Countries in our region, such as New Zealand, Fiji and Tahiti have moved to make their regulatory and taxation regimes more encouraging to superyacht visits, and as a result are currently set to reap most of the benefits of this growth.

In short, while many yachts visit Australian waters to see the Great Barrier Reef, far too few stop to enjoy the hospitality of our coastal communities. As such, at present the superyacht sector's annual contribution to the Australian economy is forecast to grow at a rate of 13 per cent to 2021. However, if we can reduce the regulatory barriers which discourage visits from these vessels, the industry modelling suggests that this contribution will grow by as much as 70 per cent over the same period, delivering a total economic revenue of $3.34 billion by 2021 and supporting 8,100 more jobs.

My own state of Queensland would be likely to be a particular beneficiary with our share of the global superyacht sector increasing by 10 per cent, contributing more than $1.1 billion to gross state product. It is just that reduction in regulatory barriers which this bill will achieve, and for that reason I believe it will make an important contribution to growing tourism income on the Sunshine Coast.

In our region, superyachts are charted for one or two voyages at a time. The number of individuals or organisations who have the financial means and the time to charter such a large vessel are certainly finite and their needs are often very specific. A voyage on a superyacht for most personal and corporate users is a very occasional activity with a particular purpose. As such, as these vessels move around the world they often stop off at a port for a single charter. However, at present in order to acquire a temporary licence to conduct coastal trading in Australia a superyacht must have a minimum of five specific voyages booked and listed on its application. Without a temporary licence an owner looking to offer their yacht for charter in Australia faces enormous costs associated with paying customs importation duty and taxes on these vessels. Any subsequent changes to these voyages need to go through a lengthy and uncertain variation process in order to go ahead. This bill removes that unnecessary, ridiculous government red tape, making it possible for a yacht to acquire a temporary licence in the much more likely scenario that it has one or two charter voyages planned.

Further, it is obviously in the nature of cruises for pleasure that many of them begin and end in the same port. These are not practical journeys designed to get a person from one place to another but short visits to a particular location, or simple round trip experiences, to be enjoyed. However, at present, to constitute a voyage for which a temporary licence can be acquired under the coastal trading act, a trip must begin and end in a different port. This renders ineligible a substantial proportion of superyacht cruises which could take place from ports like Mooloolaba. This bill removes that restriction by broadening the definition of a voyage under the act to include those which begin and end in the same port.

Finally, at present, the amount of refitting and maintenance of foreign flagged yachts that can be undertaken in Australia is limited by the fact that dry-docking is not included among the activities eligible for a temporary licence. Once again, this bill removes that restriction, meaning that more vessels will be refitted and maintained in Australia. This will potentially bring millions of dollars to the communities where repairs take place and further increase the number of tourists who visit all of our coastal regions.

Not only will this bill's amendments to the regulations regarding temporary licences improve our country's attractiveness to superyachts, but the minister and my colleagues have laid out a wide range of other benefits that will flow from this legislation. However, for communities like mine in Fisher and for coastal regions all over Australia, the billions of extra tourism dollars which will be generated by these luxury vessels are reason enough to enact the bill before us. I note that even the Queensland state Labor government have recognised the importance of these changes, and I welcome their support for the growth of superyacht visitation to our state. I would encourage members opposite to follow their Queensland colleagues in this matter and support the Turnbull government's practical and considered action to make the most of our nation's natural assets.

This bill is not about some form of class warfare. What is important to me is that this bill is about providing jobs to regional Australian communities. If those opposite are fair dinkum about Australian workers, they should be supporting this bill. This bill is not, as the member for Sydney would suggest it is, for the rich and famous, to advantage them. This bill will provide jobs to hardworking Australians. It will provide jobs in the maintenance sector. So often this is a sector which is doing it tough in shipping. I know that in and around Mooloolaba, where I live, the coastal fishing vessels are certainly doing it very tough. What happens with these areas is that, when one boat leaves a particular fishery, another boat might leave and then another boat might leave, and then we see infrastructure start to crumble, because infrastructure requires a certain degree of mass and, when boats leave, infrastructure also leaves with it. This bill will enable the infrastructure for marine vessels to remain in ports like Mooloolaba in my electorate of Fisher and throughout the coastal parts of Australia. It will mean jobs. It will mean towns will be able to provide for their communities. I commend the bill to the House.

Ms KEAY (Braddon) (19:28): I rise to speak on the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Amendment Bill 2017. I cannot understand what the member opposite said. This bill will decimate seafaring jobs in this country and will decimate the maritime industry of Australia. I waited 11 weeks through a gruelling by-election campaign to come into this place and speak on this bill.

Mr Wallace: Why is that?

Ms KEAY: Why is that? Because my dad was a seafarer, I say to the member opposite, so it is very important to me that we protect seafaring jobs and our maritime industry in this country. He can walk off with a smirk on his face knowing that he is going to support a bill that will destroy Australian seafaring jobs, for those jobs to be replaced by foreign workers.

But this bill is important for a range of other reasons as well. Coastal shipping is vital to the economy of my electorate and the state of Tasmania. This side of the House believes in a strong Australian coastal shipping industry. I've seen and understand what role the local maritime industry can play in peoples' lives. This industry is one that is too important to play political games with.

Debate interrupted.