Mr LLEW O'BRIEN (Wide Bay) (10:01): I present the sixth report of the Petitions Committee for the 46th Parliament, together with 53petitions and 15 ministerial responses to petitions previously presented.

Mr WILKIE (Clark) (10:05): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Private health insurance in this country is in trouble. Indeed figures released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority earlier this year show that in December 2018 there were some 65,000 fewer Australians with health insurance when compared to the year before, marking the greatest yearly decrease in private hospital cover in 15 years.

No wonder the President of the Australian Medical Association, just last month, warned that the private health insurance sector in Australia is 'on the precipice'. Mind you, other experts go even further, claiming the sector is in a death spiral because, as the premiums for private health insurance go up, more people drop out, which then causes the premiums to rise again, and so on and so on, in a vicious circle.

Something must be done about all this and this bill is a start because it would put in place three essential reforms which will help combat the downward spiral of the private health insurance industry and promote the health and wellbeing of patients. Firstly, this bill amends legislation to prevent private health insurers offering differential rebates, which is important to promote patient choice and autonomy. Secondly, this bill prevents private health insurance companies from acting as both insurers and providers of medical treatment, which is important because inherent in current arrangements is a profound conflict of interest. Clearly, the very distinct roles of insurers hoping to minimise payouts and service providers like dentists hoping to deliver quality health care must be kept separate in order to promote patient health and welfare. Thirdly, this bill helps regulate the use of data that private health insurers obtain from HICAPS, because it gives APRA the ability to intervene if it believes private health insurers are inappropriately using data to manipulate the market. This will help prevent an anticompetitive health insurance market and prioritise patient care over maximising profit.

Returning to the bill's first reforms: I would add that I agree with the AMA that the government must stop health insurers from favouring one provider over another. This is also entirely consistent with recommendation 12 of the report into the value and affordability of private health insurance and out-of-pocket medical costs conducted by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs in 2017, which urged the government to prohibit differential rebates. To that end this bill enshrines this recommendation and prevents private health insurers from awarding differential rebates for the same treatments provided under the same product in the same jurisdiction. Remember, differential rebates restrict the patient's ability to choose the professional they want to carry out their medical procedure. So when private health insurers push their members to obtain treatment from preferred providers they are engaging in blatant financial manipulation. This is undeniably inappropriate because private health insurers should not be able to exercise such a level of power and control over a patient's health care. It is grossly unfair and a profound conflict of interest.

This brings me to the second flawed practice this bill reforms. Currently, private health insurers are allowed to act in a dual role and own and operate medical clinics that provide medical services to patients. This is a blatant conflict of interest. How can health insurers deliver the best possible health care to patients when their primary motivation is to minimise claim payouts, a matter undeniably turbo charged by for-profit companies like Bupa. Clearly, there is a direct conflict of interest that the people who substantially pay for these treatments are also choosing what treatments are given. No wonder reports by the ABC suggest that providers of medical treatments employed by private health insurers are being encouraged to meet targets and KPIs for the number of patients they see and the number of procedures they complete. Clearly, this has a dire potential consequence because the level of treatment and care that patients receive is being directly impacted and potentially reduced by the corporate need to meet specific targets to reduce costs and for some companies at least to maximise profits.

This impact can obviously eventuate in a number of ways. For instance, a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs in 2017 stated that some preferred provider practices and those owned and run by corporations put pressure on employed medical professionals to see a certain number of patients per hour. Surely this must be a barrier to medical professionals conducting thorough investigations, diagnoses and treatments. In addition, medical practices motivated primarily by profit may overservice their patients. Indeed, in the same submission to the Senate committee, concerns were raised over medical professionals looking to provide treatments to patients that were clearly unnecessary, simply to meet KPIs and performance targets.

Whilst some may criticise this bill and say it would create upward pressure on premiums, it's not like the fees are stable or coming down under the current arrangements. Indeed, statistics released by the Department of Health show that, over the past seven years, private health insurance premiums have risen by an average of over five per cent each year. Left unchecked, things are only going to get worse because the growing dominance of private health insurers in the healthcare market means competition is reducing even more and, with that, smaller independent service providers are being pushed out of the market. Premiums are continuing to rise, and consumers are increasingly price takers.

The spread of the private health insurance industry into the provision of health care will also limit claimable treatments, because as the insurers continue to take over and influence the market, decreasing competition, they will be able to decide what treatments are covered under private health insurance schemes and the rebate that is offered for such treatments. No wonder people are increasingly dropping out of private health insurance because they feel they aren't getting their money's worth, and no wonder this decline is having profound consequences—most obviously the shift in large numbers of patients from the private hospital system to the public system. Remember, public hospitals are already struggling to provide satisfactory health care to patients, and most hospitals simply can't accommodate any big increase in their case load. Nor can the public health system easily withstand private health insurers cherrypicking profitable health services, which, again, distorts the market and leaves the public system to pick up the most challenging and expensive case load.

Nowhere are the challenges faced by the public system more apparent than at the Royal Hobart Hospital in my electorate of Clark, where there are the additional layers of systemic and cultural problems created by the Tasmanian state government's apathy, inaction and bumbling mismanagement. No wonder, in the last financial year alone, some 1,800 patients waited more than 24 hours in the emergency department to be seen by a doctor. Personally, I've met numerous victims of the broken Tasmanian public health system, like the many constituents who have tried to seek mental health treatment at the royal, sometimes waiting days in the ED or turned away because there aren't enough staff or beds to help them; or the concerned mother who has been told her toddler must wait upwards of seven years to receive urgent treatment and surgery for a medical condition.

We must remember that the aim of health care is health care; it is not to utilise information with the intent of exploiting illnesses and ailments of people to make money. This is why the intent of the final reform this bill implements is to protect patients against the inappropriate use of their data obtained by private health insurers, consistent with the recommendation of the Senate standing committee in 2017, and to give APRA the ability to intervene if it believes private health insurers are inappropriately using information obtained from HICAPS to manipulate the market.

Currently, data collected through the HICAPS system, where medical clinics register every claim that is made in the clinic, is sent to private health insurers, revealing the amount clinics are charging and how much money they are making. Private health insurers are able to use this data to analyse the market and, in particular, the prices and income of their competitors. This is particularly problematic when private health insurers are also providing medical treatment, because of the way it gives them an unfair advantage over independent medical clinics. It also means private health insurers may choose to pull medical facilities out of smaller communities that are seen in the management's eyes to not be making enough money.

In closing, can I just say that the evidence is clear: we need immediate and extensive reform of the private health insurance industry not just to prevent the industry's collapse but also to protect consumers and to ensure independent health service providers, like optometrists, dentists and others, can enjoy a genuinely sustainable future. This bill provides a substantial start to those ends.

The SPEAKER: Is the motion moved by the member for Clark seconded?

Dr Haines: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

Mr HOWARTH (Petrie—Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services) (12:16): I move:

That the amendment be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (12:16): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Economics, I present the committee's report entitled Review of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission annual report 2018, together with the minutes of proceedings.

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

Mr TIM WILSON: by leave—It's a pleasure to provide a copy of this report. The Economics Committee is one of the most important committees in the House of Representatives, and we periodically engage in inquiries on the annual reports of a number of organisations that we're responsible for or oversee, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

We recently met with the ACCC to supervise, oversee and question their lines of inquiry and their focus. The annual report provides an opportunity to go through each one of those step by step. A number of themes emerged from our inquiry into the ACCC's annual report, including a particular focus around competition in the finance sector—finance, obviously, being a critical part of the health and lifeblood of the economy. But, particularly as a consequence of the flowthrough of the Hayne royal commission, a focus on finance and the health of the sector was critically important. Concerns have been raised by others related to competition within the banking and financial services world, particularly as a consequence of a front-page story which, based on the testimony of the head of the ACCC, was perhaps inadvertent but nonetheless drew attention and focus specifically to competition in the banking sector, including some of the concerns that I have previously raised regarding the competition between large banks and some of the smaller banks. As a consequence of that line of inquiry, the committee raised specifically with the ACCC whether it was perhaps prudent to consider focusing on competition in the banking sector at another time, with the forthcoming introduction of the consumer data right and open banking, which is likely to empower consumers to make larger decisions and have much more choice around competition within the banking sector.

Energy was also a very significant focus of the committee, in particular a concern about vertical integration across the sector and what that's doing around consumer choice. Also, I know that keeping prices low is a topic that is of strong interest to many members of this chamber—to make sure that households get cheap energy and, increasingly, that businesses do as well, to make sure they're competitive. While there were a number of issues related to vertical integration and competition across energy markets, the ACCC made a particular point of noting that one of the big reasons why there have been increases in price is directly related to generation costs.

Finally, there was substantial interest from committee members around the digital platforms inquiry and what that means for competition within lots of different areas in which digital platforms have an interest in commerce, in social media, and in making sure that there's clarity that the ACCC is looking at what it can practically do then to go on and implement reform. The Economics Committee continues to excel itself in providing robust inquiry and robust consideration of these matters for the parliament. We hope that the annual report for the ACCC, along with other regulatory agencies that come along, will help the parliament in its deliberations and consideration of future work. I move:

That the House take note of the report.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Vamvakinou ): The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (12:24): I move:

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

Question agreed to.

Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (12:20): I welcome the opportunity to debate child care in this House today. We don't often get to discuss early education and care in this parliament, but this bill is a bill that is long overdue. The bill is officially named the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019 but it really should be named 'Fixing some of the government's childcare systems stuff-ups bill'. Rather than building on the package, what this bill actually does is fix some of the design faults that the government system missed in the original bill. Almost a year and a half on, the government is finally getting around to fixing up problems that have been evident from day one.

This bill will extend the time frame for enrolments ceasing due to nonattendance from eight to 14 weeks. Labor supports this change as it fixes one of the most ridiculous design faults with the government system. It's almost comical that the government designed a system that kicks families out of the system after eight weeks when the school term goes for 12 weeks and the thousands of families using vacation care only access the system every 12 weeks. If you're one of these families you'll be kicked off every eight weeks, meaning you'll have to go through the whole registration system all over again. The amendment before us means that families using vacation care every school holidays won't have to reregister for the system with Centrelink every term. This is something that should have been done and foreseen at the outset of the package and is something that the sector has raised on many occasions. Anything that reduces the amount of time families have to spend trying to contact Centrelink or trying to register with Centrelink is something that Labor will support.

The bill also improves the treatment of third-party payments in calculating the childcare subsidy, and this is also welcome. The government designed a system so that a childcare subsidy would only be calculated after state, territory and third-party contributions were applied to the childcare fee, meaning that some low-income and vulnerable families were still facing out-of-pocket fees when the intent of the state and philanthropic programs was to eliminate, or significantly reduce, the cost of accessing early learning and care. State and territory governments and the sector have been lobbying this government since July 2018 to make this change. So it is definitely in this case better late than never when it comes to this government's action.

The government has also seen common sense with the provision of this bill to remove the 50 per cent limit on the number of children that a provider can self-certify for the additional childcare subsidy for child wellbeing, although this will not come in for some time. It is a mystery why the government decided to introduce this arbitrary rule in the new system which completely ignores the reality of life for some of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia. Labor will support this change.

The additional childcare subsidy for child wellbeing is a vital program that provides a safe and nurturing learning environment for children in extremely vulnerable situations at home. For most of these children it can be the difference between being able to stay at home or having to go into the child protection system. It is critical the government treat this program with sensitivity and ensure that families and providers are not overly burdened with red tape. This Liberal-National government is doing exactly that. The introduction of a number of new requirements and rules to access the additional childcare subsidy came into force last year. The government cut the number of weeks that a provider can initially claim the subsidy on behalf of a family from 13 to six and stopped the provider from handling the application on behalf of the family. They now require the provider to work with the family to collect all the evidence that's required in order to qualify for the payment and to notify state and territory authorities. And they require Centrelink to process and approve the application within six weeks. That's a herculean task. When Centrelink fails to approve the paperwork within six weeks, claims are backdated only 28 days, meaning debts are accumulating.

This third-term government like to bang the drum about cutting red tape. It is a media release they put out on a regular rotation. But they go out of their way to increase red tape for vulnerable families and the early education providers that are trying to help those families. The numbers prove that the government's new rules are failing vulnerable children and families. In the first six months of the new system, the number of children receiving the child wellbeing subsidy collapsed by 21 per cent. When asked in Senate estimates if they were concerned about the drop, the department admitted they weren't. They also confessed that they weren't even tracking whether families had dropped out of the system. Unfortunately, this is not surprising behaviour from a government that has not focused on vulnerable children's access to early education. Ensuring that vulnerable and disadvantaged children access early education is of critical importance in ensuring they get the best start to life and don't start school already behind.

Most of the other provisions in this bill are minor and technical amendments, which Labor will support; however, there is one provision in this bill that Labor will not support. In the current system, families registering for the subsidy have a 28-day grace period in which to provide their bank account and tax file numbers. Families are able to claim the subsidy and have 28 days to get those details to Centrelink. That is reasonable and rational, as it recognises that people don't always have their personal details handy when they interact with government. Unfortunately, it seems far too sensible for the government. We now see that items 35 to 38, 41, 42, 50 and 51 in schedule 1 of the bill remove the current 28-day grace period, so families will not be approved for the subsidy unless they have their personal details on hand. Of course, the government has claimed that this will reduce complexity in the system, and it's true that it might make it easier for Centrelink. But it won't make it easier for families; in particular, families in stress, who may be fleeing a domestic violence situation or natural disaster and who don't have time to grab all their paperwork as they leave the house. Families in stress still need their child to enjoy the benefits of early learning and care, as they want to maintain some kind of routine or normality for their children, but if they don't have the details then this government will not allow them to enrol in early education.

Almost every single submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee's review of this bill was critical of this change. Childcare providers and their peak bodies are clear that this is a regressive change that will impact those families least able to cope. Labor does not find this provision acceptable and so will be moving an amendment to remove it from the bill. I do note that the minister has indicated the government will move an amendment in the Senate to allow families in crisis to apply for an exemption from this new policy. Labor will not oppose this amendment, and I'm pleased the minister has responded to some of the concerns of the sector. But to me it sounds like there'll be increasing complexity in the system for families and providers, because the Secretary of the Department of Education will be required to grant the exemption. Twenty-eight days is not a significant length of time. Why burden the secretary with this type of work? Why not just let families have their grace period of 28 days to get their tax file number or bank account details, rather than have a system that requires an exemption granted by the secretary? By the time that happens, the 28-day period is probably going to be finished. Labor think that our amendment provides a better solution. Retaining the 28-day grace period is a simple and effective response to the concerns raised by both the sector and families.

The bill presents modest improvements to the government's childcare system, but it doesn't rectify some of the biggest problems. This is a system which leaves one in four families worse off. It's a design feature that access to early education and care did reduce for approximately 279,000 families. It is a system that only 40 per cent of providers and only 41 per cent of families told the independent evaluation reviewers had resulted in positive change, and 83 per cent of parents told the evaluation team that the new system had made no impact on their work and study. It's a system that has been forcing childcare providers to act as unpaid debt collectors for the government, because families are struggling to stay on top of their complicated activity and means tests. It is a system that has been riddled with software glitches, left providers and families in the dark, and left staff without pay. To claim that this bill before the House builds on the current system is stretching credibility.

Labor's view is that this bill is only ironing out a few of the kinks in the system but doesn't really touch the rough edges. A bill that truly built on the childcare package would include provisions that would abolish the regressive activity test. When it implemented the new system, the government acted against all evidence and advice highlighting the benefits of universal access to early education and care, and introduced a new activity test in order to qualify for 24 hours of subsidy. If this bill were to genuinely build on the childcare system, it would restore the guarantee that existed of two days a week of child care for all children and the childcare safety net that occurred under the old system. Families used to receive 24 hours a week of guaranteed access to early education in which they could access the childcare subsidy. This government cut it to 12 hours a week. A bill that truly built on the current system would fix the complete mess the government has made of the additional childcare subsidy. It would stop the government's Centrelink robo-debt letters which are being sent out, blunt letters telling families that they owe the government money, without any explanation. So far, over 91,000 families, or 16 per cent of families audited so far, have been hit with a childcare subsidy debt notice. Many of these families are finding that, if they do pursue this debt notice, they don't actually owe as much money as was stated in the letter. This is more evidence that the new system is too complex and is not working for families.

If the government was serious, it would do something to bring childcare fees under control, which have shot up 30 per cent under this government. The latest CPI figures show that childcare fees have increased by 2.5 per cent in the September quarter alone, the fourth successive increase, and have now gone up by seven per cent since last September. The government was very confident last year that their new system, in their words, would put downward pressure on fees and that they were driving down the cost of child care. The minister was keen to spruik the new website as a game changer for families and told families to shop around, but less than half of providers are providing accurate fee information on their website, making it incredibly hard for families to even get accurate information about fees. We don't hear the minister make these claims anymore, which is disappointing. Unfortunately, all the spin has been blown away by the reality.

Unfortunately, like with every other portfolio, the government has provided no plan or view about how to actually bring fees under control. We've had a couple of thought bubbles that have been dropped previously to Sunday papers, including the naming and shaming of centres that hike their fees, but nothing has actually come of that. Families are now paying on average $3,000 a year more for early education and care under this government. A bill that improved on the current system would have, if they were serious, restored the $20 million in annual funding that the government have slashed from the National Quality Framework budget. The latest data shows that 21 per cent of services have been assessed as not meeting the national quality standards. The minister needs to restore this funding and assure families that all centres are safe and up to standard. But none of this is a surprise—after all, this is the government that has a senator who believes early education, and I quote, is not the best way to invest in our future; a Minister for Education claiming the taxpayer funding of early education and care is communism; and a Prime Minister who calls the childcare budget a money pit.

Unfortunately, this government haven't taken the early years seriously. They see it as a burden, not as an investment. But, of course, it is an investment. Labor are always pleased to ensure we are advocating for children, as I did this morning at an event here at Parliament House. We will advocate for investment in the early years. We will support most of this bill because it does make some progress towards making the system work better for families, but we do believe the government has a long way to go.

Ms THWAITES (Jagajaga) (12:35): I am pleased to join my colleague the member for Kingston in rising to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019 because access to affordable and quality child care is something Australian families rightly expect. As we know, this government introduced its new childcare system in July 2018 and since then we have heard stories from families and childcare providers about systemic design flaws and the administrative burdens the new system has imposed on them. So it is pleasing the government is finally addressing some of these concerns.

As the member for Kingston said, we don't often get the opportunity to talk about early childhood education in this House but we do know how important it is. It leads to improved developmental outcomes for children and it has positive effects on wellbeing, learning and development. The brain sensitivity of highly important developmental areas such as social skills, language and numeracy peaks in our first three years of life. Across the OECD, data shows us that 22 per cent of students who had attended early education for less than a year performed below the baseline level of proficiency in science yet only 10 per cent of students who attended more than two years of preschool were below the baseline. This means students are twice as likely to underperform in science if they attend less than one year of preschool, which is very important if we think about the skills our children are going to need for the future.

Access to quality, affordable child care is not just important for children; it's essential for families who are juggling the responsibilities of working, studying, being active members of their community and raising their children. I know parents in my electorate feel this juggle keenly. In many cases, arrangements about who does pick up, who does the drop off and which day the grandparents are required are so finely tuned that the slightest pressure means the whole arrangement breaks. We know, from this government's own evaluation of its childcare system, that 63 per cent of parents reported they did not understand at all or have much understanding of the new payment system. In fact, one parent reported that they needed to call Centrelink more than 20 times—and anyone who has had to call Centrelink knows it can be a trying experience. I have to admit that, in my own household, I looked at the complicated assessment and application process that the government was expecting for the childcare payment and I promptly handed that administrative burden straight over to my partner. He has handled that admirably, but not everyone is that lucky and it should not be that difficult. The last thing parents need is a system that makes it more administratively difficult for them, that adds extra to the already considerable mental load and stress of parenting. It is good that this bill addresses some of the issues that have proved to be a block faced by families accessing child care.

However, there is one element of the bill that is concerning, as the member for Kingston has outlined: the changes to the process for registering for the CSS, which remove the 28-day period in which applicants may provide their tax file number and/or bank account details. We know the child care sector is extremely concerned about this change and its potential impact on families in difficult circumstances who do not have immediate access to their personal documents. This may include families fleeing family violence or those displaced by natural disasters. These families may, in effect, be locked out of the system at a time when they need it most, and I urge the government to reconsider this change.

There are also a number of issues that this bill does not address. I'm particularly concerned that the government hasn't taken the opportunity to address the activity test and the minimum number of hours under the childcare safety net or considered the disproportionate effect this has on families from disadvantaged backgrounds. The first five years of a child's life are crucial. In these early years, 80 per cent of their brain develops. These years set up a child for life and they're vital in ensuring they start school with the communication skills, general knowledge, social language, cognitive skills and emotional maturity that will help them succeed. Research tells us that if students start school from behind, they are often left behind throughout their schooling. Research also shows us that children from low-income families are twice as likely to start school developmentally behind their peers from high-income families but that access to early education can reduce that risk significantly.

This makes it particularly important that our childcare system is most accessible to those children who benefit from it most—those who need the full value of educators who can help them hit their developmental milestones—and yet the requirements of the activity test lock out families where parents or carers are less likely to be able to engage in work or volunteering activities. So we have an unacceptable gap between advantaged and disadvantaged families when it comes to accessing child care. OECD figures show that Australia ranks below the average in providing access for disadvantaged families; we lag behind New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and Switzerland. The children most likely to benefit from early childhood education, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are least likely to participate.

Of course, one of the obvious barriers to child care is the cost. Under this government, the cost of child care continues to go up and up. Quarterly data released in March this year confirmed what we already know: childcare fees are on the rise at an alarming rate. Since the election of this government childcare fees are up 30 per cent. The yearly cost of long day care, the type that most of us are using, has increased on average by more than $3,000 to more than $14,00 per year, an increase of more than 30 per cent. While the cost of living increases and wages stagnate, families are being placed under the immense stress of ever-increasing childcare fees. I've had these conversations in the playground, the ones where families wonder whether they can make their childcare bill; the ones where women—and it's nearly always the women—decide that they won't go back to work because the cost of child care is higher than their wage. And we've seen the reports about the very difficult circumstances that women then find themselves in later in life: lower wages throughout their careers mean less super and an uncertain future in retirement. This new childcare system is just not putting the downward pressure on fees that the education minister promised it would.

While the education minister did say in July last year that teething issues are inevitable, and I don't disagree—all new systems require a period of adjustment—in this case it goes beyond teething issues. Sufficient support for transition just has not been given by this government. Its own data shows that fewer than half of providers feel that the government provided enough support for the transition, and that only 40 per cent of services and 41 per cent of families feel the changes were positive. What an indictment!

I spoke earlier about the administrative burden the childcare system places on families and on centres. Now, the fear for those families is that they will be caught up in this government's version of the heartless and cruel robo-debt system. We have heard that the government is planning some changes to that system, but it's unclear what it's looking at in terms of child care and recovery of childcare debts. So families are still facing the possibility that a miscalculation or an unexpected change in their working hours may result in them having a debt they certainly didn't expect and can't afford. We know that there is case after case of people being put under immense strain from receiving these unexpected debt notices, and so this government must take immediate action to ensure that families accessing child care do not face this additional stress.

The other area the government must address is secure, long-term funding for the childcare sector. In 2017, state and territory governments commissioned an independent review into early childhood interventions to consider the most effective ways to achieve educational excellence in schools. Seventeen recommendations were made out of this review, including that universal access to early education and care programs be extended to all three-year-olds, with access prioritised for children from disadvantaged families and communities. This would not only benefit children in their development but it would also benefit our productivity and health as a society, and even have the potential to reduce crime as people get the education they need.

During the 2019 election campaign I was proud that Labor proposed an expansion of access for three-year-olds, with a new national preschool and kindy program. It was a program that would have guaranteed access to two years of early education and care programs for children for 15 hours per week. Labor also committed to guarantee current arrangements for four-year-olds over the longer term, something the Morrison campaign, and now the government, made no commitment to doing. The investment in ongoing funding that provides certainty to the early education and childcare sector is something that is much-needed, and it would be warmly welcomed by all, and yet the government continues to be silent on calls to secure this much-needed ongoing funding.

I was pleased this morning to be at the launch of the State of early learning in Australia 2019 report. In fact, that report shows us that Australia's investment in early learning is below the OECD average and that we're ranked 11th out of 21 OECD nations. Our investment in early learning per child declined between 2016 and 2019. What an indictment. This government must do better.

The final point where the government needs to do more is support for childcare workers. For those who have worked with or know or entrust your children to an early childhood education worker, you know those are people of high standard who are professional and deeply caring above and beyond their job descriptions. I want to, in a slightly self-indulgent way, take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the entire team at Heidelberg Goodstart, who are ensuring that my daughter is cared for and supported in her development every day she is there. More than that, she has a lot of fun, and I particularly want to thank Asi and Simran for this because my daughter's face lights up every day when I tell her that's who she's going to see.

Quality education and care requires a skilled workforce. We know that salary is a barrier to attracting quality people and it's a barrier to retaining them. The report launched this morning found that the sector is struggling to retain the people it needs. Again, this is something that Labor has looked at, and at the last election we proposed to address it. Early education and care work does not get the recognition it deserves across our community. It's undervalued and, unfortunately, undervalued often means underfunded. We know the benefits are well worth the investment in the early education sector. The ripple effects of children receiving one and, in the better case, two years of education and care before full-time school are well established, particularly for disadvantaged children. There is still a lot of work to do before we see a system that delivers for Australian children and families. I urge the government to do more to realise this.

Ms WELLS (Lilley) (12:46): I rise in the House today to speak about the childcare crisis in this country. Affordable child care is one of the most tantalising promises of modern Australian civilised society, but it's also one of the most broken. Our modern economy cannot function without a system for nurturing our littlest citizens. So confounding is the childcare economy that, despite the sticker shock for parents, looking after children remains a very poorly paid job. What we on this side of the House know from talking to parents and from talking to educators is that the system isn't working.

There are now 1.36 million Australian kids accessing childcare services—972,000 families across Australia. It's a big part of the country. The government's latest quarterly data, which came out in March 2019, has been released, and it confirmed what we already know to be true, which is that childcare fees are still going up. They're still going up despite the big reforms the government brought in in their second term that promised us things would get better. The cost of long day care, which is the type of child care that most people use, has increased again to approximately $14,328 a year. That is the cost of a fairly ritzy private school education in Brisbane per year. When the Liberals were elected, families paid, on average, $11,016 a year. That is a staggering 30 per cent increase in childcare fees since the election of this government.

At a time when cost of living is increasing and at a time when wages are stagnating, families are being crippled by ever-increasing childcare fees. The truth of the matter is that this government's new childcare system has failed. It has failed at putting downward pressure on fees. It has failed to address the problem. Now here we are, debating amendments to childcare legislation with no proposed vision and no proposed plan to fix the childcare crisis in this country. In fact, we appear to be tinkering around the edges with no indication from this government that we will even debate childcare legislation again this term. There is nothing coming down the line to assist 972,000 Australian families. It is so disheartening that we can do so much to get here to this parliament and we can have so much opportunity in this parliament, yet we fritter it away by doing so little when we have the ability to do so much more.

This is an issue quite dear to my heart, as you might be able to tell. At this point I have to refer to some notes on my phone because when it was in my diary to write this speech I had my toddler at home with me because I could not get a spot for her in child care that day. So for the purposes of sharing with the people in this House who do not understand what living the hustle is like for Australian families, I thought I would share a little of my experience with child care.

On the day of our successful 12-week scan with Celeste we toured two childcare centres near our house and enrolled her at both of them—at the 12-week scan. I don't think she had a fixed due date at that time—she certainly didn't have a name and she didn't have a gender—but she had to be enrolled, because that is what the waiting list situation is like on the north side of Brisbane. When Celeste was seven months old, a place for one day came up at one of our preferred childcare centres. We had to take it, because that's how you get a foot in the door—you take the spot. So she went in two months earlier than planned for a day a week, and I had to find additional work outside of my substantive employment to pay for that day a week, because that was the only way we were going to get her in. At nine months I returned to work and Celeste went to child care for three days a week. At 12 months my parents agreed to take her for an extra day per week so that I could campaign for preselection and then, when I won that, for the federal election. Not everybody has grandparents around. For us, my side of the family are the only people who live in Brisbane, in terms of being able to care for Celeste on an ongoing basis. That stayed the case until the election.

Something that people have talked to me a lot about is how Celeste appears in my campaign photos. People ask: 'Is that because you are trying to demonstrate what it's like to be a working mum running for parliament?' Unkind people ask: 'Is it because you're trying to politicise your child? Are you trying to use her as a weapon or an asset?' The reality is that Celeste appeared with me on the campaign trail and Celeste appears in so many photos because often the only way for me to get to a function was for her to come too. I suspect Celeste has had more canapes than many lobbyists on the federal campaign trail!

That was the reality for me. I got through it because I knew it was temporary—win or lose, come 18 May. I just had to get through that period of months. But it's not a temporary reality for many Australians. We have an unpaid-care crisis in this country where we and our economy are so dependent upon unpaid care provided by mothers and grandmothers and aunts and fathers and grandfathers and uncles, both caring for their children, who we're talking about today, and also caring for our elders. Our economy is reliant upon millions of hours of unpaid care given by Australian families and Australian workers. If you look at the aged-care inquiry and the crisis going on in aged care, you see it's just the same. The system is underfunded, because for too long we have been entirely reliant on the unpaid care given by Australians. This federal government owes everyone a lot more than that.

Returning to the childcare crisis of today, I have a mum squad. We all have our childcare problems from time to time. One of my friends only got a spot for her toddler because once we got Celeste into her child care we arranged for the other centre to give Celeste's spot to Archie directly. We should not have a childcare system that, if you move from interstate and need a childcare spot at somewhat short notice, relies on your knowing some fanatically organised person and federal MP who can give you a spot that they've got as a backup. That's not how our system should work.

My parents care for Celeste for a day a week. They went overseas, because they're retired. They worked hard their entire lives and they worked hard to be able to go overseas for periods of time in their retirement. Our childcare system collapsed for that six-week period, because losing that day a week that we relied upon them to look after Celeste meant that we had to find temporary solutions. So at the time I was meant to be writing this speech—and I seriously intended to give gravitas and considered policy thought to this 15-minute speech—I couldn't do it, because I was painting watercolours instead, because there was nobody else around. When I was elected to federal parliament, it took 5½ months to get Celeste that fifth day at child care, 5½ months of us making week-by-week temporary arrangements—my husband taking carers leave; my husband taking annual leave; an elaborate system of neighbours, mum squad and brunch members looking after Celeste to get us through until we could get a permanent spot. That is not how things should be in a modern, developed economy where we claim to look after our littlest citizens and the parents who care for them. We need to do a lot better. I would like to reiterate that this is a failed opportunity today for us to address some of the serious structural reforms in the industry. We can speak to the flaws in these amendments and the merits of the amendments but, at the end of the day, it is disappointing that they are minor amendments that will not address the crisis of child care in this country.

I want to read aloud a letter that a lady named Peta gave to me. I have toured many childcare centres in the six months since I was elected to parliament. They are a heart-warming and very fuzzy way to spend your morning, and I recommend the experience to everybody in the chamber. When I go around and meet people for the first time at community groups and businesses and community events I say, 'If you could send one message to Canberra, what would it be?' This lady gave me an answer at the time but came and found me a few weeks later and hand-delivered this letter. Honestly, early educators are just the best people in the world! She said:

My apologies Anika,

You asked me a question about my message to Canberra and, to be honest, I hadn't considered the question prior to being asked.

You see, as an educator I turn up to work day in and day out and give my all and I make myself physically, mentally and emotionally available to the 22 children in my care.

I, to the best of my ability for those 6 contact hours, push aside my personal life and become a nurturing, encouraging, patient, knowledgeable TEACHER.

I don't often think about or consider the people that have "MADE THE RULES", that make all of .the decisions that decide what my job is and how it should be done and what EXCEEDING PRACTICE should look like.

I love my job, and I struggle to call it a job because that word "job" doesn't do it justice. I'm passionate about being an Early Childhood Professional, I believe on some level it's what I was created to do.

So, upon pondering your question further, these are my thoughts about our sector, about our work, about our children and families and about our future:

1. Is the current early childhood education and care system serving the right people with the right purpose?

Families, more commonly nowadays, BOTH parents are working harder than ever, longer hours than ever to make ends meet for their young families, but the loss of childcare cancels out earnings. It's a LOSE/LOSE scenario. We need to find a WIN/WIN scenario for early childhood education and care.

We are on the brink of losing our precious kindergarten structure because parents cannot meet the demands of the workplace and fit in with our hours—however the kindergarten program is a highly valued and regarded institution in the community. Long day care should not be the ONLY option for our young children.

2. If we are struggling more than ever to get students (school leavers) to consider studying teaching and also to retain new & existing teachers we must take a step back and ask WHERE/HOW we are failing our teachers?

Stricter regulations, ratio pressures, time constraints, impossible expectations handed down from "desk-sitters" is not the answer to training and retaining HIGH QUALITY EDUCATORS! Assessing services on one set of standards and then re-assessing on another tougher standard is sending mixed messages and de-grading the hard work, the high quality work, the exceeding work of experienced, dedicated and passionate practitioners.

…   …   …

So you see, this "job", this calling that I love so much, that I live for is under threat.

And do you know who is going to pay for that? Our most precious "commodity", our children, the future of our nation, our future world leaders. What message are we sending them?

We've got to get real about early childhood education and care and we MUST ask ourselves, is our current early childhood education and care system serving the right people with the right purpose?

Thank-you for your time.

That is Peta, from C&K Nundah.

Touching on the issue of kindergarten and funding, I'd like to finish by talking about something I didn't expect to discuss in an early childhood and childcare legislation debate, and that is the Trump family, currently ensconced in the White House. Previously I have not had many positive things to say about the Trump family. You might recall from my first speech that it was a combination of being diagnosed with autoimmune disease and falling pregnant with my first child, who was born early—a daughter—while watching President Trump being sworn in on the hospital television that acted like a lightning bolt to spur me on to what was then a federal political preselection. But I will give the Trumps this credit: in the midst of a presidential budget process which is generating controversy for its drastic spending cuts, Ivanka Trump, senior adviser to the President, is forcing a conversation about increasing the availability and affordability of child care. She said:

You have care providers who are working at below poverty wages, you have parents who can't afford the care and you don't have a robust ecosystem of facilities because it's a low-margin business with high liability.

She continued:

So, it's like just a fundamentally flawed system.

This billionaire heiress, this mother of three, gets it, and she gets it in a way that this federal government does not get it. I want to make the point today that, if you are a third-term federal government and you have to be given advice on how to be in touch with the working families in your country and how to better support them in raising their children, then you are out of touch. I condemn you for being as out of touch as that.

In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase, which provided a total of $8.1 billion to states to fund child care for low-income families. Contrast this with our federal government, who refused to guarantee funding for two years of universal preschool. Contrast the Trumps, who are doing a series of roundtables across the country to learn from early childhood educators and businesses about what needs to be done, with this government, who has referred this out to a private consulting firm to see what they have to say about funding for childcare arrangements. It is astonishing that Australia is one of only a few advanced nations to offer no subsidised early learning to three-year-olds, despite several major surveys and the Gonski review calling for just that. We would have, and you should do it now.

Mr GORMAN (Perth) (13:01): The early years are so important, and you see from the speeches on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill from those on this side of the House just how passionate members in this place are about investing in our next generation. Early learners are shaping their brains when they walk into those childcare centres, those kindergartens, those schools where they get that first sense of their own self-worth and the confidence that will drive them through the rest of their life. They're preparing for a future, and I think what always hits me is that we're trying to educate these children for a future that most of us in this place don't even understand what it will look like. If we walk into an early childhood centre today and say, 'Here's what it will look like when you go for your first job'—we don't have an answer for that. So I think that gives you a sense of how important the work that educators do on a daily basis in giving young people all the life skills that they need to get through whatever the world is going to throw at them.

But those early learners are actively involved in shaping what sort of a future they want, and I'm thinking in particular of the kindergarten students at Perth College in my electorate. They have been running a two-year campaign to reduce the amount of plastics in their local community. They have been researching the oceans and the impacts of plastic. They've been talking to local cafes and encouraging local business owners to switch from plastic straws to paper straws. They've got their parents lobbying, and they asked me to come and speak with them so that they could lobby me. It's fair to say that they were some of the more convincing lobbyists I've seen in my time. As a result, I wrote to the Prime Minister and said, 'This is what Perth College is doing, and this is what the kindergarten students want.' To the Prime Minister's credit, he wrote back and was very appreciative of the work that those young people have done. For me, it shows the power of early learning, the power of integration, the power of showing young people that they do have a voice and that they are valued. The thing that gets me when we talk about legislation like this is that it doesn't truly recognise the value of those young people. I want to say to the teachers at Perth College, a fantastic school in the Perth electorate, that it was so great to be part of the student-led campaign on eliminating plastics. I'm sure that, by the time those students are in the workforce, their mission will, hopefully, be close to complete.

When we all talk about early childhood education, we have to think about our own experience. As the member for Lilley said, it isn't a well-integrated system. It is a system that you battle with no matter how lucky you are in life because it's poorly designed. It's as simple as that. Jess and I use an early learning centre for Leo three days a week. My mum, Wendy, does Thursdays, and whenever there's a peak point of stress in our lives Leo's nanna, Diane, comes from Brisbane to Perth. It's for that reason we don't have a spare room; we have Nanna's room.

We are very lucky in Australia that we have some amazing artists who appreciate the value of early learning. It is the Teeny Tiny Stevies that help us pack away our things every night—sometimes with more success than at other times. It was Justine Clarke who taught us a banana is a banana but that if a butterfly was really made of butter, its wings would melt in the sun. And Bluey doesn't just do a great job of entertaining Leo; he does a great job of teaching Jess and I, in that never-ending piece of learning, how to be great parents.

In Australia we are, on the whole, a lucky country, and we do have a very good education system. But I'm a bit sick of talking about the childcare crisis. When the member for Lilley said 'the childcare crisis', I thought, 'We've been talking about the childcare crisis for a decade.' It's not because it sounds good or because people are trying to score political points; it is because there's an actual crisis. Parents can't get their kids into early-learning centres. If they get their kids in, it costs them a fortune; it costs them up to a third of their salary just to have their child in a learning environment in Australia. It is absolutely ridiculous. This legislation doesn't do any of the hard work, any of the hard thinking or any of the heavy lifting to actually fix our childcare system in this country. It doesn't support our educators. It doesn't recognise that families are at their wits' end when it comes to child care. I am absolutely sick of talking about the crisis, but just because I'm sick of it doesn't mean there isn't one. There is a huge crisis. We don't have good enough integration with schooling. We don't have proper professional pay and recognition for our educators. We have our subsidies centred around the activity of parents rather than the interests of the child. We have no way for families to do proper cost control; indeed, the government's approach is, 'We'll just send them a debt notice at the end of the financial year.' Seriously!

We talk about where Australia ranks in international rankings. We're sort of hiding in the comfortable middle. We don't want to be at the top. We don't want to be the highest funder. We don't want to have the best student outcomes. We don't want to have the highest-quality pay and conditions for educators. We just hide in the middle. I'm sick of hiding in the middle on things that are important, like education.

For all that's wrong in the early-childhood sector, there are some things that are good. We have the National Quality Framework, making sure that every parent has some level of assurance that, when they take their child to a recognised centre, their child is going to get a quality education with a standard curriculum that is focused on that particular child's needs. That's all delivered—and this is the other great thing about our system—by trained, qualified early-childhood educators. Our educators are the real light in this system. They make sure everything else works for parents. For many of us, they spend more waking hours with our children than we do. They are truly some of the heroes of the Australian economy, and I say thank you to every single one of them.

When it comes to the specifics of this bill, while it's clear I would like it to go a lot further on basically every possible metric, Labor recognises that it does have sensible amendments that make accessing child care easier for many Australian families. But the amendment that families are no longer able to register for the childcare subsidy without immediately providing their tax file number and bank account details is very short-sighted. The government removing that 28-day grace period will achieve very little other than pain. The Labor Party is concerned about this change and the childcare sector is concerned about this change. Worst of all, it will disproportionately affect the families and, most importantly, the children who benefit most from early-childhood education.

We know the sorts of circumstances that lead to people not having access to those things—fleeing domestic violence, fleeing natural disaster, loss of employment and other crises that happen in someone's life. To deny a child the right to an education because their parents can't do the paperwork is just wrong. We should indeed look at what we do in the education system and see that as the model for everything that we build in the early-childhood space. A school will take a student because that child has value, not because of what their parents do or don't do. Removing the 28-day period, blocking vulnerable families, is wrong—28 Days was a terrible movie; 28 days is a terrible policy when it comes to child care. When you think about the implementation of this system—the new bureaucracy—the approach of this government is to cut red tape with one hand and create it with the other.

I was lucky to visit, with the shadow minister for education last year, the Leederville Early Childhood Centre—I think it is run by Goodstart and my apologies to the Leederville team and Sally at the centre, if it is not, but I'm pretty sure it is—as they were rolling out this new system. There were delays in being able to register parents and there was conflicting information from different parts of the bureaucracy about what information they had to be collecting. There was no recognition of the huge workload that this had put on centres transferring the work that the government was requiring onto these non-government and private sector organisations. At the time, as many of us will remember, it was a bit of a mess. Thankfully, because early-childhood educators and those that run centres are some of the most resilient people that you'll meet, it kind of just worked. I don't think that was because of good policy design, it's because the people at the coalface of this sector do just make things work.

There have also been many families who have struggled with the childcare subsidy and struggled with getting what they are entitled to from the government. I will tell a story of Yelda and JP, who contacted my office. People don't come to a member for parliament's offices because everything is well; they come because something is not clicking within the bureaucracy. They had been struggling with the Department of Human Services for some months as they were being significantly underpaid for their childcare subsidy payments. When they had contacted the department, the only fact that they were given was there was a technical issue. That was it. That was the explanation: 'We can't tell you what you're owed. We can tell you there's a technical issue.' They were promised, of course, that it would be rectified. They waited: one month, two months, three months—big technical issue!—four months, five months, six months, seven months. On the eighth month, the technical issue—which I imagine was just poor policy design, which is a huge technical issue in this place at the moment—was rectified, and they finally got their payments. How many other Australian families are dealing with this on a daily basis or, indeed, being underpaid, because they just can't stand the pain of dealing with Department of Human Services? It is a department that, I might say, also could do with a few extra staff, and maybe some of these 'technical issues' would actually be resolved.

We've had about 10 years of major reform, and I think, if we're going to get to where we need to be as a country, we're going to need probably another 10 years of major reform. This morning I helped to launch the State of early learning in Australia 2019 report. I think it's sometimes like saying, 'I believe in climate change,' in that you have to state these really blatantly obvious things just to start the conversation. But it highlighted the 'long-term benefits of early education for children'. We're still having this fight and trying to justify that this is important for young people. The report had many interesting facts but I'm just going to quote a few things. It does note that we haven't realised the benefits of providing early learning for all children in this country. It noted that we are not distributing across key equity groups the benefits of early childhood education. It noted that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, children from low socioeconomic areas and children with a disability are not getting equitable access to early learning. And it noted that we do have structural factors and policy settings, differing across jurisdictions, which hold back our ability to effectively roll out quality early childhood education in all parts of this country. There were some hard truths in it. For my state of Western Australia, it noted that the highest proportion of early childhood education care services receiving lower ratings or working towards the national quality standards was in Western Australia. That's not good enough. But we need to be honest about where we're at and where we want to go.

The critical work that is done by educators in the sector is well-known. I think we should also place this in an international context though. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals say universal access to early childhood education should be something we strive to achieve by 2030. Now, Australia is a pretty good country; I'm pretty sure we could get there earlier than 2030 if we wanted to. The Sustainable Development Goals state that by 2030 'all girls and boys should have access to quality early childhood development care and pre-primary education' so that they're ready for primary education. And that's where we get to this discussion about the two years of preschool funding.

If the reports of a week ago that the funding for four-year-olds might be on the chopping block, that would just be absolute madness. It would destroy the educational opportunities that young people have. It will cause havoc for families across this country that rely on that funding to help them balance their budgets. And it takes us in the wrong direction. We should actually be talking about how we fund three-year-olds to get into that education environment. It is such a positive start for young people to be able to have that opportunity.

And, in terms of what we pay versus what we get, it's a transformative investment. We know that the first thousand days make a huge difference. There was some research from the Telethon Kids Institute that said the cost of late intervention—that is, acting too late; trying to fix these things up because we were too tight, too scared to spend a little bit of money when children are young—is $15.2 billion every year. Children and young people experience serious issues that lead to crises, lead to law enforcement, lead to challenges with child protection that, had we invested earlier, could have been prevented. I'll leave my remarks there.

Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:16): I'm pleased to follow the member for Perth and the member for Lilley today, both of whom are young parents. I'm a long way from being a young parent, and child care has changed a lot since my three children were being looked after in preschool years. As a parent, I used the family day care services as well as their grandmother and early childhood education in a structured way, but that is a long time ago now. As the member for Perth said, the crisis seems to have been going on for an extremely long time.

I'll pick up on one of the points that the member for Perth made about this government's approach to quality assurance in child care in general. When it comes to ensuring the safety and the value of early childhood education this government sees red tape in the form of compliance, and yet it sees it as an absolutely good idea for the providers to be used as a quasi-government service in getting families registered so that they can access their CCS. This is what's wrong with this whole sector: on the one hand we approach it as bean counters, trying to make sure that nobody's getting what they shouldn't get and making sure that everybody complies in terms of their ability to access a supplement; but on the other hand there is not nearly enough focus on the compliance around the quality that we are providing.

This all comes down to this government's issue that, since coming into government in 2013, it hasn't been able to put 'early education' and 'care' into the same sentence. If you keep separating these two notions and see early education as babysitting then you are not on the same page as the families who are accessing these services. Because families who are accessing early education and child care are doing so to ensure the quality of early learning for their children, as well as their ability to access employment for, in many cases, both parents.

Although this legislation is building on the childcare package in some positive ways, there are also some areas that I have concerns with—as I always do, because when this government makes steps in the right direction but builds those steps on the wrong foundations, as it has here in early education, then there's a problem. Alarm bells also ring for me whenever this government says that it's going to simplify something, because when it goes to simplify something, then we get bad news. They planned to simplify the census, and we saw how that went. They planned to simplify business tax and we remember the debacle that that was. The Prime Minister said last week that he wants to simplify the award system, making it easier for business, and we know that is code for lower wages for workers. We should always be wary when this government says it wants to simplify something.

When they introduced this package in July 2018 it was to simplify things. The simplification has seen, as we've seen from Senate estimates, families and providers experience significant delays, confusion and additional paperwork—that would be red tape—to register for the childcare subsidy, which has often resulted in families' entitlements being over or underestimated, resulting in overpayments and debts for affected families. Providers have been forced by the government to act as debt collectors—not just registration processors, but debt collectors—and, with the government commencing data matching with the ATO, families are being issued with unexpected debt notices.

We stand here to say to the government: 'Good. You've made a few changes. There are some positive things in this piece of legislation, but we have a technical issue over the 28 days in terms of the provision of ATO files and bank account details that could be very problematic for some families.' So some good points and one big negative that will be very easy for this government to fix. They're building on a system that we have found, through Senate estimates and through reports in the last three months, has not simplified the system, has made the system more complex. And not only that, in this simplification there was a promise that families would be better off and yet what we're finding is one in four families are worse off under this system.

We're also seeing an increase in costs to child care above CPI. In my electorate, there was a 5.5 per cent increase in the previous quarter in the cost of child care in an area where we have a broad demographic. For a lot of our families the median income is $52,000 a year. A 5.5 per cent increase is extraordinary. It is on this government's watch, which takes me to the other really tricky part of this. In the past week we've seen the Minister for Government Services say that in terms of Centrelink and robo-debt we're going to finally suspend the automatic data matching without human oversight in the process, and yet what we find in the childcare subsidy is—you guessed it—data matching with the ATO.

We've found, across the last few weeks, that we've got lots of families already being hit. We all saw the stories that have been run in the media. The most concerning, and out of the blocks very early, was one mother in particular who had overestimated her income by $12,000. That's a pretty good buffer. I would have thought you would have been fairly confident if you had overestimated your income by $12,000 and you'd been meticulous, as she says she was, about reporting your activity. Remember, red tape is only bad for governments. It's okay for parents; as much red tape as we can put in place for them the better. This mum estimated her income on a fortnightly basis, estimated her activity on a fortnightly basis—this red tape's good for the system—and then she found out that she had a debt notice. She overestimated by $12,000, but she was meticulous about the activity reporting.

We were told at Senate estimates that this wasn't about the activity reporting; it was just about the estimation of income. This woman got a debt notice. When she went to question this—because she's quite sure in her mind that, 'Having overestimated my income by $12,000 I better check my records'—she found that the records where she'd been reporting her income and reporting her activity hours had disappeared off the system at Centrelink. I don't know where else we can go other than this government seems to put red tape in the wrong places. Then pile everything into Centrelink, starve it of the human resources to do its job and introduce an ATO data-matching scheme that we know has failed already as a quarter of the debts people were being alerted to didn't exist. We've got a minister withdrawing that, but, in the childcare space, what does that mean? Does it mean that we're stopping the automatic data matching when it comes to the childcare subsidy? The human services minister might want to talk to the Minister for Education. They might want to figure out where they're doing in this space and do so very quickly. This piece of legislation, I would suggest, is now almost defunct, with the errors that we've discovered and with the increase in the cost of child care under this government's watch in the last 12 months. The government introduced its simplified system that was going to make all families better off, but a quarter were not better off from the day this started. Now we've got increases above CPI—in fact, extraordinary increases. We've got families being hit with debts and then being told that the debts occurred because of some glitch in the system—data going missing from the system—so families are feeling absolutely stressed.

It may be a long time since my kids were accessing early learning and child care, but I certainly remember the stresses of being a working mum with three kids under six. I certainly remember the stresses, and, as a school teacher at the time, I don't know that my lunch hour would have afforded me the time to be on the phone to Centrelink, waiting for 3½ hours. I would have had to hang up every lunchtime. I would have been trying to get on the phone in between classes—remembering that in most secondary schools where I was teaching in those days sessions were 50 minutes. That wouldn't get me onto Centrelink! Fifty minutes won't get me onto Centrelink—try 2½ hours of waiting. I've done this in my office with my constituents. I've sat with them in my office while they have been on hold, only for them to be then cut off—suddenly someone's on the phone and then the phone's dead, after a two-hour wait. Mostly, I've done this when we've been trying to sort out a debt that had been issued to them that we didn't think was real. My office doesn't need to be another quasi-government agency set up to deal with the red tape this government puts in place for parents and for providers; the government is supposed to be simplifying the system.

I also echo the words of the member for Perth on the importance of early education and child care in our society, and this government needs to come to terms with the fact that we are dealing with those two things: early education and child care. The two go together, and quality is absolutely at the forefront of this. That quality comes back to the providers and to ensuring that we've got quality on the ground and compliance in the system, but it also comes back—fundamentally in education—to the quality of the people who are working in the sector. I spend a lot of time talking to early educators, and I want to carry to this House their message that they feel absolutely undervalued. They feel that their work—the quality of their work—is less important to this government than ensuring that there are people inside the centres so that we can tick a compliance box. But it's not about quality. This government thinks that reporting against children's milestones—knowing every child in the centre and ensuring that every child in every centre is meeting their milestones on time, having targets set and having engagement and activities planned to ensure that they are progressing towards their next milestone—is red tape. This government says that the quality doesn't matter.

Yes, this government's bringing legislation into this House that will make some small improvements; but, in fact, the entire new system that they set up, that has only been running for 12 months, is being dramatically called into question in our communities as we speak today. The problem that I have with this piece of legislation is, absolutely, around the 28-day grace period that had traditionally been given. We've had some inquiries into this, and the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia explained:

Currently, families making a claim for CCS have 28 days to provide a Tax File Number (TFN) or bank account details. In the current legislation, the provision of this information is required for the individual's CCS claim to be effective, which affects their CCS eligibility. However, their eligibility is already verified, and this information is only required for the payment (and reconciliation) of subsidies. If the information is not provided within the 28 day window, a family is deemed CCS ineligible and may incur a debt with their provider.

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

Mr PORTER (Pearce—Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Leader of the House) (14:11): by leave—I move:

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

Question agreed to.

Mr PORTER (Pearce—Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Leader of the House) (14:31): by leave—I move:

That further statements on indulgence in relation to the update on the recent bushfires be permitted in the Federation Chamber.

Question agreed to.

Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (15:25): I rise to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019. Australian families rely on the childcare subsidy scheme to afford appropriate care for their children while they themselves are in the workforce. It is important for Australian children, it is important for Australian families and it is important for the Australian economy that parents are able to be employed. The current childcare system was introduced by the government in July 2018. Since that time, it has become very obvious that there are significant design faults within the current system and high administrative burdens being placed on families and providers. There have been delays, there's been confusion and there's been an abundance of paperwork flowing through the current system.

Registering for the childcare subsidy requires onerous paperwork to be completed. Many families, after successfully completing the paperwork, have been hit with a debt as the childcare subsidy entitlement has been overestimated, resulting in an overpayment. For families working on a budget, being faced with a debt notice by a government agency is highly stressful. The department is being forced to act as a debt collector. Robodebt notices are going to families, with many of them not actually owing any money. In Senate estimates last week, the Department of Education confirmed that 91,840 families, or 16 per cent—yes, 16 per cent—have so far been hit with a childcare subsidy debt. The system is complex, it lacks transparency, it has dodgy IT and families have been hit with debts that they can't verify.

Many families are worse off under the current system. The government's own figures estimated that one in four Australian families would be worse off under the system brought in by Prime Minister Morrison. Families who are trying to access the additional childcare subsidy, the child wellbeing payment, most of whom are vulnerable and at-risk families, are finding the new system very difficult. The number of children accessing the child wellbeing payment fell by over 20 per cent in the first few months of the new system. More recent data shows there are still fewer children approved for this payment than before the commencement of this brainchild of the coalition government.

And child care has become more expensive under this new system. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government claimed the new childcare system would put downward pressure on fees. However, what has actually transpired? The latest CPI figures show that childcare fees increased by 2.5 per cent in the September quarter, the fourth successive increase, and have now gone up by seven per cent since last September. Have wages gone up by seven per cent in the last year? I can assure you they have not. In fact, we've got under the Morrison government the lowest wages growth since they started measuring wages growth. Fees have increased by 30 per cent since the Liberal government was first elected. Here we are in the seventh year of this dreadful travesty that is the coalition government.

There is clearly a problem with the current system, despite the government for months denying that there's any problem whatsoever. And, in what is increasingly becoming their usual style—the advertising flim-flam approach to governing—the government tabled this bill without any warning or any consultation. Nonetheless, this bill does improve a couple of the technical design flaws in the system that the Morrison government rolled out.

However, there is one amendment in this bill that raises serious concern. Currently, families have 28 days after a childcare subsidy claim is submitted to provide their bank account details and tax file number. In some cases debt notices have been sent to families where the payment has been made but the details have not been provided in the time frame. This amendment will require families to provide those details at the time of the claim being submitted. The coalition government argues that this amendment is necessary so that families will not accrue a debt for not providing their details within the time frame. I'm concerned that these families, who are eligible for the childcare subsidy for early learning and care, are being denied the support they need for urgent care simply because they don't have immediate access to their personal information. The committee report on this bill reveals submissions to the inquiry were overwhelmingly concerned about the negative impact this change could have on families in difficult circumstances. It's not hard to think of a situation where a family may not have immediate access to their personal information—for example, the classic case, which I've encountered as an MP, is of a parent and children fleeing family violence or a family who has been caught up in a natural disaster, which also is a phenomenon I'm very familiar with in Queensland. As we've heard from the insurance companies, the scientists and most sensible farmers, we know that there'll be more and more natural disasters coming our way.

Early Childhood Australia, in their submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, pointed out that for families experiencing difficult circumstances this amendment would be detrimental and harsh. They explained that even though some of these families may be able to access the additional childcare subsidy immediately, that will only be possible where the family has disclosed their circumstances. In some situations the parents will not be comfortable disclosing their personal circumstances, nor will they be comfortable being assessed for the additional childcare subsidy.

This amendment makes the childcare system less flexible and less accessible for families who may already be in the midst of a stressful, difficult situation. This amendment may make it more convenient for the Department of Human Services, but where it rolls out, where the rubber meets road, it will actually increase the burden on families trying to access early learning and care for their children. This amendment is unreasonable and lacks compassion and understanding about how vulnerable families actually work.

Labor believes the bill should be amended to retain the current 28-day grace period for providing personal information to better meet the needs of families and providers, and I urge the minister to consider that. Labor notes that the coalition government is proposing to amend the bill in the Senate to provide exemptions from the new rules for families in crisis. Labor will not oppose the government's amendment but believes that the proposal put forward by Labor's shadow minister is a simpler and less complex solution.

Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (15:32): I also rise today to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019, and I too support the amendment to be moved by the shadow minister, the member for Kingston. This bill seeks to make a number of changes to the current childcare system to reduce some of the administrative burdens on families, including increasing the number of weeks at which enrolments automatically cease due to nonattendance, removing the 50 per cent limit on the number of children that a provider can self-certify for additional childcare subsidy and improving the application of the third-party contributions to fees, such as state and territory payments.

As others on this side of the House have stated, Labor supports the aforementioned amendments in this bill. However, we oppose one amendment that could potentially have negative impacts on families who already face difficult circumstances. The proposed removal of the 28-day period in which applicants have to provide personal information, including their tax file number and bank account details, could reduce access to early learning and make it much harder for vulnerable families to register for the childcare system. We do not support this aspect of the bill. Indeed, we seek to protect access to early education and eligibility for the childcare subsidy by retaining the 28-day period for the provision of bank account and tax file numbers.

Labor has always invested in education because we believe that education is the greatest investment we can make to the future of our children and our country. On this side of the House, we know that quality early education leads to a range of so many better outcomes, whether they be education, social or health outcomes. Quality education literally lays down the foundations for life.

It's not just Labor that's telling this story. There is widely published research that clearly states that investing in our children's early years leads to a significant return later in life. Studies have shown that children who attended preschool had significantly better reading and maths scores in primary school and better results at age 16. We also know that those children who receive quality early education have higher language and cognition NAPLAN scores in year 3. Children who attend early learning have better success, are more likely to graduate from high school and have better social outcomes. The research confirms that the benefits are, indeed, higher for those vulnerable children.

That's why, on this side, we're very proud of our history of investing in early education. Two of the many critical policies that we implemented in government were the national preschool program for four-year-olds and the national quality framework. The preschool program has been a critical policy achievement. Indeed, universal access led by the Labor government has seen enrolments of four-year-olds in preschools increase from 77 per cent to 93 per cent. We backed this preschool commitment with a national quality agenda in order to lift educational quality and safety standards in those early years. The quality framework is also a success story, with 57 per cent of services having improved their quality rating when reassessed, and 75 per cent of services now meeting or exceeding the national quality standard. Australia's four-year-olds are now enjoying the benefit of universal access, and children attending early learning centres and preschools are enjoying getting so much out of the play based learning environment and being educated by qualified early learning educators.

I, like many members here, am always able to visit many of the wonderful preschools and childcare centres in our areas. I was pleased recently to visit Gumnuts Early Learning and Preschool in Pottsville as part of the Early Learning Matters Week. I saw firsthand the positive impacts of what we feel is our legacy and our investment in preschool and child care. I want to take this opportunity to applaud those early educators at Gumnuts and, indeed, at childcare centres right across the north coast. I have visited many over the years. They provide such valuable care and support to families in our community. I'd like to recognise the important work they do in laying down the foundation for our children's future. Every day, early childhood educators across the country are carrying out the extraordinarily important work of teaching and caring for our children. It's thanks to them that families can really feel secure that their children are not also being properly cared for but also that they're receiving a very high-quality early education.

We know that 90 per cent of a child's brain develops in those first five years, so the quality learning experiences provided by the early educators can have such a positive impact on a child throughout the rest of their education and their life. We recognise early educators as very skilled professionals and we value the important work they do in laying down that foundation. As I said, Labor has been and will always continue to be committed to early childhood development. In contrast, though, we see a very shocking record from this government—which continues to get worse—when it comes to early education and early childhood development.

In terms of this bill and the concerns that we've raised, as we've said, it does improve some of the technical design and some of the flaws and problems in the system. As I said, we look forward to supporting the parts of this bill that can make the system better by reducing some of those administrative burdens on providers and families. However, as I mentioned earlier, there is one part that does raise very serious concerns. The government argues that some of the items will simplify the system for families and providers. Amendments require bank account and tax file number details to be provided at the time that a claim is made and not at any other time. Currently, parents and caregivers have 28 days after they've submitted their CCS claim to provide their details. In fact, the government's changes will remove the 28-day time frame. This really does raise concerns about the ability of some families to provide this information. It raises concerns about the impacts it may have on families who are facing difficult circumstances and who, for a whole host of reasons, may not have access to their personal documentation. Families and caregivers who may be experiencing domestic violence or who may be victims of a natural disaster should not be disadvantaged. Removing the 28-day period is unreasonable and lacks compassion. It does not understand the circumstances that many families may find themselves in. The fact is, some families may not be able to access the urgent care that they need for their children, because they just don't have access to that personal information. This aspect could also result in a debt to families when CCS payments are made without information being provided within the required time frame.

Indeed, a number of submissions to the recent inquiry by the Education and Employment Legislation Committee into this bill make the point that this change will actually remove flexibility currently in the system, and that it is designed to reduce complexity in the system for the government but not for the families or the providers. The proposed changes might reduce the administrative burden for the department, but they will increase the administrative burden for families. In fact, it will make it very difficult for families to provide that information. The reduced flexibility will also have a disproportionately negative impact on families experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage—in particular, women and children escaping domestic and family violence who, as I said, absolutely cannot access that personal information. Removing the 28-day period and blocking families from registering for the CCS without their bank account or tax file number details immediately available will also reduce access to early learning that is so vitally important. So, as I said, it is, first and foremost, unreasonable and does really lack compassion for the circumstances that many vulnerable families find themselves in. Labor doesn't believe the administrative convenience of the government should be above the needs of families and providers. Those families should come first; those children should come first and get access to that care. We believe the bill should be amended to retain the current 28-day grace period for providing personal information to better meet the needs of families and providers.

In talking about the current childcare subsidy system, this government's unfair system was introduced with a multitude of problems, and months on from that introduction of this government's unfair childcare changes the evidence continues to mount about the negative impact that it's having on families right across the nation. According to the government's own figures, we know their childcare changes have left one in four families worse off. We know that vulnerable and at-risk families are finding it harder to access early learning. We know there are so many systemic design flaws and administrative burdens on families, and burdens on providers too have become apparent. There's a very long list, including software glitches leaving families and providers in the dark, two out of three providers saying the transition has been poorly managed, educators going without pay because of problems with the system, an exodus of providers from in-home care, childcare providers being forced to act as debt collectors for Centrelink, the number of vulnerable and at-risk children accessing care dropping more than 20 per cent and, of course, childcare fees going up under the new system. They've increased a staggering 30 per cent under this government. There are so many problems from technical glitches right through to the really concerning aspect of childcare fees going up.

We know that the system itself is essentially very confusing. It's buried in red tape for many of the providers, and it has a lot of problems. Families and providers have experienced significant delays, confusion and additional paperwork to register for the CCS. This has often resulted in families' entitlements being over or underestimated, resulting in overpayments and debts for those affected families. So, in addition to leaving one in four families worse off, reports have revealed that families have received payments intended for providers, leaving many parents and caregivers with huge debts.

Under the government's complicated new system, when families change their details in myGov, such as updating their income or activity, this changes their CCS payment amount. Providers, unaware of this payment change, are therefore billing parents incorrectly, creating a debt. As a result, Centrelink is then issuing a debt to providers, expecting them to seize this from families. There are even instances where centres are still having CCS withdrawn from their accounts by the government after accounts have closed and been reconciled after families leave providers. So it really is creating such a difficult situation right across the board both for the families and also for the providers. When we look at the impact on those in the regions, when we see the cost of living going up and childcare costs going up as well, it is quite extreme. As I said, a 30 per cent increase in childcare fees right across the country has had a major impact on families.

In my electorate of Richmond, recent data shows fees have increased by up to 9.5 per cent over the last year to March 2019. That's a staggering amount. It is well above the average of 4.9 per cent. So it means those families in the regions who are already doing it tough are paying significantly more out of pocket for child care. This is, of course, at a time when we're seeing cost of living increasing and wages stagnating, and now families are finding it really difficult under ever increasing childcare fees. It's an issue they've raised with me many, many times.

All of this evidence is overwhelming—the government's childcare system is, indeed, failing Australian families. Yet they continue to do nothing in terms of reining in those increased childcare costs—as they should be doing—and addressing all those systems. So we know those families are worse off, we know vulnerable and at-risk children are finding it harder to access early education and it seems the government is choosing to ignore a lot of the evidence and not act on it. We call on them to act to make child care much more affordable and much more accessible. It's so important for our children's future. We need to have the whole system improved. As I said, in terms of this bill, we support some of the measures the government has introduced but not the measure around removing the 28-day period. We want our vulnerable families to still get access to child care despite the very difficult circumstances that they find themselves in.

Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (15:45): I rise to speak in support of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill. In July 2018, the government introduced its childcare package. At the time, the minister described the package as the biggest reforms of child care since the introduction of the Commonwealth Child Care Act in 1972. It goes a little way, but I call on the government to do more. The purpose of the package introduced last year was to simplify what had become a complex childcare system for both users and the sector. My children are now teenagers, but I remember the difficulty, the red tape and the complexity of the system not that long ago.

The two major reforms of the package introduce the childcare subsidy and the additional childcare subsidy, which will either fully replace or partly replace many of the previous payments. There are 1.1 million families who receive the subsidy, supporting the childcare needs of 1.6 million children. Funding allocated for 2019-20 will be $8.6 billion and this is expected to increase to $10 billion over the next few years.

There are problems with the package introduced last year. Families and providers are experiencing significant delays, confusion and additional paperwork to register for the childcare subsidy, and childcare subsidy entitlements are often being overestimated or underestimated, leading in some cases to overpayments and debts for affected families. Often providers have had to act as debt collectors and, with the government commencing data matching with the Australian Taxation Office, families are being issued with unexpected debt notices.

Providers, particularly those in my electorate, note there was much more flexibility and capability to support vulnerable and disadvantaged families prior to these changes. There is also considerable red tape in order to apply for the additional childcare subsidy. The vulnerable and disadvantaged families who most need access to a secure childcare environment—in particular, culturally and linguistically diverse Australians and families—struggle to navigate the system. The education department's March 2019 Child Care in Australia quarterly report also notes that the number of vulnerable and at-risk children who are accessing the wellbeing payment fell by over 20 per cent in the first few months of the new system, and the data shows that six per cent fewer children were approved for this payment compared to the same time last year. And despite claims that the new childcare system would put downward pressure on fees, fees actually increased by 4.9 per cent in the 12-month period to March 2019 and have increased 30 per cent since 2013. This is a huge cost and impost on working families.

This bill amends the provision relating to childcare subsidy and additional childcare subsidy in response to the feedback from families and childcare providers and early findings from the childcare package evaluation. Specifically, key changes of the measures include extending the eight-week enrolment lapse rule to 14 weeks to avoid the re-enrolment process for children returning to care after eight weeks. This will be particularly beneficial for children who attend only during school holiday care periods and is a welcome measure. In-home care will be integrated with the CCS legislation rather than being in regulations, as is currently the case, with the subsidy available to parents and providers.

The child wellbeing certificates will no longer be limited to 50 per cent of all children attending the service, with the 50 per cent rule being scrapped. This will enable providers to better meet the needs of children at risk of serious abuse and neglect. It will be a requirement that providers ensure that all educators have a current working-with-children check relevant to their state or territory, as well as their existing responsibility to inform the minister of the details of their working-with-children card and checks. Providers who made a mistake that leads to an overpayment of childcare subsidy to a family or are deemed to be responsible for an overpayment on review are liable for the debt to the Commonwealth, not the family.

Overall, the proposed changes that the amendments bring to the family assistance legislation are a step in the right direction to improving some of the issues identified and they're broadly welcomed by the sector. But there are concerns about the removal of the 28-day time period provision. This is not a change that's supported by the sector. It provides that a family's bank details and tax file number must be provided at the time that a childcare subsidy claim is made, and not within the 28 days after the claim is made as under the current rule. As the Childcare Alliance points out, this change, alarmingly, will make an application process, which is already administratively burdensome for families, even more complex and far less flexible and will unfairly impact on families experiencing difficulties, especially for applicants in circumstances of domestic violence and in emergency situations.

The minister has assured me that he's taken on board the serious concerns expressed about this measure and has tabled amendments to make an exception of this provision. I commend the minister for listening to the concerns and attempting to address the problem. However, the amendments still only provide that the secretary is to make a determination in some cases. The government's amendment are a minor remedy. I would strongly urge the minister to consider reinstating the 28-day period rule in the legislation.

Given the government is open to consultation and listening to concerns of families accessing the childcare system and of providers, it's an opportunity to examine other reforms that will improve the system. These could include providing a minimum level of subsidised access for all children. Children are missing out on a minimum level of subsidised access because their families do not meet the activity test, reducing their capacity to afford early learning services. The activity test is difficult for all families to navigate and is unnecessarily complex, particularly for those families with varying work hours per fortnight, along with those not proficient in English.

The turnaround time for families applying for a customer reference number and then the childcare subsidy can be up to two months. In addition, the current base provision of 24 hours per fortnight for low-income earners would better support the policy's objectives if increased to 36 hours. We could also ensure the currency of the childcare subsidy hourly rate. The subsidy is set at an hourly rate and is scheduled to increase annually in line with indexation. However, the indexation rate over the last two years has not kept up with the respective hourly rate increase for educators under the relevant awards, which means the scheduled childcare subsidy hourly rate increase does not necessarily keep up with the running costs for early learning service providers.

The current exemption to the activity test for children accessing a preschool program in a centre-based long day care service has been a huge success. If extended to children in their two years before school it would provide more children with access to an early learning program from the age of three.

We need to understand: where are we? Is Australia doing well in this space? The OECD have reported that Australian parents pay 31 per cent of their combined income towards child care. The average across the rest of OECD countries is 14½ per cent. Only 18 per cent of three-year-olds in Australia are in early childhood education compared to 70 per cent across the rest of the OECD. Australia's share of GDP devoted to early childhood education is 0.5 per cent and this is our future.

There are many young parents in Warringah and the issue of the cost of child care is frequently raised with me. Child care and early childhood education and care is a very real barrier to parents' capacity to work and children's opportunities in the future. If we want to boost our economy—and that is certainly very topical—let's help parents fully participate in the workforce. We still have considerable gender inequity in the workplace, where more improvements are needed to decrease the cost of child care.

Our children are our future. We need to ensure the best possible education outcomes are possible for them, and this starts from a very early age, in early childhood. Thank you.

Ms PAYNE (Canberra) (15:54): I rise today to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019. I'm glad the Morrison government are building on their current childcare policy, because the childcare funding system that they introduced in July 2018 needs some work.

Poor social policy design is becoming a hallmark of the Morrison government. We have robodebt, a system, now thankfully on hold, that has caused untold anxiety and suffering to thousands of Australians who have done nothing wrong. The implementation of the NDIS raises significant questions, and we've been hearing shocking evidence in Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme hearings over recent weeks. We have Newstart, a system that everyone but the Prime Minister admits is too poorly funded to enable people to support themselves while finding work—the key intent of this payment. And we have youth allowance, which is designed to support students to complete their education but sees them struggling to complete their studies while they try to support themselves with work. And now we have the childcare subsidy, a system that sends incorrect and punitive debts to parents of young children; a system that kicks recipients off at the earliest opportunity, creating an absurd administrative burden for parents; and a system that the government knew, from its own data, would leave one in four families worse off but decided to implement anyway.

The Australian government will spend $8.6 billion on child care this year. It is a good thing for government to invest in as there is strong evidence to support the benefits of early-childhood education and care, including improvements to a child's education, social outcomes, gender equality and the economy. But when you are making an investment as significant as this—$8.6 billion—you need to make sure that the system is working and that everyone, including low-income Australians, is able to utilise the full potential of the system. Most importantly, you need to make sure that disadvantaged kids are getting an early-childhood education, because it has the potential to set them up for a better life.

In spite of the federal government's sizeable investment in early-childhood education and care, it remains expensive and difficult to access for many families. This means the benefits are not being maximised for Australian children or the Australian economy. Furthermore, our early-childhood educators and workers are poorly paid despite the vital work they are doing shaping the young minds of our children. As the mother of a 21-month-old who spends time in early-childhood education and care, I have seen firsthand their wonderful work, their dedication to the children and how quickly these young minds are learning at that age. The reality for single parents, low-income parents and parents who do shiftwork or any hours outside the normal nine to five can find this a difficult system to navigate. The system created by the Morrison government clearly isn't designed for these people.

Families and providers have experienced significant delays, confusion and additional paperwork to register for the childcare subsidy. This has often resulted in families' entitlements being overestimated or underestimated, resulting in overpayments and debts for affected families. Providers have been forced by the government to act as debt collectors, commencing data matching with the Australian tax office as families are being issued with unexpected debt notices. As confirmed in Senate estimates, 91,840 families, or 16 per cent of families who access the childcare subsidy, have received debt notices. When 16 per cent of users have accrued a debt, you know the system isn't working properly. And, like other Australians hit with a debt notice, parents are often unable to verify the debt and end up eating into their household budgets to pay it back, whether the debt is legitimate or not.

You would think the government would have learnt from their robodebt disaster, but they are too out of touch with the average Australian family and how they go about managing their budgets. The average Australian household isn't well placed to cover an unexpected debt like the ones being sent out by the childcare system. Furthermore, our childcare providers shouldn't be forced into acting as debt collectors; they are educators. After months of refusing to act, the government tabled this bill without warning or consultation. So now, through a process of amendment, the Labor Party, through our shadow minister for early-childhood education, Amanda Rishworth, is pursuing changes to the bill that the sector and Australian parents are calling for.

The government's childcare subsidy system wasn't designed for the realities of Australian families. This bill increases the number of weeks at which enrolments automatically cease due to non-attendance from eight to 14 weeks. Currently, parents across the country have to re-enrol their child following breaks in attendance at child care, especially families using vacation care during school holidays. Re-enrolment requires again engaging with Centrelink, and it is well known how much of a struggle engaging with Centrelink can be. The sector has long been calling for this change, and this change will reduce the administrative burden for parents and reduce the administrative burden for Centrelink. Any reduction in the workload of Centrelink is a good thing at the moment and will certainly benefit other recipients of social security and the wait times they currently endure.

The bill will remove the 50 per cent limit on the number of children that a provider can self-certify for the additional childcare subsidy child wellbeing payment. This is a positive change that resolves issues for services that enrol significant numbers of children at risk. The sector is pleased with this change. It is my view that we must do everything we can to ensure that disadvantaged kids get an early childhood education because early childhood education is transformative. The benefits of an early childhood education are well known, particularly for disadvantaged children. James Heckman, a noble laureate in economics, found that investment in early childhood education for disadvantaged children improves their economic and health outcomes throughout their lives. It also delivers a seven to 10 per cent return on government investment every year for the rest of that person's life. In Australia, PricewaterhouseCoopers has estimated that investing in child care for disadvantaged children could boost the Australian economy by $10.3 billion per year.

However, the government's own data shows that the childcare system introduced last year has reduced the number of vulnerable and at-risk children accessing early childhood education. The number of children accessing the child wellbeing payment fell by over 20 per cent in the first months of the new system. Thankfully, these figures have corrected to an extent in the latest data from March, but there are still six per cent fewer children approved for this payment compared to the same time last year, prior to the Morrison government's changes to the system. The system was supposed to make child care more accessible. It is clear this hasn't been achieved.

Unfortunately, as someone who has observed the work of conservative governments on social security systems, I am unsurprised. Conservatives always degrade the equality-boosting elements of public policy. For those on the other side who criticise this statement, I'll point to your government's claim that the new childcare system would put downward pressure on childcare fees. The latest CPI figures show childcare fees increased by 2.5 per cent in the September quarter, the fourth successive increase, and have gone up by seven per cent since last September. Fees have increased by 30 per cent since the Liberal government was first elected. Where is the money for this massive increase supposed to come from? Wages have stagnated. How does the government expect Australian families to cover this gap? We need to be helping Australians to build their families, not penalising them.

Many of the states and territories have identified that targeted spending on early childhood education is an investment in the future of their jurisdiction and the people who live within it. In a competitive global economy, it is crucial that our children receive a world-class education. Ultimately, educating our kids from earlier in their lives will help us achieve this and help Australia to develop the workforce of the future. As such, this bill will improve the application of third party contributions to fees, such as state and territory payments. Currently, the Commonwealth requires state and territory assistance to be applied to fees before the childcare subsidy is calculated, thus reducing the CCS entitlement and potentially leaving families with out-of-pocket costs. The change will allow state and territory fee assistance to apply after the CCS calculation and allow the state to effectively eliminate out-of-pocket costs for vulnerable families as per the policy intent.

Parents who utilise the childcare system know the process for registering for the childcare subsidy and making a claim is more difficult than it should be. However, one element of the system acknowledged these realities. Currently, applicants are able to register for the CCS without providing their tax file number and/or bank account details, and they have 28 days to provide this information to Centrelink. For families experiencing difficult circumstances—circumstances which mean that this information isn't readily at hand, such as families fleeing domestic violence or families wanting to retain some normality like child care whilst in the midst of a natural disaster—this leeway enables them to get their kids into child care while they sort out their lives and find the necessary documentation. However, this bill wants to remove the 28-day period in which applicants may provide these details. The government argues that this will simplify the system for families and providers; however, the sector is extremely concerned about this change, and I am extremely concerned about the families who need this provision. Furthermore, the government's own majority report from the inquiry of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee expressed concern about the impact of these changes.

The government believes that this change will simplify the system for families and providers and prevent families from accruing debt, but there needs to be a better way of ensuring this. We should be putting the needs of parents above the administrative ease of government departments. I'm concerned about the children who will miss a month of child care, or perhaps never get enrolled, because this leeway has been taken away for the convenience of administrators. Removing the 28-day period and blocking families from registering for the childcare subsidy without this information will reduce access to early learning and is unreasonable and lacking in compassion. I'm also concerned for the providers who are trying to manage this situation. Labor notes that the government is proposing to amend the bill in the other place to provide exemptions from the new rules for families in crisis. Labor will not oppose the government's amendment, but I believe our amendment is a simpler, less complex solution.

The government could have done so much more with this bill. There are so many more things we could do in our childcare system with the $8.6 billion we invest every year. For one, the activity test is not right. Parents must predict their hours of work within the reporting system. Parents who work casual or irregular hours or parents who are self-employed can struggle to do this accurately and can receive debt notices if their work doesn't take place as anticipated. Further, parents with a disability or who are suffering from serious illness must be constantly vigilant and adapt to an unforgiving system. You'd think that the Liberals would at least be in touch with small business, as they so often claim to be, but small-business owners are reporting that they find it very difficult to receive the childcare subsidy they are eligible for. The government needs to do better to create a more user-friendly system for all of these groups of people.

In my view, Australia still hasn't found the right solution for child care. It doesn't work for families, it doesn't work for parents, it doesn't give children the best start in life and it doesn't provide stable and well-paying work for childcare workers. This morning we saw the launch of the report State of early learning in Australia 2019 from Early Childhood Australia. This is a fantastic report that lays out the evidence of the need for quality childhood education and care and what it contributes to our youngest Australians. But what has raised a lot of concern among those speaking this morning was that becoming an early childhood educator—such an important job—is not an attractive option for people who want to be involved in educating our children, because the pay and conditions are inadequate and it is not something that presents a future progression. We need to find a way to better recognise this very important contribution to our society, which, as I said before, I've seen firsthand in the education and care of my young son—including his being taught to have his naps, which I've not managed at home.

We can do better than the Morrison government's childcare subsidy. We can actually achieve the outcomes that the Morrison government promised but failed to achieve within this program. Early childhood education is going to change the lives of Australians and it is going to push back against the creep of inequality in this country. Unfortunately, it's not yet doing this to the extent that it could. The Morrison government's childcare subsidy needs to be better than it currently is and better than this amendment is going to make it.

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (16:08): The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019 was tabled without warning or consultation with the opposition. Nevertheless, it does improve on a range of things concerning the new childcare system, which was introduced in July 2018. I suspect this bill, as one of the many administrative bills this government has presented to the parliament, has been prepared essentially by the department, as many administrative bills are. When you look at what the government has been doing over the last seven years—and this is a third-term government—what you find, relative to what we've seen from past governments, is an extraordinary number of administrative bills and very little else. It's as if the government has had its finger firmly on the pause button. Departments have been going about fixing up things that went wrong with past legislation, putting together the kinds of bills that we always see them put together. But it's hard to find the bills before this parliament that are about vision: anything that ennobles, or enables growth—anything at all. Nearly all the legislation we see in this parliament is this kind of administrative bill, essentially prepared by the departments, or bills that persecute: drug-testing welfare recipients, the cashless debit card, trying to make pensioners work until they're 70—you name it. There are punitive and vindictive bills, and administrative bills, but virtually nothing else.

Here we have, once again, one of those administrative bills. I have spoken to a number of people in the public sector, actually—and I won't say who they are! They commented what a pleasure it is to actually get their administrative bills through. Those of us who have been in the parliament under previous governments know that these bills are quite often pushed down the agenda because more important bills—those to do with vision and growth, and things that make the country and the economy stronger—tend to get pushed up. But the departments are having a field day at the moment; their bills are all getting through. If we look at the speakers lists over time we can see this pattern emerging absolutely. On the speakers list today, government members aren't even bothering to speak on four of the six pieces of legislation. They're not even bothering to speak, because these are clearly purely administrative bills, even though, as I said earlier, these administrative changes are quite important because they fix problems in earlier bills.

The new childcare system that was introduced in July 2018 had problems. We said so at the time and the sector said so at the time, and those problems have been apparent. Over the last 12 months we have seen a number of systemic design flaws, and administrative burdens on families and providers have been absolutely apparent. The government has denied that there was a problem—it denied it right up until the moment this administrative bill was tabled in the parliament. Now they're not even bothering to speak on it: they're absent.

But we on this side will speak on this bill, because child care is an incredibly important matter. It's important for the children—incredibly important for the children. Anybody in this House who has children or grandchildren knows that you can watch the milestones of a child in child care. You can watch them developing; it's quite extraordinary. And we have, essentially, a very good system with some very qualified and well-trained childcare workers.

But there were a number of flaws. The substantive aspects of the bill will increase the number of weeks at which enrolments automatically cease through nonattendance from eight to 14. At the moment, if your child doesn't attend for eight weeks then you have to re-enrol through Centrelink. That means that families using childcare centres for the school holidays, for example, where their child goes there for the school holidays and then is off for eight weeks, have to re-enrol. It's one of those unnecessary burdens on both the centre and the child, and this bill removes that by increasing it to 14 weeks. That's a big improvement, and the sector has been calling for that change since the changes were made in July 2018.

It also removes the 50 per cent limit on the number of children that a provider can self-certify for additional childcare subsidy, which is about the child's wellbeing. This is also a positive change, because it resolves issues for services that enrol significant numbers of children at risk. There are centres which are located in places where there are large numbers of children at risk; many of us have suburbs or parts of our electorates where that is the case. Again, the sector has been calling for this. It's pleased with this change, and we on this side are pleased to support it in getting that change through.

The third one is to improve the application of third-party contributions to fees. State and territory governments quite often make payments as well, but currently, under the system from July 2018, the Commonwealth requires that state or territory assistance be applied to fees before the childcare subsidy is calculated, thus reducing the CCS entitlement. In other words, it transfers who pays from Commonwealth to state; it doesn't make the family better off. This change will allow the assistance to apply after the calculation, to allow the state to effectively eliminate out-of-pocket costs for vulnerable families. That was always the policy intent, so the requirement that it be taken into account before the subsidy was calculated effectively wiped out that policy intent and simply transferred the cost from one level of government to another.

There is also a change in the process for registering for the childcare subsidy. Currently, applicants are able to register without providing their tax file number or bank account details, and they have 28 days to provide this information to Centrelink. The changes here will remove that 28-day period. You've heard many speakers on this side say that we think that's problematic. There will be families who, because of their circumstances, will not necessarily have access to their records—families fleeing domestic violence, for example—but there may be other circumstances on which it's extremely difficult for a family to find that information as required and we wouldn't on this side want to see children excluded from child care and the parents unable to work because they couldn't actually provide this information within 28 days. Twenty-eight days is reasonable. We haven't seen evidence that there's a whole stack of families ripping off the taxpayer for 28 days when they had no intention of providing their TFN. We haven't got any examples of that. So it seems to be, again, a punitive move without any real benefit.

The government introduced the childcare system, as I said before, in July 2018. Families and providers since then have experienced significant delays, confusion and additional paperwork to register for the childcare subsidy, and this has often resulted in families' entitlements being over- or underestimated, resulting in overpayments and debts for affected families. Once again, the government is data matching with the Australian tax office and providers have been forced by the government to act as debt collectors if families are overpaid.

I want to go back to some things I said early on, when these changes were first made in July 2018, and talk about the complexity in this system. I'm a fairly smart person. I'm good with maths. If I had a full-time paid job or my family received full-time work and we had $65,000 or $70,000 a year, this system that was introduced would actually be quite good for me. It provides a higher level of subsidy. It's quite consistent. It's actually quite good. But I want you to consider what happens to families where one or both parents—or single families with just a sole parent—have sporadic or casual work. People that I meet sometimes in my electorate tell me that they find out at six or seven in the morning each day whether they're working that day. They can't project their annual earnings. They can't even project their weekly earnings. And yet the requirement in this is that you meet two conditions that determine your payment.

The first one is how many hours you work; families will receive 36 hours per fortnight when both parents undertake activity for eight to 16 hours per fortnight. If you think you're going to be working for eight to 16 hours per fortnight for a couple then you receive 36 hours per fortnight. But, for many families, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. For many families, it's impossible to hold their working hours within that frame. There's also that the subsidy rate changes depending on your annual income. If a family earns up to $65,710 per family—and these figures may have been adjusted in the last year, but these were them at the time—then you get 85 per cent, but, if you earn $65,000 to $170,000, it tapers down and eventually gets to 50 per cent if you earn from over $170,000 to up to $250,000. In order to get your childcare subsidy right at the time you register, you have to know what your annual income is likely to be and you have to know what your range of hours is likely to be.

You can imagine a couple where one or both parents are working some casual hours where they suddenly hit the next threshold unexpectedly. At the end of the year they suddenly get a dream job and then, instead of their $65,000 estimate being right, they hit 70 and, instead of being entitled to 85 per cent, are only entitled to a lesser subsidy. I would dare anybody in this room who lives a life of casual and sporadic work or who is trying to get back into work, trying to increase their hours or seeking promotion to sit down at the beginning of the year and actually calculate within this ridiculous framework what their actual childcare subsidy should be. I would dare anybody. That could be why, now that the data matching is going on, there are so many families being hit with debt. In Senate estimates last month, the Department of Education confirmed that 91,840 families—16 per cent of families—have been hit with a childcare subsidy debt so far, and it's not over yet.

The system is complex, lacks transparency and has substandard IT, and families are being hit with unexpected debt that they then have to verify. Again, I would dare, in spite of your best efforts to keep your payslips and all the rest of it, anybody who's working casual work, taking whatever work they can get or moving in and out of the workforce to actually keep records or project at all. This debt issue is particularly worrying when we have a government that made such a stuff-up of what is known as robodebt. Not everybody knows what robodebt is. It's called robodebt because it's done automatically. For Centrelink payments there's an automatic matching of ATO data and your Centrelink payments. If they don't match, a letter is automatically sent to you telling you that you have a debt—that's the 'robo' bit of it. Then it's up to the person who receives that letter to prove that they don't owe a debt.

This is an extraordinary botch-up, because, unlike the childcare subsidies, which are actually calculated on your annual income, Centrelink payments are calculated on your fortnightly income. You could be on Newstart for the first three months of the year. Quite appropriately, you're telling Centrelink if you get a few hours of work, and they're adjusting your Centrelink payment and everything's correct. Then, towards the end of the financial year, you get a job—totally legitimate; you're supposed to do that. Suddenly you earn income. Maybe you earn $20,000 in the rest of that year. Maybe in the last seven months of the year you get a job, you go off Centrelink benefits, you get paid and you earn $20,000 that year. The data matching with the ATO then takes that $20,000 and averages it out over the year, which is not the way the calculation works. This was never going to work. This is ridiculous. It was a ridiculous idea to start with. The shocking thing about it is that the person who receives the letter then has to prove the government wrong. In this data matching, the government has reached back sometimes seven to 10 years. You don't have to keep your paperwork more than seven years. Again, I would dare anybody, if you suddenly had to prove to the government's standards that you didn't owe debt from seven years ago from when you had casual work or had a job where the business is no longer in business—it's incredibly difficult. That's what robodebt is.

Now, finally, after a year of people saying it was terrible, with case after case that was clearly a stuff-up by this government, they are finally suspending it while they have a look at it. I suspect that in a year's time, when the 16 per cent of families that have so far been hit with a childcare subsidy debt grows as the rest of the families are covered, we will once again find family after family who, through no fault of their own, who tried to do everything right, are suddenly hit with crippling debts. Many families, particularly low-income families and many middle-income families, would find it very difficult to handle an unexpected debt, particularly when they did everything they could to get it right. I would really ask the government to reconsider what they're doing with this. These changes are essentially good, but there are a lot more problems with the system that you have that you really must address.

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (16:23): I rise in support of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019. The bill makes a range of technical improvements to childcare subsidy arrangements, and I will touch briefly upon two of them. One of the adjustments in the bill extends the time frame for the cancellation of a child's enrolment at child care or an after-hours school care facility from eight weeks out to 14 weeks. Currently, parents who only use child care during school holidays have to re-enrol every time a holiday period comes around.

I would like to thank the minister for the shout out to the Woodside Primary School Out of School Hours Care, the Woodside OSHC. The Woodside OSHC is very proactive and presented me with a petition signed by 20 parents calling for these changes. I'm very appreciative of not only the minister's shout out but, of course, these particular changes that will affect many in my community. They told me—this is the Woodside OSHC—that extending the time frame would ease the stress of having to enrol a fortnight before each holiday break and ease having to go through the stress and wasted time involved in dealing with slow department bureaucracy. I was more than happy to write to the Minister for Education about the problem and submit formal questions in writing to his office, and I thank the minister for recognising this issue and addressing this issue in the bill.

The second element of this bill that I'd like to discuss is the amendments to be moved by the minister in the House. The removal of the 28-day grace period for providing tax file numbers and bank account details in order to receive childcare subsidies has caused some concern in the House. In particular, there are concerns—and these are concerns which I share—that the most vulnerable subsidy claimants, such as those facing domestic violence or suffering from natural disasters, will be significantly disadvantaged by the removal of the grace period. I would like to thank the minister for working constructively with my office to find a middle way through. The proposed amendments would allow for discretion to be exercised in the case of exceptional circumstances for people in vulnerable circumstances, and I understand that the minister will be detailing some of the examples where the discretion would apply to give the House a sense of the kinds of protections and exemptions that will apply to people in vulnerable circumstances. We need to make sure that we provide that to people in those circumstances.

I won't delay the House any further. I urge the House to support the government's amendments, and I commend the bill to the House.

Dr HAINES (Indi) (16:26): Child care is not an add-on or a nice-to-have; it's an essential service in a community where we want a thriving economy and maximum workforce participation. For parents, it allows them to work, to train or to study, to open doors and to provide for their families. For children, it keeps them safe and healthy, assists their development and builds their skills for school and into the future.

In June last year the government introduced the new childcare package, which it described as the most significant change to the early-learning and childcare system in 30 years. The bill we are discussing today, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019, is required to address some of the unintended consequences—some might say teething problems—of the childcare package, including any unnecessary regulatory burden. These changes have come about based on the feedback from families in the childcare sector about concerns and possible improvements to the childcare package. They also reflect some of the findings of the interim report that the government commissioned. I recognise the government's efforts in listening to the feedback of the families' childcare providers in developing these amendments. It's this commitment to consultation on this momentous reform to childcare support that makes sure this reform reflects reality and delivers what it sets out to do. In child care, it's important that the voice of the user of the service is adequately reflected.

As the Independent member for Indi, I see my role as to neither support nor oppose whatever the government does and to look at legislation on its merits. I see my role as advocating for sensible, evidence based policy that addresses the needs of Indi and the needs of Australia. On this bill, I did consult with people affected by the bill to see whether it is realistic and will make lives better for families with children in child care. I sought the views of leading childcare providers and asked if the proposed changes were administratively burdensome for providers or, indeed, for families. I'm pleased to say that the providers were firmly in support of the amendments and reported that they would welcome them once the bill came into play. They're satisfied that the amendments, particularly the two main amendments, will improve the new childcare package system. The first is to extend the time frame for ceasing enrolments due to nonattendance from eight to 14 weeks. This will mean that children who use child care only during school holidays will not need to go through the tiresome paperwork of being re-enrolled every time. On this change, my constituents told me that this amendment will lessen the administrative burden for both the services and the parents. I recognise the work of the member for Mayo and her persistence in advocating on behalf of the Woodside Primary School out-of-school-hours care service for this really commonsense solution.

The second amendment removes the 50 per cent limit on the number of children that childcare providers can certify for additional childcare subsidy. As we know, the additional childcare subsidy is a top-up payment, in addition to the childcare subsidy, which provides targeted additional fee assistance to families and children facing barriers in accessing affordable child care. However, the 50 per cent cap has created unnecessary regulatory burdens for providers and caused delays for at-risk children accessing child care. My constituents told me that the removal of this cap will allow more flexibility for services to offer places for additional childcare subsidy children.

I'm pleased to support these amendments and the remainder of the bill. I do, however, wish to recommend that the government consider one further change to the childcare package system. This proposal has come from my constituent Tanya Scott, the CEO of Alpine Children's Services. Alpine Children's Services occupies places in Bright, Mount Beauty and Myrtleford. She's called for the childcare subsidy to be extended to children who need a second year of kindergarten, the year before school, where their parents do not meet the activity test. Currently, there is an exemption from the activity test for one year for parents of kindergarten children, whereby they're still eligible to receive childcare subsidy based on their income only. For children who would benefit from an additional year of kindergarten the removal of CCS from the second year means that these children are being pushed to school when they're not socially, emotionally or educationally ready. We know that the best start a child can get to school is if they're ready to start. Removing this restriction would be advantageous. I would recommend that the government consider this amendment, and I'll pursue this with the minister.

Thriving childcare services are critical everywhere, particularly in rural and regional areas, where they build community sustainability. Having services locally means that young families are able to live and work locally. If these childcare centres close then the community loses a main hub. Once the local childcare centre closes down, the parents must take their children somewhere else, which removes their connection with their local community. It leads to a flow-on effect with the child entering schooling in another town and subsequent potential school closures in their home town. It reduces employment opportunity for skilled childcare professionals and, indeed, for primary teachers, contributing ultimately to the desertification of small country towns.

The sustainability of rural and regional providers can be challenging given the low numbers of children enrolled on an ongoing basis and the sometimes transient populations in these communities, which makes it difficult for providers to plan ahead. The government has recognised that providers in rural and regional areas sometimes do it tough and offer support through the Community Child Care Fund, or the CCCF. The CCCF provides grants to childcare services to reduce barriers to accessing child care, particularly in disadvantaged, regional or remote communities. Minister Tehan's office has advised me that under the CCCF the government is providing $333 million to eligible providers to continue to operate. The majority of these providers are in regional and remote Australia, and I'm really pleased to hear this.

Last week, I was fortunate to see the Community Child Care Fund in action at the Bellbridge Early Years Learning Centre and see how important these targeted supports for rural and regional providers are, both for them and for their communities. I was delighted to get to see through a key piece of work which began before I was elected. In November last year, Albury Wodonga Community College announced that they would stop providing childcare services in the small community of Bellbridge, in the northern end of my electorate. Towong Shire Council stepped in and secured emergency funding, from education minister, Mr Dan Tehan, to keep Bellbridge open for another six months. In June this year the centre received an ongoing grant from the federal government's Community Child Care Fund, which will contribute to the centre's sustainability.

I commend the work of my predecessor, Cathy McGowan, in working with the minister; the shire of Towong and, most importantly, the Bellbridge community, parents and friends who helped make this happen. I was so delighted to join the community of Bellbridge on Friday to celebrate this ongoing government funding along with the mayor of Towong Shire and a senior adviser from Mr Tehan's office—this demonstrates to me the seriousness with which the minister sees this issue, and I thank him for that.

With certainty about their future and a guarantee of ongoing funding, the Bellbridge enrolment has grown from seven to 18. This is a story of success. However, we do have ongoing challenges in my electorate. Impending closures of Chiltern and Wodonga childcare services will leave families struggling to find alternatives, and people out of work, if another provider cannot be found before December 2020. Chiltern is a small community between Wangaratta and Wodonga, two regional cities with good job prospects. It has affordable housing and is attracting a growing number of families with young children. This is its only childcare service. The ramifications of closure will be wideranging. I understand that negotiations are ongoing to find a new provider; and I commend Indigo Shire, who are working very hard on the issue.

In conclusion, I congratulate the government on these reforms and its ongoing commitment to quality, accessible and affordable child care. I am looking forward to seeing the final evaluation report of the package in 2021 and whether there is a reduction in out-of-pocket costs for families across Australia and particularly in my electorate of Indi.

Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Minister for Education) (16:35): I thank those members who spoke on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019. The bill makes some important refinements to the operation of the government's childcare package that was implemented on 2 July 2018. It is clear that the government is delivering on its goal to create a more affordable, accessible and flexible childcare system. With this bill, we will also be making it easier for families and providers to use the childcare subsidy.

Since last July, the government has proactively engaged with the industry and continued to listen to feedback from families and the childcare sector on what aspects of the childcare package have worked well, their concerns and what we could improve. I wish to thank the stakeholders for their continued and positive engagement with us. The key measures contained in this bill reflect feedback from families and childcare providers and will benefit them by making life easier by: extending the time frame for enrolments to be ceased due to a child's non-attendance at a service from eight to 14 weeks, reducing regulatory burden; providing more options for providers to deliver services by removing the limit on the number of children childcare providers can certify as being at risk of serious abuse or neglect to receive a higher rate of subsidy under the additional childcare subsidy, enabling services to be more responsive in assisting vulnerable and disadvantaged children in accessing child care; supporting families who have the most to gain by establishing the capacity for a small number of targeted payments made by third parties to be used in combination with the childcare subsidy to ensure cost is not a barrier to vulnerable and disadvantaged families accessing early learning and child care; supporting families with affordability by enabling parents to receive subsidies when their children are ill and cannot attend scheduled care at the start or end of an enrolment; and making life easier for families with a number of other refinements, corrections and consequential amendments to bring clarity to policy intent and achieve closer alignment with related state and territory laws.

I note that the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee recommended that the Senate pass the bill and recognise that the measures in this bill will enable families to more easily participate in paid work by making child care more accessible, affordable and responsive to the needs of families and their circumstances. I also thank those who made submissions to the committee for their valuable feedback, and I thank colleagues who have spoken with me directly.

I welcome the broad support for the measures in this bill and note suggested changes in relation to one measure in particular. As such, I will be moving a government amendment to allow individuals to request to give their or their partner's tax file number up to 28 days after making a childcare subsidy claim in special circumstances, and to obtain an indefinite exemption to providing their partner's tax file number in special circumstances. This amendment will benefit families by enabling the government to more appropriately respond to their individual circumstances and help them access a childcare subsidy earlier. For example, this may include those who are escaping domestic violence; are homeless, hospitalised or otherwise incapacitated; have recently been released from prison or psychiatric confinement; are affected by a recent death in the family; have lost their homes due to fire or floods; who do not have access to their tax file number due to their or their partner's location; or are experiencing other circumstances beyond their control that affect their ability to provide their or their partner's tax file number.

If this amendment is passed, the changes in this bill will make life easier for families and childcare providers; support vulnerable and disadvantaged families' access to quality early learning and child care; and help parents access financial assistance to support their participation in the workforce. I thank members for their contributions to the key debate on important refinements to the operation of the government's childcare package. I commend the bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (16:40): by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) to (3) together:

(1) Schedule 1, items 35 to 38, page 10 (line 13) to page 11 (line 4), omit the items.

(2) Schedule 1, items 41 and 42, page 11 (line 17) to page 12 (line 7), omit the items.

(3) Schedule 1, items 50 and 51, page 13 (lines 5 to 18), omit the items.

As I outlined in my contribution to the second reading debate, Labor supports this bill; however, we are concerned about the removal of the 28-day grace period. We do welcome the minister's foreshadowed amendments, but on the whole we think it would be much simpler to just continue with the 28-day grace period for families to provide their tax file number and bank account details.

The government has claimed that the provision in this bill will simplify the system for families and providers, but unfortunately this is not supported with evidence. The amendments in the substantive bill require bank account details and a tax file number to be provided at the time the claim is made for the CCS and not at any other time. As previously mentioned, currently an individual has 28 days after the CCS claim is submitted to provide these details. When CCS payments are made without that information being provided within the required time frame, it can result in a debt for families.

While the government argues it's trying to avoid families acquiring this debt, Labor notes that these families are indeed eligible for the childcare subsidy and for early learning and care, but may be unable to access urgent care because they don't have immediate access to their personal information. This has been substantiated and backed up by an overwhelming concern from the sector about the negative impacts that this change will have on families in particularly difficult circumstances who do not have immediate access to their personal documents. This could be families fleeing domestic violence or natural disasters who do not have time to grab their paperwork as they leave their house, but want their children to keep a routine and keep enjoying the benefits of early education. It could be recently arrived migrant families who haven't had a chance to get a bank account or tax file number, but who want to get their kids enrolled in an early learning setting.

A number of submissions made the point that this change will actually remove the flexibility that is currently available in the system, and a bill that is designed to reduce complexity in the system could indeed increase complexity in the system. Early Childhood Australia, Goodstart Early Learning, the Australian Childcare Alliance, and the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia have all strongly opposed the removal of the 28-day period, arguing that removing this measure would be detrimental to vulnerable families. The proposed changes may reduce the administrative burden for the Department of Human Services, but they will increase the administrative burden for families and reduce flexibility. This will have a disproportionately negative impact on those families experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage. By removing the 28-day period and blocking families from registering for the CCS without a bank account or TFN details does reduce that immediate access to early learning. We don't believe that this is warranted or that the government has provided evidence for why this is absolutely necessary. As I said, we understand the government is moving amendments, but we believe that seeking an exemption from the Secretary of the Department of Education adds to the complexity for both centres and families to have to prove why they need the 28-day grace period. It seems a little overcomplicated, and really, when we're talking about 28 days—we're not talking about a year, or three months or six months; we're talking about a mere 28 days—it seems sensible that this grace period should be maintained. Therefore, I moved the amendments circulated in my name.

The SPEAKER: The question before the House is that amendments (1) to (3), as circulated and moved by the member for Kingston, be agreed to.

Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Minister for Education) (16:54): I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) to (4), as circulated, together.

Leave granted.

Mr TEHAN: I move government amendments (1) to (4), as circulated, together:

(1) Schedule 1, page 10 (after line 12), after item 34, insert:

34A Section 67BE

Before "A claim", insert "(1)".

(2) Schedule 1, page 10 (after line 22), after item 35, insert:

35A At the end of section 67BE

Add:

(2) The Secretary may make a written determination that paragraph (1)(d) does not apply in relation to a claim for 28 days after the day the determination is made, if the Secretary is satisfied that it is appropriate in the circumstances to do so.

(3) If:

(a) a determination under subsection (2) is made in relation to a claim; and

(b) the Secretary is satisfied that it is appropriate in the circumstances that paragraph (1)(d) not apply in relation to the claim indefinitely;

the Secretary may, before the end of the 28 days after the day the determination is made, make a further written determination accordingly.

(3) Schedule 1, item 36, page 10 (lines 25 and 26), omit subsection 67BF(2), substitute:

(2) A claim is taken not to have been made by an individual if:

(a) the Secretary has made a determination under subsection 67BE(2) in relation to the claim; and

(b) at the end of the 28 days after the day the determination was made:

(i) if the Secretary has made a further determination under subsection 67BE(3) in relation to the claim—the individual has not provided the individual's tax file number; or

(ii) if the Secretary has not made a further determination under subsection 67BE(3) in relation to the claim—the individual has not provided the tax file number of each TFN claim person.

(3) The Secretary's rules may prescribe other circumstances in which a claim is taken not to have been made.

(4) Schedule 1, item 41, page 11 (lines 26 to 30), omit paragraph 67CD(10)(b), substitute:

(b) any of the following applies:

(i) the Secretary has the tax file number of each TFN determination person;

(ii) the Secretary made a determination under subsection 67BE(2) or (3) in relation to the individual's claim no more than 28 days ago;

(iii) the Secretary made a request of the individual under section 67FG no more than 28 days ago;

(iv) the Secretary has the tax file number of the individual and is satisfied that it is unreasonable in the circumstances for the individual to provide the tax file number of each TFN determination person other than the individual;

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Minister for Education) (16:56): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (16:56): Here we are again! This will be the fourth time that I've delivered a speech in this parliament about the measures that were introduced by the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018. Before I continue, it is worth recounting some history. Following its introduction into the parliament, on 20 September 2018, the assistance and access bill was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That committee, of which I was, and remain, a member, was in the process of carefully and methodically working its way through the very many problems with the bill, because, in the form in which it was originally introduced, the assistance and access bill was deeply flawed in many respects.

When the bill was referred to the intelligence and security committee for inquiry and report, the government did not indicate a date by which the committee should report. That was appropriate given the degree of complexity of the measures that were introduced by that bill. However, on 22 November 2018, in the wake of a fatal terrorist attack in Melbourne, which killed one person, the Minister for Home Affairs wrote to the committee to ask it to 'accelerate its consideration of this vital piece of legislation to enable its passage by the parliament before it rises for the Christmas break'. The committee was understandably sceptical of the minister's request. My Labor colleagues and I were particularly sceptical in light of the fact that the Minister for Home Affairs had a clear political interest in ensuring that the assistance and access bill was not properly scrutinised by the committee. That was because every time the committee held a public hearing in respect of the bill we heard further embarrassing revelations about flaws in the bill and about the competence of the Minister for Home Affairs and his colleagues. To take just two shocking examples: first, it was revealed that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Commonwealth Ombudsman—the key Commonwealth oversight bodies—found out about the exposure draft of the assistance and access bill from media reports; second, the committee learned that the government, as well as failing to consult with key Commonwealth agencies, had failed to consult with any of the hundreds, and possibly thousands, of the small to medium-sized Australian businesses who could be significantly impacted by the onerous regulatory requirements the bill could impose on them.

So rather than immediately acceding to the minister's request for the committee to expedite its inquiry by effectively shutting it down, the committee instead held urgent hearings with relevant agencies to gather evidence from them regarding the necessity and urgency of the proposed new powers. Following those hearings, the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee agreed to expedite its inquiry to facilitate the passage of the legislation before Christmas of 2018, but only if the legislation were substantially amended to address some of the key concerns that had by that time been raised by industry, by digital rights groups, by lawyers and by technology experts. To that end, the committee made 17 recommendations to improve the flawed legislation which the government had brought to the parliament.

On 6 December 2018, the final sitting day of last year, the government introduced 173 amendments to the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 in response to the committee's recommendations. No reasonable person accepts the government's fanciful claim that the 173 amendments implemented the committee's recommendations in full. In fact, it was immediately apparent that the amendments which the government had deigned to bring before the parliament were seriously deficient in a number of respects. That is why Labor only agreed to support the passage of the assistance and access bill and the government's 173 amendments to it on the condition that, firstly, the new laws, as amended, be immediately referred to the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee for inquiry and report and, secondly, the government agreed to facilitate consideration of further amendments in early 2019 to ensure that the new laws fully conformed with the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee's recommendations.

On behalf of the government, Senator Mathias Cormann agreed to those conditions. As recorded in Hansard, Senator Cormann also said that the government supported, in principle, all amendments that were consistent with the Joint Intelligence and Security committee's recommendations. But here we are, a year later, in the final sitting fortnight of 2019, and it remains the case that Senator Cormann and the government have not honoured the commitment that Senator Cormann made. It remains the case that the Morrison government continues to ignore the bipartisan recommendations made by the intelligence committee, continues to ignore the calls for reform of the now enacted legislation from industry and continues to ignore the very direct commitment that it made.

That is not the only piece of unfinished business in relation to the assistance and access act. A number of submitters to the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee's inquiry argued that the bill was not compliant with the United States Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act—the CLOUD Act—which was enacted in March 2018. Under the US CLOUD Act, it is possible for Australia to enter into a bilateral agreement with the United States to allow Australian agencies to request the data of non-US persons, like text messages sent by or to a terrorist subject, from American technology companies directly. This new regime, if Australia is able to enter into a bilateral agreement with the United States, would give Australian agencies much faster access than under the existing regime of making such requests via the US Department of Justice under mutual legal assistance arrangements.

The opportunity that the US CLOUD Act offers is hugely significant for Australian law enforcement and for our national security. It is hugely significant for keeping Australians safe. Under current arrangements, it can take up to two years for Australia police or security agencies to access data held in the United States on platforms like Facebook—data which could, if provided in a timely manner, lead to the arrest of a pedophile or assist authorities to thwart a terrorist attack. But there is a catch: in order to qualify for one of these bilateral agreements with the United States under the US CLOUD Act, Australia's domestic laws must afford:

… robust substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties in light of the data collection and activities of the foreign government that will be subject to the agreement.

In my second reading speech on 6 December 2018, I expressed concern that the government's assistance and access bill did not afford such 'robust, substantive and procedural protections' and, for that reason, could pose a risk to security cooperation with United States if the bill was not amended. A number of Labor MPs and senators also raised this concern in their second reading speeches on the legislation. Partly to ensure that Australia would be able to take advantage of this vital new security mechanism being offered by the United States, Labor made an election commitment to amend the measures introduced by the assistance and access act to ensure that they were subject, among other things, to judicial oversight.

Lest there be any doubt about the significance of the new arrangements that are possible under the CLOUD Act, it's of course the case that the United Kingdom has already taken advantage of what the US has offered by passing the CLOUD Act—that is, the United Kingdom has already entered an agreement with the United States. The United Kingdom is already being offered access under the CLOUD Act because the United Kingdom understood the need to ensure that its domestic legislation conformed to United States requirements, and, indeed, they amended a range of United Kingdom domestic legislation to achieve that end.

The current Australian government, this Liberal government, by contrast, is continuing to pretend that no changes are needed to Australian domestic legislation. It's continuing to pretend that no changes will be needed to the assistance and access act so much so that, if one comes forward to 7 October 2019, we learnt from the Minister for Home Affairs in an announcement that he made that the United States and Australia have finally—this is more than a year after the United States passed its CLOUD Act—commenced formal negotiations for a bilateral agreement under the CLOUD Act. It is truly extraordinary that this government has taken so long to recognise the potential value of the CLOUD Act to Australia and Australian law enforcement agencies. As I've said, the British government, by contrast, recognised it instantly, and has already concluded its negotiations and entered into a bilateral agreement with the United States. While it has taken far too long, Labor welcomes the fact that the Australian government has finally commenced negotiations on our behalf.

However, less than 24 hours after the announcement made by the Minister for Home Affairs that negotiations had commenced, we received a warning from the United States. The chairman of the United States house judiciary committee, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, sent a letter to Minister for Home Affairs, expressing grave concerns about—you guessed it!—the absence of 'robust, substantive and procedural protections' in respect of the measures introduced by the Australian government's assistance and access bill. That is hugely significant, because the United States Congress can, in effect, veto any agreement that is struck between the government of the United States—that is, the Trump administration—and the Australian government under the CLOUD Act. Of course, the house judiciary committee plays a pivotal role in scrutinising any agreement which is struck between the United States and Australia that comes before congress, and it is a requirement of the US CLOUD Act that any such agreement will have to come before the United States Congress for approval.

So let me repeat something I said in this chamber on 6 December last year: it is absolutely vital that the measures introduced by the assistance and access bill, which are now part of the law of Australia, conform to what the United States regards as robust, substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties, and that in turn will need to take account of what is known as Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in the United States, a key feature of which is judicial warrants. The Fourth Amendment is, of course, the part of the Bill of Rights, the part of the US Constitution, which requires that there be no unreasonable search and seizure.

What the United States and United States authorities are always looking for in order to ensure robust, substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties is judicial oversight of, and judicial warrants authorising, compulsive processes by government, such as those created by the assistance and access act. At present, the measures introduced by the assistance and access act do not include that form of judicial oversight by requiring judicial warrants for their exercise.

Let me repeat something else that I said when I spoke about this legislation in this chamber on 12 February 2019:

As a matter of principle, Labor does not believe that the Attorney-General or a senior police officer should be given the power to compel an innocent person—

including a law-abiding Australian technology company—

unconnected to an investigation to provide technical assistance to a government agency without a warrant …

That is not to say that the introduction of judicial warrants will fix everything that is wrong with the assistance and access act. The legislation has many problems, and those are currently being worked through carefully and methodically by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and by the intelligence and security committee. The purpose of this particular bill, which is on any view a minor procedural bill, is to ensure that the intelligence and security committee has sufficient time to do that important and difficult job properly.

But those processes that I've just outlined—that is, the inquiry that's currently being conducted by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and the inquiry that is currently being conducted by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—should not get in the way of the government introducing legislation right now to ensure that the measures that were introduced by the assistance and access act: firstly, conform to the recommendations that were made by the intelligence and security committee in December 2018; and, secondly, are subject to robust, substantive and procedural protections. As well as ensuring that the rights of the Australian people are properly protected and the interests of Australian business are properly respected, this would address one of the obstacles that may lie in the way of securing an agreement with the United States under the CLOUD Act. It's essential that the government do everything possible, and do so much more quickly than it has been doing, to ensure that Australia is able, like the United Kingdom, to take advantage of the processes that have been made available under the US CLOUD Act to give our agencies access—speedy access—to telecommunications data that is sourced from US telecommunications companies.

The Morrison government needs to urgently respond to the significant concerns about the legislation that it has passed. These are significant concerns which have been expressed by Labor. They are concerns which have been expressed by the chair of the US house judiciary committee, Congressman Jerrold Nadler. They are concerns that have been expressed by industry, by digital rights groups, and by lawyers and technology experts. Labor is ready and willing to work with the government to ensure that the measures introduced by the assistance and access act are amended to address any and all obstacles in the way of securing the best outcome for Australian police and security agencies, and for the Australian people. I move the second reading amendment in the terms circulated:

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

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes the lengthy delays currently faced by Australian police and security agencies seeking to access data held in the United States;

(2) acknowledges that the Government has finally begun negotiations for an agreement with the United States to decrease the time it takes for Australian police and security agencies to access such data;

(3) expresses concern that the absence of robust protections for privacy and civil liberties in the Telecommunications and Other Legislation (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 could threaten the prospects of an agreement being reached with the United States;

(4) criticises the Liberal Government for refusing to support Labor's amendments in December 2018 to include such protections; and

(5) calls on the Liberal Government to work productively with Labor to ensure that the measures introduced by the Telecommunications and Other Legislation (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 are amended to ensure the best outcome for Australian police and security agencies, and the Australian people".

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

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (17:15): I second the amendment. It's a real pleasure to make a contribution on behalf of Labor to the discussion today. I want to thank the member for Isaacs, who's just taken you through quite a detailed account of the history of the debate that we've had about this bill in the parliament, and he's also highlighted some of the really critical national security issues that this bill has given rise to. Our spokesperson on cybersecurity is going to follow my speech, and he will make a quality contribution about those security issues.

I am Labor's spokesperson on technology, and I really want to talk today about the other side of this bill and its implications. That is about the economic impacts, because one of the first things I noticed in this portfolio, coming into the shadow ministry for technology, is that the debate we have about technology issues in this parliament needs to be lifted. I don't think anyone in this room would disagree with that. I'm very much a part of the problem—I've been here for six years—but I do think we need to improve the quality of how we talk about these issues. We don't tend to talk about technology issues at the sort of foundation level where we see them affecting the families and businesses that we represent in the community. When we do talk about tech issues in the parliament, I'm not sure that we are creating the space for the quality conversation that needs to be had.

There is literally no better example of that problem than the bill that is before the parliament and the amendment that's been made to that bill. It's absolutely obvious that technology is giving people who want to commit crimes new ways to commit those crimes. It's giving law enforcement a much broader suite of ways that it can determine and build evidence about people who are committing crimes. We need to take advantage of some of those opportunities, but the thing that always needs to be a part of this conversation—that must be central and pivotal to this conversation—is the important economic impacts that all of these decisions will have. One of the things I noticed in the discussion that we had about this bill in the parliament was we talked a lot about national security, but it was Labor people labouring the point and trying to make the case that this is an important and pivotal industry that will employ almost 800,000 Australians by 2022, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas. They're in your electorate; they're in the electorate of every person in this chamber. When we make decisions like the one that led to this bill, we do a disservice to that industry. Instead of trying to sit on that industry's head, we need to be building, nourishing and growing it, because that is our economic future and those are the jobs of the future.

The way that this bill was put forward by the government was really poorly done—not just in the technology space, but by any stretch. The shadow Attorney­General talked about two pieces of evidence for this. Because this was a security bill, it went to the PJCIS committee, which reviews security legislation for the parliament. Through the hearings of that committee, it was revealed that when the government first proposed the bill the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Commonwealth Ombudsman, which are the key oversight bodies for the bill, found out about the exposure draft of this bill from media reports. Anyone who is even faintly aware of how government works can see that is ham-fisted. It is no way to make a good law—for the pivotal people who will help oversee the legislation to find out about it from media. It is just unbelievable to hear that a critical piece of national security legislation could be designed that way.

The other extraordinary thing that came out of that committee—I thought—was the fact it uncovered that, as well as failing to consult with key Commonwealth agencies, the government failed to consult with the thousands of small businesses that will be affected by the regulatory requirements this bill puts on those businesses. We have the government coming in here every day, and they love to talk about small business and how they see themselves as representatives of that sector in this House. Well it's apparently not true, because they put together a bill with enormous impacts across the whole of the economy without discussing it with the very people who would be most affected by it.

We on this side found this whole process incredibly troubling. I think you'll remember, Deputy Speaker Georganas, at the time—this was last December—we had this discussion as a parliament. There were Labor people who were raising really significant issues of concern. The government blasted ahead. They insisted that that bill had to be dealt with before the Christmas break, and Labor agreed. Labor tries to work on a bipartisan basis with the government on national security issues because those are issues, of all the ones we deal with, that should be above politics. We wanted to work in a bipartisan way. We agreed to pass the bill even though we knew there were issues, even though the government acknowledged there were issues, on the proviso that, when we returned here at the beginning of 2019, this would be one of the first items on the agenda. What have we heard since then? Basically crickets from the government. Nothing has been brought back to the House which will help us resolve the issues in this bill. Here we are, almost a year on, having an agreement of trust that was made between the government and opposition completely broken. That's incredibly disappointing. We have our disputes in this place but, usually, when you make a deal like that about how a piece of legislation that affects national security is going to be dealt with by the parliament, you get good faith from both sides and that is how we would like to see it. But unfortunately I stand here today, a year on from an unedifying debate that took place in this chamber, and yet we're nowhere on trying to fix this issue.

This is very important to me and the people that I represent in the tech community outside the House, and I say that with absolute categorical confidence. In the five months that I've been in the role of shadow minister for technology I have met the most incredible people who are trying to grow this incredible industry for us in Australia. I've met people who are trying to educate Australians in STEM skills. I've met so many people who are doing that incredibly risky thing and starting their own venture out in the private sector, inventing something completely new, developing new technology, and scientists who are creating new ways of doing things that aren't done anywhere else in the world. The No. 1 issue that is always raised with me by people in this community is this bill. It is not even a broad suite of issues about how we're handling technology; it is this bill. When I say 'What can the government do to help you? What can we do to assist you in growing your business?' They say, 'First principle: do no harm.' That is what they see this bill as. It is the rushed nature, the lack of clarity about what key terms in this legislation mean that a year on have still not been clarified.

I'm referring specifically to issues that are core to the way that the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 works, including systematic weakness and vulnerabilities that were added to the bill quite late in the day. Still today there are people out there trying to run technology companies and cybersecurity companies, and the impact of this legislation is not clear. The government has had a year to fix this problem and, despite having promised the opposition, promised the tech community and promised the Australian people that they would come back in here and, as a matter of priority, fix this bill, we're here a year on and nothing much has changed.

The clarification of these specific terms that I mentioned is crucially important to the impact of this bill on the sector. That's because—you'll probably remember from the initial debate we had, Deputy Speaker Georganas—the existing systemic weakness or vulnerability limitations don't prevent a tech company being directed by a government agency to do things that would or could compromise the security of their critical systems. This is the No. 1 thing people in the community have been concerned about. I've mentioned some of the stakeholders that I represent in this chamber and I use those words specifically because it's actually not Labor that is alone in criticising the way the government has handled this. I want to share a couple of quotes from people working in technology who have been particularly upset by this bill. Scott Farquhar is one of those. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian. He said:

We've got to recognise this law threatens jobs.

…   …   …

The fact is that the jobs of the future—these high paying jobs, export dollars that we bring to Australia, largely in technology—are at risk because of the laws that have been passed.

Alan Jones, the general partner at M8 Ventures, has said of this legislation:

It won't have a practical effect on monitoring the people they want to monitor, but it will cripple Aussie tech.

What I hear from those leaders, as well as the general concerns that they have about this bill, is that they actually see this legislation as emblematic of the government's entire approach to their industry. It is absolutely deaf to the voices in the digital sector, and it's not particularly interested in supporting the future growth of those jobs of the future.

I'm really worried about this. One of the other aspects of my role is spokesperson for my party on the jobs of the future. There are communities around this country that are hurting a lot because of the way the economy is changing and the way that's benefitting and hurting different Australians. The very least thing government could do in the face of that problem is, if we as a nation are going to cop some of the downsides of the future of work, we have to capitalise on the upsides; otherwise we pay a huge price for these changes that are occurring and all the benefits and the highly skilled, high-paying jobs that might be created through the new economy are going to end up offshore. This is a very important issue for Australia's economic future, and it's frustrating to see the government deal with it in such a ham-fisted way.

I want to speak a little bit more about the digital economy, because it's not just this bill that I'm worried about in the context of the government's failure to support this industry. AlphaBeta, a consulting firm in Sydney, produced a report recently commissioned by the Digital Industry Group. It showed that Australia is lagging behind global peers and failing to capture the economic opportunities of the very fast-growing digital economy. The report found that Australia ranks second-last among OECD countries for the relative size of our technology sector and its contribution to the economy. This is such a wake-up call for us. We're second-last in the OECD when we are one of the richest countries in the OECD. That is a harbinger of very concerning things to come. This is meant to be the way we build our economic future, but we're second to last in the OECD.

There's no doubt that the technology sector is making a significant contribution, but we can do so much more to help and support them. We need the active engagement and leadership of our government. The AlphaBeta report indicates that the tech sector contributes $122 billion to the economy every year, equivalent to 6.6 per cent of our GDP. Even with all the neglect and the blithe unconcern on the other side of the chamber about the future of this industry, they are growing against the odds, and there is so much more that we could do to support them. They're creating $44 billion a year in additional value to consumers in the form of free, cheaper and more convenient access to the resources, entertainment and information that improve our lives and wellbeing. We think those figures could and should be higher with the right policy settings. Some of the figures suggest that the Australian tech sector could create an additional $50 billion per year if Australia could catch up and match the tech sector growth rates of our global peers.

The research has also shown that small businesses in Australia that have embraced digital technology have experienced a massive productivity boost over the past decade. There is a huge opportunity here to unlock productivity and unlock additional economic impact if we can actually help our tech sector reach the 2.2 million Australian small businesses to make sure that they're accessing and utilising the latest technologies. There's huge growth potential here, but we need to have a coordinated approach to the digital economy. What we have on the opposite side of the chamber is a government which is almost in its seventh year of office and which still has nothing to say on these subjects, except an incredibly damaging piece of legislation that they'd promised to fix within a number of months and haven't done anything about.

It's not just the digital economy where we see this sort of neglect from government. One of the other areas that's related to this subject is about innovation and the digital economy. I'm sure many members of parliament read the reports of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull making a rare foray into public commentary to give the government a bit of a whack over its approach to innovation since he left the prime ministership. He said that innovation is not Prime Minister Scott Morrison's comfort zone. I think many people on the Labor side would agree with that.

Mr Turnbull also said Australia cannot drop the ball on innovation any longer. I think that when we look at the numbers, there is absolutely no question that dropping the ball is exactly what has happened in the last six years. Despite all the hype and all the talk about the ideas boom and that this is the greatest time to be an Australian, government research and development expenditure fell 19 per cent in real terms in just two financial years. A fifth of our spending disappeared within two financial years. In 2019 there were 2,000 fewer people working in government funded R&D programs than there were in the mid 1990s. Deputy Speaker, think about how much our economy has changed and yet we're short-changing R&D, we're short-changing our scientists and we're short-changing our tech sector.

I'm going to have to leave my comments there, but maybe I'll just finish with a call to arms for the people on the opposite side of the chamber who actually understand this industry and care about its growth. This is the pivotal building block of Australia's economic future. We have a government that is not only neglecting to have a plan to do anything about helping that sector grow but actually has introduced legislation—and that's probably the only way that Australia has made the news on this subject in recent years—and it's a downside. We can do better. (Time expired)

Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (17:31): It is with some regret that I rise to speak on the Telecommunications (Intersection and Access) Amendment (Amendments Review) Bill 2019 before the House, because this bill represents a series of failures: a failure of process, a failure of bipartisanship on matters of national security, a failure of the Morrison government to keep its word and a failure by this place to legislate in a way that supports the growth of the Australian technology sector. In this way, this bill represents a failure of our own economic future.

The impact of the failures in public trust and confidence in this parliament and on the conventions of this place represented by this bill cannot be remedied by amending legislation alone, although many amendments are certainly needed. These failures will only be remedied over time by the conduct and the actions of those of us in this place: by us treating the legislative process with more respect, by putting the national interest above short-term political interests and by actually listening and talking with the technology sector outside this place, as was just so eloquently put by the member for Hotham.

We need to be frank in this parliament: in many ways, Australia is viewed as a worldwide joke in technology policy. From former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's infamous war on maths to the new Department of Home Affairs' policy to use facial recognition technology to verify Australians' use of pornography on the internet, those of us who work in technology policy, who move in those circles and travel the world talking to people, know that around the world Australia is viewed as the global village idiot in technology policy. We need to do something about that in this place.

One step we can take in this respect is to restore process to this place—to restore accountability and proper consideration of legislation so that the mistakes represented in this bill are not replicated in the future. In this respect, we need to restore the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—the PJCIS—to its former position as a serious institution of our parliament and a place of genuine bipartisanship scrutiny and review of legislation of this kind. Membership of the PJCIS is coveted in this place because it grapples with the most serious issues before the House—issues of life and death, issues of state powers and individual freedoms. Its work has immediate and weighty human consequences. The PJCIS was once a institution where proposals were rigorously interrogated in the national interest and where members from both sides of politics worked together on improving legislation before the House.

I acknowledge the cynicism that many on the Left have towards the work of the PJCIS. They see its history of bipartisan reports and then see it as a place of capitulation. I get it—I do. But this cynicism does an incredible disservice to the work undertaken by members of this committee. Bipartisanship on these serious issues is not easily won in this committee. Lengthy inquiries and extensive hearings have been followed by even lengthier and extremely robust debates within the committee and negotiations between members. These negotiations are complex and detailed—they're technical and expert. They regularly produce dozens of amendments to the bills considered by the House, amendments that are then made to the bills not as opposition amendments but as government amendments and as a voice for all of us. The fact that these bills aren't amended further by the opposition doesn't reflect parliamentary capitulation; it reflects the robustness of the PJCIS process.

And that's why it was so disappointing last year when the Morrison government abruptly halted the PJCIS inquiry into the assistance and access bill in order to allow the bill to be forced through the parliament in the final sitting week of 2018. The member for Isaacs, the shadow Attorney-General, has recounted in depressing detail the shambolic process that that bill took through both the PJCIS and the parliament last year. The member for Hotham related how this shambolic process resulted in the small business technologies that we hope to grow jobs in the future being cut out of the consultation process. Indeed, key defence exporters, people working in my portfolio of responsibility in cybersecurity, were caught unawares by this bill. This bill represented everything that business hates about government—ramming through legislation, heedless of its consequences, not understanding the impact on their own businesses.

Despite the abrupt end to the inquiry—and thanks, frankly, to a herculean effort by the member for Isaacs and the member for Holt, the Labor members of the PJCIS—the committee provided a series of recommendations for the amendment of this bill, the majority of which were not incorporated into the bill by the government. Byignoringthe PJCIS, the government threw out of the window the longstanding tradition of bipartisanship when it comes to national security and protecting Australians' safety. Trust conventions in this parliament take decades to build up but moments to destroy, and that's what happened in the last sitting week of parliament last year. Even more troubling was the tone of the debate in the second reading speech, where those opposite attacked the motivation of Labor members in the most personal and reprehensible ways. They accused Labor members of wanting to assist terrorists and pedophiles merely because we expressed widely held legitimate concerns about the operation of the bill and wanted to exert the scrutiny required to understand these complex proposals in the national interest. It was a shameful performance by those opposite.

Surely our politics can be better than this. Nobody in this chamber sympathises with terrorists or child abusers. No human being is soft on this. It is important that we are able to have to have complex, nuanced debates on issues like this in the parliament without resorting to disgraceful slurs of this kind—particularly in the technology sector, where these issues are inherently complex. Technology is a complex field, particularly for those with no experience in the sector. The potential for legislation creating unintended consequences is significant and it puts a premium on the in-depth, high-quality consultation between government and technical experts.

That's exactly what didn't happen with respect to this bill. In its politically motivated haste, and its desire to wedge the opposition, the Morrison government passed legislation that potentially closed off access to an important investigative tool for Australian law enforcement agencies. Existing US law prevents US companies from sharing information that they hold outside US borders, outside the existing mutual legal assistance treaty regime, even under warrant from an Australian court. This mutual legal assistance treaty regime is bureaucratic and underresourced. In 2013 the average time to process an MLAT request was 10 months; and, given the dramatically increasing volume of requests we have seen, there is reason to believe this time frame has blown out considerably since then. This means that when Australian law enforcement officials are investigating a crime and they believe that their investigations could be assisted by accessing data held by an electronic communication storage or communications company based in the US—like Facebook, Google or Microsoft—and they are able to convince an Australian court to issue a warrant granting access to this information, it will still take them well over a year to access this information because of this inefficient process.

Access to this stored data data—or 'data at rest' in the industry lingo—is likely to be of far greater value for law enforcement than the intercepted communications. It offers a far greater volume of information about suspects and a richer view of the suspects' communications. And the delays in accessing this information are a significant impediment to law enforcement. To streamline this process for obtaining access to US-held information requested under warrant by another jurisdiction, the US Congress passed the CLOUD Act, a law that authorises the negotiation of bilateral agreements between the US and other nations to streamline this information-sharing process, shortening the time to access the information from years to weeks. However, the CLOUD Act provides that the US government may only enter into agreements under the CLOUD Act where the other government's domestic laws have:

… robust substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties in light of the data collection and activities of the foreign government that will be subject to the agreement.

By ramming through the assistance and access bill without judicial oversight for the notices issued under it we have put our compliance with this in jeopardy. Well before the Morrison government passed the assistance and access bill in December 2018, they were warned that the bill may not provide these robust, substantive and procedural protections.

A submission made to the PJCIS in October 2018b y the Digital Industry Group, which includes representatives from Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter, noted: 'If our access regime doesn't contain sufficient safeguards for user privacy, there's a chance the US Congress will not approve a treaty with Australia under the CLOUD Act, which will interfere with legitimate law enforcement investigations.' In my second reading speech on this bill—I quote myself and I couldn't agree with myself more—I said:

This bill doesn't resolve, and may even make more difficult, the mutual legal assistance treaties and the CLOUD Act problems in us accessing data from these providers overseas.

The government ignored these warnings. They ignored warnings from industry. They ignored warnings from civil society. They ignored warnings from members of this parliament during the scrutiny of this bill in this place. And instead they play politics and they rush through a deeply flawed piece of legislation. Those flaws are now catching up with the government.

On 4 October this year, only days before the Minister for Home Affairs and the US Attorney-General, William Barr, announced that negotiations on an Australia-US bilateral CLOUD Act agreement had begun, Congressman Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the US house judiciary committee, sent a letter to the Minister for Home Affairs expressing concerns about the absence of robust, substantive and procedural protections in the assistance and access act. Congressman Nadler's letter highlighted that the lack of judicial authorisation and review under Australia's encryption laws—something those on this side of the House warned about—made it difficult for the US to enter into a CLOUD Act data sharing agreement. This is someone speaking on behalf of the body who will be able to give an up or down consent on any agreement negotiated between the executive of the United States and Australia. It's a warning that we ought to heed.

The assistance and access act, rushed through the parliament in the name of protecting Australians against terrorists and paedophiles, now seems to be jeopardising Australian safety. It's jeopardising our law enforcement and national security agencies' ability to access critical investigatory data within weeks, instead of years, when investigating serious crimes like terrorism and paedophilia.

Despite the shortcomings in the long-term in this bill, in the last parliament Labor ultimately agreed to support the bill in the last sitting of the year—indeed, on the last sitting day of the year—on the advice of security agencies that the powers of the bill were necessary to protect Australians from imminent security threats during the months-long summer recess of the parliament. In exchange, the government committed to progressing these amendments to the bill recommended on a bipartisan basis by the PJCIS in early 2019.

On 6 December 2018 the Minister for Finance announced in the Senate that the government would 'facilitate consideration of these amendments in the new year in government business time.' The Minister for Finance also said that the government 'supported in principle all amendments that are consistent with the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommendations in relation to this bill'. I guess his word meant as much to us as it meant to Malcolm Turnbull. The Morrison government pettily broke this promise when parliament resumed in February 2019.

Almost a year later the government still hasn't kept its promise. On a crucial issue of national security it's dudded the parliament. It's time the government not only honours its promise to Labor but also honours a longstanding bipartisan tradition in this place when it comes to national security.

The assistance and access act is flawed in many ways. It hinders our law enforcement agencies' ability to investigate serious crimes. It hinders our ability to enter into an agreement with the US on the CLOUD Act, undermining our longstanding relationship with the US. The shambolic way that this bill was drafted and reviewed by the parliament has also created a series of enduring myths and public misconceptions about this bill that go beyond even the existing factual flaws of the bill, severely damaging perceptions of the law domestically and abroad. It's really hurt 'brand Australia' in the technology space, hindering the Australian tech industry's ability to innovate and expand their businesses, destroying jobs and causing damage to an industry that should be the engine of creating these jobs of the future.

We need to return to bipartisanship on these issues. To this end, I'm heartened by the PJCIS's recent report on the identity-matching services bills and its recommendation that these bills not proceed without being fundamentally rewritten. This creates the potential to restore the PJCIS to its former role as a place of genuine bipartisanship and legislative review in our parliament. It is also why I welcome the assistance and access amendments review bill, the bill before the House, which will extend the reporting date for the PJCIS's review of the assistance and access act from 13 April 2020 to 30 September 2020. It will give the PJCIS a second chance to get this right, to look at this bill in its totality, to do the consultations it should have done the first time, to listen to the experts in the Australian technology sector and to get the drafting right. Issues like the prohibition on issuing notices in a circumstance where it will create a systemic weakness are crucial; they are pivot points for this bill. The amendments only exist in the bill, frankly, because of the work of the Labor members of the PJCIS. To be operative, they need to be appropriately designed, drafted and understood throughout the industry. I welcome the review of this bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (17:46): I don't buy for one minute any suggestion that this government has suddenly discovered its inner voice when it comes to consultation—that it in some way has suddenly had a revelation in the middle of the night that it's done the wrong thing and needs to listen to people about this bill, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Assistance and Access Amendments Review) Bill 2019, and, in particular, at the heart of this bill, about the whole architecture that was spawned around encryption, and the access arrangements for that. There were 15,000 submissions made by people in Australia's tech sector about the flaws in this bill. This government refused to take those submissions on board, refused to make a lot of those submissions public and refused to listen to what was said. On top of that, they then tried to shut down the committee when it was considering this bill. They tried to shut down consultation on, and consideration and criticism of, this bill back at the tail end of last year—this time 12 months ago. That is what they did. And, in their inability to manage the legislative program, they failed to bring their own legislation to this place to have it properly discussed in a timely way and to ensure that, when it got to the other place, the amendments could be considered.

The finance minister gave his word to us as a Labor opposition. The finance minister made a commitment that, in return for allowing the bill to go through, he would consider the amendments that in good faith reflected what the PJCIS had said needed to be amended; there were 17 recommendations that triggered nearly 200 amendments to the bill. The finance minister made a commitment that those amendments would be considered in the new year. But the honour of the finance minister gave way to his fear of the home affairs minister, and those amendments never got considered. So the government ratted, the home affairs minister ratted and the finance minister yet again bowed to the home affairs minister—we saw how that worked countless times last year—in failing to put those amendments through. And now, all of a sudden, the government say they need extra time to consider the work of both the PJCIS and the INSLM. This is why I say I don't buy what's being put forward by the government, because they're not fair dinkum about making the necessary changes to this.

As the shadow assistant minister, the member for Gellibrand, just pointed out a few moments ago, their failure to do the right thing has caught up to the government. Their failure to address the flaws the way the PJCIS recommended that they be fixed, in the face of the criticisms that were raised at the time about our inability to get access to data because our arrangements wouldn't conform with the way the US expects these things to be managed, is now catching up to the government. And their failure to fix that has jeopardised national security. It has jeopardised our ability to access the data that is required and that can be accessed if it's done the right way, in line with the US CLOUD Act. Because the government rammed through the changes, wouldn't listen to advice and ratted on a deal about this, we are now in a position where our national security is not strengthened; it's weakened. It's been weakened fundamentally because we're not allowed to get access to this data.

The other reason I don't trust this government's new-found commitment to consultation and extending the period for consideration of this is that the home affairs minister is peddling the idea that he has created a backdoor that will allow a new backdoor to be created in terms of encryption by going around and saying that these legislative arrangements that would never see the light of day in the US will gain them access to information that other jurisdictions could not access on their own turf. They have put in place a weaker, diluted set of arrangements in relation to encryption here and they're now flogging that concept overseas to other jurisdictions. So, when the chair of the house judiciary committee writes to Australia, writes to the government, and says they've got serious doubts about what the Australian government has put in place, I say—through you, Deputy Speaker McVeigh—to that chair: you are spot on the money. Jerrold Nadler is spot on the money. The house judiciary committee is spot on the money, and I absolutely urge US lawmakers to recognise that this act is flawed and that, until this government fixes the flaws in this legislation, this government should get nowhere near, and should not be considered compliant to, the US CLOUD Act at all.

The message that should be taken by our friends across the Pacific is that what this government has done is tried to put a shoddy backdoor arrangement into the way that this data should be accessed, and it should not be gifted that access. In particular, the way this government put these so-called judicial oversight arrangements in place with a retired judge and then getting two ministers to agree with each other on getting access to it in terms of the arrangements under this act—this is a terrible arrangement. This is not judicial oversight at all. This is an absolute and utter facade.

Why do we need to extend the period of time for this to be considered when we know all these flaws exist right now and they should be fixed? They absolutely should be fixed. Frankly, as the Labor opposition we will not give up at all on pressing the case for these laws to be fixed. They need to be fixed to ensure, from a national security perspective, that we get access to the type of data that is needed to prevent harm to others in the community.

On another quite distinct plane, we should make sure that Australia's tech sector is not treated as a pariah on the world stage. There are doubts being expressed by those overseas to tech companies here. They say that they're genuinely concerned about the arrangements the Australian government has put in place and they're questioning whether or not they can work with Australian tech. They're wondering whether or not Australian tech is robust because of what's been unleashed as a result of this act. The Australian tech sector should not be put in that position whatsoever by this government—this government that claims it's pro-business but did everything it could to ignore the views of business on this.

Business said it wanted to work with the government to achieve what it wanted to but not in the way that the government was proposing. Australian and overseas businesses, particularly from the tech sector, wanted to work with the government in the way it had sought. As an opposition, many of us on this side of the chamber had said that if someone wants to do harm and there is a way to intercept that information and act on it to prevent that harm from occurring, those arrangements should be made. This government, in its clumsy attempt to try to politicise the debate and make itself look tougher than it was, set in place these measures that have caused this type of concern within the tech sector and which now raise a genuine concern about whether or not we would be in a position to get important advice, data, that could help national security agencies here. It is a complete and utter disgrace that we have reached this position.

The constant bravado and politicking of the home affairs minister, who wants to score the political point rather than reach the substantive one, is coming to undo him. But worse still, we're the victims of it as a community, because his politicking means we won't get access to the data that will allow for national security agencies to work efficiently. This is the problem when it comes to those opposite on national security, particularly the home affairs minister, who always wants to play politics when Labor try to work with him, when Labor try to do the bipartisan thing. Frankly, I have on countless occasions raised with him other issues—for example, the rise of far-right extremism that has grown 320 per cent in the last five years—and he won't do a thing about it. But if it's to score a political point, he will. He's an absolute disgrace. We on this side try to talk, try to work with the government quietly and try to get things done. Communities that have seen the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism who are genuinely concerned about this stuff, can't get anywhere. But if it is to make a political point—bam—he's there, trying to score the points. He then brings through shoddy law that affects our ability to perform the roles of national security effectively.

The US Democrats are absolutely right to put the spotlight on this shoddy work and then demonstrate how bad this law is and how bad it's being viewed overseas. And they would absolutely be well within their rights to set an expectation about judicial oversight, certain steps to be followed before you get access. They say that you should not do things that weaken the system of encryption that is used by business and others for legitimate reasons to be able to securely ensure the passage of data between parties. People say that the system shouldn't be weakened and this government goes ahead and tries to do just that. And if they say that, no, you're not meeting the standard and therefore you should not be entitled to data in that way, well, guess what? You shouldn't get it. You should not get that free pass. Certainly the US house committee should put a very sharp focus on whether or not this law, this shoddy law that the government has put in place, meets the high standards that they put in place in the US jurisdiction. They should absolutely put that magnifying glass over that law that has been passed in this country, and the government should be held to account for weakening our national security as a result of putting these laws in place.

As I said, when I look at this bill and I look at this sudden desire for consultation by the government I finish as I started, by making the point that this government cannot be trusted in terms of national security. It rats on deals that have been designed. When it talks about bipartisanship it does not mean it, and it will not follow through on it. We will be required to do what we must to ensure that the law in relation to encryption is such that our national security is maintained and that we are able to get access to the data that is vital for the work of our agencies, but to do it in a way that's fundamentally better than what has been put forward by a government more interested in politicking than in a genuine pursuit of a much higher quality and a much stronger level of national security than what we'd have as a result of this bill.

Mr IRONS (Swan—Assistant Minister for Vocational Education, Training and Apprenticeships) (18:00): I'd like to thank my colleagues for their contribution to the debate on this bill. This Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Assistance and Access Amendments Review) Bill 2019 ensures that both the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PJCIS, and the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, the INSLM, have adequate time to complete their comprehensive reviews of the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018.

As such, I urge the timely passage of this bill at the bipartisan request of the PJCIS and with the support of the INSLM. I also acknowledge and appreciate the extensive and continuing work of the PJCIS and the INSLM in reviewing this legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

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

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr IRONS (Swan—Assistant Minister for Vocational Education, Training and Apprenticeships) (18:02): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (18:04): I rise to speak on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2019 and foreshadow that I will move a second reading amendment.

This bill contains a collection of proposals to reduce the regulatory burden on the broadcasting and telecommunication sectors. As noted in the explanatory memorandum, the bill proposes to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011, amongst other pieces of legislation.

Some of the measures outlined in this bill propose to allow the minister to appoint an industry based numbering manager in place of the ACMA, provided certain safeguards are met; remove duplicative reporting requirements for licensees to notify the ACMA of certain changes in control of regulated media assets; allow NBN Co to dispose of surplus assets whose sale is currently constrained by the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011; provide a consistent classification arrangement by removing requirements for certain television broadcasters to apply different classification standards for films when developing industry codes of practice; remove the requirement for the ACMA to consult with an advisory committee before declaring a submarine cable protection zone, given the ACMA has a legal obligation to consult anyway; and to remove the ability of the ACCC to issue tariff-filing directions to certain telecommunication carriers and carriage service providers.

As some might be aware, this bill is not new. Indeed, the bulk of the measures in this omnibus bill were, by and large, introduced on 2 December 2015. The bill was supported in the House, and during debate in the Senate a Labor amendment was passed to expand the financial and deployment forecasts reported by NBN Co. After the bill returned to the House, the government never brought it to a vote and allowed it to lapse at the 2016 election. The then minister, Mitch Fifield, resurrected this bill to the House of Representatives on 27 March 2019. It took him six months after the election to dust off the brief, but eventually he got there. After the initial introduction it took the government a further 12 months before it reached a second reading debate in the House. Talk about enthusiasm; they couldn't wait to get this one passed! The bill then entered the Senate in March 2018 and sat idle for the remainder of that term of parliament—a big year for that bill. It was never brought to a vote and, as a result, lapsed at the May election.

So here we are, in the last sitting period for 2019, four years after the bill was first introduced—we should get it a cake!—debating it for the third time. It makes you wonder why this has taken so long. I suspect the origins of this bill provide an important clue. At a time when the government should have been focused on proper reform in this sector, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and his then parliamentary secretary were too busy focusing on the wrong priorities. Mr Turnbull almost exclusively dedicated himself to stuffing up one of the most important things in the portfolio, the NBN and holistic media reform, and left it to his then parliamentary secretary, now the minister, to manage the relevant aspects of the overall fizzer that was Tony Abbott's dereg agenda. So uninspired was the bill that over a span of two electoral terms, Mitch Fifield did not even see fit to bring it to a final vote. I genuinely cannot even recall the last time a stakeholder asked me where the measures in this current bill are up to.

The reason I am running through the history is that it points to a broader issue in the comms portfolio. This bill is symbolic of the small-mindedness that dominates the Liberals and their communications agenda. It is nearly 2020 and the first two pieces of communications portfolio legislation this minister has to offer is a window-dressing ABC bill trying to distract from the government's cuts to public broadcasting, and this essentially do-nothing deregulation bill that was drafted in 2015. Maybe those opposite can call it their five-year plan. It really makes you wonder what the point of the Morrison government is.

Speaking of the government's window-dressing on the ABC, we're beginning to see the implications of their funding cuts. After years of cuts at the hands of the Liberal-National government, and with a further three years of cuts ahead of it, the ABC has decided to end its 67-year run as the official non-commercial Olympic Games radio broadcaster, citing budget pressures. It is sad and disappointing that the ABC will not pursue radio broadcast rights and live coverage for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and that 'competing budget priorities' are responsible for the end of an era in Australian sports broadcasting. When the government cuts the ABC, Australians miss out. This government broke its promise not to cut ABC funding. It has since cut $366 million from the national broadcaster. The ABC warned the latest round of budget cuts, totalling $83.7 million over the next three years, would make it very difficult for the ABC to meet its charter requirements and audience expectations, but the Prime Minister locked them in any way. Now it looks like Australians will miss out on much-loved content that is part of Australia's media, sporting and cultural identity.

This deregulation bill before us is arguably the last ember for the red tape bonfire initiated by Tony Abbott many moons ago. In the context of the comms portfolio, one only has to look at how much regulatory burden the coalition government has introduced on the telco sector in the past two years. Worse still, much of the regulation in the consumer sphere has been a direct consequence of the government's failings on the multitechnology mix of the NBN.

It's worth noting that this bill isn't the only thing in the comms portfolio which has been sitting around for years. Spectrum reform, launched with great fanfare back in 2014, has fallen on its face. The August 2015 joint announcement between Malcolm Turnbull and the now minister stated that the government had considered and decided to implement the recommendations of the spectrum review, and set out an implementation timetable. After helping start it off over four years ago, the current minister is seemingly back at square one, asking basic questions, such as: 'What benefits will the proposed reforms deliver? And are wholesale changes the way to go?' One would assume that the government had a well-considered view on such questions before deciding to commit four years of significant public sector and industry resources to a wholesale spectrum reform process. What we have seen is a government that has consistently lacked a coherent agenda and, as a consequence, which doesn't appear to be in command of the processes it has commenced.

I'll move on to the individual measures in this bill. One schedule of this bill proposes changes that would allow the transition of telephone numbering to an industry managed scheme. Self-regulation is an important feature of the telco sector, and has been for a long time. Where appropriate, it allows industry to take responsibility for its own affairs, in turn potentially reducing the regulatory burden and administrative costs, and, in turn, leading to consumer benefits. Numbers are an important scarce resource. Like spectrum, numbers are used but not consumed. The management of telephone numbering has matured over the years, and this presents an opportunity for industry to play a greater role in managing the telco numbering scheme.

A move towards self-regulation naturally raises the question of whether there is a risk of misalignment between the objectives of regulators and policymakers and the commercial incentives of industry. We have considered this question, and are satisfied that the legislation before the House sets out sufficiently clear principles and contains adequate reserve powers should the Commonwealth need to re-intervene.

One point I do want to stress is the important connection between the integrity of our numbering system and scam calls. Communications technology and digital platforms have made it cheaper and easier for scammers to operate. The telephone line has now become an option of choice for scammers. Everyone agrees that telephone scams are not just a nuisance: they are an assault on the integrity of our numbering system; an incursion on the privacy of Australians and the right to enjoy their homes; and they are criminal in their intent.

As I noted earlier in the year in an opinion piece, it has always struck me as odd that criminals based overseas can effortlessly use Australian telephone numbers they don't own to generate calls and to rip people off. The explanations for this vary but, clearly, the international standards and interconnection arrangements that underpinned voice calling were not adequately designed to safeguard against this problem. In the absence of such arrangements, domestic interventions to protect the integrity of the telephone-numbering system and to reduce the impact of scams are beginning to look increasingly desirable. Encouragingly, other jurisdictions are showing that progress is possible and, hopefully, any transition of numbering towards a self-regulatory model could provide even greater operational and technical flexibility to improve the integrity of the numbering system, in turn making it harder for scammers overseas.

In summary, this is a straightforward bill that forms part of a rudimentary housekeeping exercise. As such, Labor will not oppose this bill. But the reality is this: these amendments actually do little to reduce the cost of regulation on the broadcasting or telecommunication sectors. As I noted earlier, the government has actually spent the last three years increasing the regulatory burden on telecommunications companies, and this bill does nothing to reverse that trend. While earlier deregulation bills actually did deliver more significant cost savings for industry, in comparison this bill looks by and large inconsequential. What we would like to see is the government developing a genuine and timely reform agenda to advance the interests of citizens, consumers and the communications sector. That is why Labor will move a second reading amendment to this bill. I move:

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

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that it is nearly 2020, and the first two pieces of communications portfolio legislation presented by Government in the current Parliament are:

(a) a window-dressing bill about the ABC designed to distract from the Government’s funding cuts to public broadcasting; and

(b) a do-nothing bill about deregulation, which was originally drafted in 2015;

(2) notes that it has been more than four years since the Government commenced a spectrum reform process that has yet to deliver any outcomes; and

(3) calls on the Government to develop a genuine and timely reform agenda to advance the interests of citizens, consumers and the communications sector".

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr McVeigh ): Is the amendment seconded?

Mr BRIAN MITCHELL ( Lyons ) ( 18:13 ): I second the motion. The Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2019 is one of the last flames from the deregulation bonfire initiated by Tony Abbott many years ago. The government first announced this bill in December 2015 and declared its commitment to remove outdated regulation. So we find ourselves here, four years later, debating what is effectively the same legislation in the House of Representatives for the third time.

Labor supports sensible amendments to remove unnecessary administrative requirements imposed on industry to repeal redundant legislation and spent acts. While this bill does have some utility, its value should not be overstated. This is a straightforward bill that forms part of a rudimentary regulatory housekeeping exercise. These amendments do nothing meaningful to reduce the cost of regulation on the broadcasting or telecommunications sectors. While earlier deregulation bills delivered more significant cost savings for industry, this bill is by and large inconsequential in terms of the true reform task facing the sector. Shrinking news outlets outside the major cities; a growing concentration of media ownership; digital platforms fracturing audiences and soaking up traditional revenue streams; and social media giants that facilitate disinformation—these are the real challenges facing the media landscape in Australia.

It is clear that Australian media is facing a crisis, and nowhere is media more threatened than in the regions. Earlier this year we saw the closure of several WIN regional newsrooms and the end of production of five local news bulletins. Last year WIN TV moved its Tasmanian news bulletin to its Wollongong offices, cutting staff from 18 to nine. At the time, it was explained that the decision was based on the commercial viability of funding news in those areas. We know that there are several factors that mean there has been a reduction in demand for local news bulletins in regional areas. The advent of digital media caused audiences to fragment. That meant the importance of an audience for regular broadcast news bulletins declined, reducing the amount that could be charged for advertising.

The industry had not fully adjusted to those changes when social media came along and it saw a lot of the remaining advertising revenue diverted from news media to the new platform. Between January 2013 and June 2017 the total advertising market in Australia grew by 11 per cent. But that growth was almost entirely away from traditional media. Digital advertising grew by 87 per cent in this period. That's extraordinary. At the same time, advertising revenue in television fell five per cent and print advertising revenue saw a 46 per cent drop from $373 million in 2013 to $202 million in 2017. Yet it is TV and print that continue to employ most journalists in this country.

Additionally, changing consumption habits and increased competition from digital content providers that don't face the same regulatory conditions challenged traditional media further. A recent inquiry into digital platforms by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found that virtually no media regulation applies to digital platforms. This creates regulatory disparity between some digital platforms and some more heavily regulated media businesses that perform comparable functions and, arguably, a much more important social and community function. The disparity exists due to the failure of current regulatory frameworks to keep pace with changes in technology, consumer preferences and the way in which media businesses now operate. Over six years, this government has been asleep at the wheel. Digitisation and the increase in online creation and aggregation of news and media content highlight the inconsistencies in the current sector-specific approach to media regulation in Australia that gives rise to an uneven playing field between digital platforms and some news media businesses.

In its report, the ACCC recommended that media regulatory frameworks be updated to ensure that comparable functions are effectively and consistently regulated. Program supply and infrastructure costs also mean that regional media needs to constantly review its operating model to ensure the ongoing viability of business. The crisis in the media's business models is being felt most acutely at the local news level. The availability of local news in the regions of Australia has sharply declined over the past five years and is likely to decline further. The decline is across the board, though it's more marked in the outer suburbs of metropolitan regions and in rural and regional areas.

For many Australians, sadly, it's now easier to find out what is happening in the White House than what's happening at the local school, or why the potholes in the road haven't been fixed. Data collected by the ACCC shows that between 2008 and 2018, 106 local and regional newspaper titles closed across Australia, representing a net 15 per cent decrease in the number of these publications in just 10 years—and I know newspapers are not necessarily the remit of this place, but if you wouldn't mind indulging me, Deputy Speaker! These closures have left 21 local government areas without coverage from a single local newspaper.

In December 2018, the former Fairfax regional newspaper network became part of the Nine media company, and as part of that deal for the SMH and The Age, the regional paper network was sold to Anthony Catalano and the Thorney Investment Group. This includes 160-plus regional titles and around 130 community based websites and agricultural publications. Two of them are in Tasmania, The Examiner and The Advocate, and we're hopeful that under the new ownership they will continue. As the Australian Communications and Media Authority observed in its 2017 Local content in regional Australiareport, the profitability of regional broadcasting is declining under the same pressures that are affecting media across the Western world, fragmenting audiences and the shift of advertising revenue to social media platforms.

Local journalism matters and local news is vital to communities, particularly rural and regional communities. Without it, institutions become less accountable—frankly, so do politicians—citizens are disempowered and power transfers to those with the ability and motivation to manipulate public opinion. This month marks 30 years of the Fremantle Herald—where I got my start as that paper's first cadet—a fearless, independent and locally owned paper that has survived recessions, disgraceful anticompetitive behaviour by its corporate rival and very touchy councils that withdraw advertising over unflattering stories. If more papers were like the Fremantle Herald, locally owned and locally operated, born in and of their communities, then the Australian local media landscape would be a much healthier place. Indeed, in 2016, a study by the Pew Research Centre found that in the United States civic engagement is strongly tied to local news habits. Those with stronger news interest consumption and better attitudes towards the news media, were considerably more likely to feel attached to their communities and to always vote in local elections.

In my own electorate of Lyons, there are at least 15 community papers and newsletters. We don't have the weekly letterbox papers like on the mainland; most papers are owned and run in Tasmania by non-profit groups, including online centres and councils. Of those that are businesses, there's the Font PR owned Derwent Valley Gazette, The Sorell Times, the Tasman Gazette and the East Coast View. And there are the Northern Midlands Courier in Longford and The Coastal Column in St Helens. They operate on wafer-thin margins and the blood, sweat and tears of their owners. Mark Thompson, the former director-general of the BBC and current chief executive of The New York Times, suggested recently that closures of local newsrooms and newspapers will only increase without a dramatic shift in policy and investment:

A society which fails to provide its different communities and groups with the means to listen and come to understand each other's pasts and presents should not be surprised if mutual incomprehension and division are the consequence. If you doubt that any of this connects to real world politics and national wellbeing, you need to pay more attention.

One of the long-term effects of declining local news will be more fractured communities that are less informed, leading to less ability to forge a national consensus. For example, WIN has begun to fill its air time by broadcasting content from the 24-hour news channel, Sky News, across all its markets nationwide. Whilst Sky offers a reasonable news service during the day, Sky News After Dark, modelled on Fox in the US, is a very different beast—populated nearly exclusively by hard Right ideological commentators who have no regard to facts. I admit here, I've never done drugs, but on the odd occasion when I stumbled across Sky 'after dark', I wonder if that's what tripping out feels like—a discombobulation of body and mind.

We should expect to see a decline in civic health in areas where there is a lack of local news. A 2016 study by King's College London found that UK towns whose local papers had suffered closure showed a 'democracy deficit' that resulted in measurably reduced community engagement by local people and a heightened distrust of public institutions. It's odd that, in a world where the repository of the world's collective knowledge is literally at our fingertips, distrust in such knowledge and apathetic ignorance of that knowledge have never seemed higher. Flat-earthers, the 'birthers' who hounded Obama, the rise of Nazism in the West and an almost boastful and wilful ignorance of Nazism's causes and effects, the antivaccination movement, the 'death tax' at the May election, the maelstrom of misinformation and disinformation that swirls by the hour around the Trump administration—we have left the information age behind us and are well into the disinformation age. I would suggest that members of this chamber take a look at the recent speech by Sacha Baron Cohen to the Anti-Defamation League, where he warns of the dangers that Facebook, and specifically its strident refusal to act on disinformation and lies in political advertising, poses to our democracies and to social cohesion.

You might ask, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the face of the immediate crisis facing the communications and media sector: where is the Australian government in all of this? A few weeks ago the government hosted the Symposium on Choice and Quality of News and Journalism at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. At this forum, the minister cautioned that there were significant questions and practical issues associated with greater support for local journalism, specifically the government grants for journalists suggested in the ACCC's digital platforms report, an indicator that the government would be taking a wait-and-see approach.

In response to this, I would echo the sentiments of the shadow minister for communications, which are that this government has waited and overseen the decline of regional media over the past six years, and it has failed to deliver a plan to address it. This government stuffed up the delivery of the National Broadband Network, crippling digital productivity in Australia's regions and widening the digital divide between city and country, when the NBN could have narrowed that divide. This is a government that has slashed $366 million in funding to the ABC, a broken promise that puts at risk the ABC's exceptional record of delivering programming excellence for our regions. The latest budget locks in $83.7 million in cuts over three years, kicking in this year, when the ABC is doing such a mighty job of keeping Australians informed about the worst drought in living memory. This is a government that has presided over an explosion in scams delivered over the phone and the internet and has not done enough to protect Australian consumers. Australians lost $489 million in 2018, an increase of $149 million on the year before. I shudder to think what the 2019 figure will be. This is a government that delivers small because it thinks small, and that is the essence of the bill before the House today. I have great pleasure in seconding the shadow minister's amendment. Labor's not opposing this bill but, by gee, it's nothing to be excited about.

Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (18:28): I share the member for Lyons's ambivalence about this bill. Time and time again we have seen this tired, third-term Morrison government demonstrate that it has no plan for our economy. The bill that we are debating today, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2019, exemplifies the government's lack of vision for Australia and shows that they have run out of ideas, run out of things to do.

This bill proposes to amend several pieces of telecommunications and broadcasting legislation to reduce the regulatory burden on those sectors. I don't object to a good telco deregulatory bill. Indeed, as a former telecommunications lawyer I embrace this as only someone who has grappled with IP&D, the accounting separation regime and the combinatorial clock spectrum auction process can! The majority of the content of this bill, however, was introduced back in 2015, during the 44th Parliament. Back then it was supported by the House, and an amended version was passed by the Senate. But the government never got around to bringing the bill back to the House for a vote, so it lapsed at the 2016 election. In the 45th Parliament the government resurrected this bill, in March 2017, and it entered the Senate in March 2018. But again it was allowed to lapse, at the 2019 election. Four years on, we are now debating the same content for the third time under a tired, third-term Liberal government. While we support this bill, we recognise that these adjustments and regulations don't really make any substantive, meaningful change. They're not going to transform anyone's life in Australian society. The bill doesn't tackle any of the real challenges facing the communications portfolio, like making sure that Australia is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital economy or ensuring the economic viability of an independent media, so crucial to the functioning of a healthy democracy in our country.

Labor supports this bill because it supports sensible amendments that remove unnecessary administrative burdens and repeal redundant legislation and spent acts. Amendments that allow, for example, NBN Co to dispense of surplus assets are welcome. The removal of duplicative reporting requirements for licensees, publishers and controllers to notify the ACMA of certain changes while still allowing the ACMA to maintain accurate control registers is welcome. Providing consistency in the classification range for all television programs and films is, again, welcome. One schedule of this bill would allow the minister to appoint an industry based numbering manager in place of the ACMA provided certain safeguards are met, and self-regulation has long been an important feature of the telecommunications sector. I've participated in it myself in many forums and I can attest to the expertise and national spirit of those who engage in it. It allows industry to take responsibility for its own affairs, potentially reducing the regulatory burden and administrative cost on the industry, with flow-on impacts on the cost to consumers.

When it comes to deregulation aspects of the bill, Labor is satisfied that the legislation sets out sufficiently clear principles and contains adequate reserve powers should the Commonwealth need to re-intervene if this self-regulatory approach fails. But we shouldn't overstate the significance of these reforms. They are just part of a long-overdue housekeeping exercise that could have been done two terms ago. Only one other piece of communications portfolio legislation has been introduced by this government: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2019. Like this bill, the rural and regional measures bill is a study in the Morrison government's small-mindedness when it comes to the communications agenda. In the rural and regional measures bill, the government proposes measures with the aim of increasing regional content, but, instead of dealing with the real issue causing the decline of regional reporting—the lack of a sustainable funding stream—the bill is merely window dressing that tries to distract from the government's funding cuts to the ABC.

Since 2013, the Liberals—the coalition government—have cut $366 million from the ABC, forcing the ABC to cut 800 jobs to free up the funds it needs to continue investing in Australian content, educational resources and regional communities. But, instead of reversing these cuts, this bill seeks to amend the wording of the ABC charter and to meddle in its governance structures. The bill amends the ABC's charter to add the words 'regional' and 'geographic' so that the wording will read, 'The ABC's programs contribute to a sense of regional and national identity, inform and entertain, and reflect the culture and geographic diversity of the Australian community.' This measure is a nonsense because there's no evidence of shortcomings with the ABC charter with respect to regional and rural Australia.

In terms of governance, the bill seeks to establish an advisory council and amends the ABC Act to stipulate that the board must have two non-executive directors with a substantial connection to or experience in a regional area. This is a nonsense measure because the ABC board already has an advisory council which provides advice to the board on all matters, including rural and regional matters. Section 24X of the ABC Act already provides the minister with the power to establish additional selection criteria for board appointments. It is ironic that, while the government purports to minimise the regulatory burden on broadcasting and telecommunications entities through the legislation before the House, in another bill it is seeking to amend the ABC Act to add more bureaucracy and red tape—bureaucracy and red tape that will not create another hour of broadcasting on regional issues on ABC Radio or ABC Television. It won't fund a single additional journalist in these areas. It won't create any more content that is specific to rural and regional Australia. It just creates more bureaucracy and red tape—and for what? The ABC charter already creates obligations for the ABC to serve rural and regional Australians, which the ABC delivers on with great alacrity.

These amendments are simply government virtue signalling that will cost the taxpayer; do little to help Australians living in rural and regional Australia, who face the decline in local reporting; and distract from the lack of a real plan for communications policy in this country. A real plan would progress reforms in the telecommunications and media sector that are urgently needed for the sake of our economy and our democracy, something neither this bill nor the rural and regional measures bill does.

As someone who worked in the telecommunications sector before entering this place, I have firsthand experience of sifting through page after page of regulation implemented by parliamentarians and regulators at the sub-legislative level across this country. I can tell you that over the past two years this government has introduced a huge regulatory burden on this sector because of the failure of its multitechnology mix. The government promised its multitechnology mix would be faster and cheaper yet has delivered a network that costs more to build, costs more to run and does less. The decision to shift to the multitechnology mix in the NBN in 2014 has also resulted in Australia falling behind rival networks in the global digital economy.

A report by AlphaBeta, commissioned by the Digital Industry Group, found that Australia's tech sector could create an additional $50 billion a year were Australia successful in catching up and matching the technology sector growth rates of our global peers. Based on comparative analysis of successful leading countries, the report states that the key lesson is that governments need to take a coordinated approach to the digital economy—a coordinated approach which includes communications policy, especially considering that communications infrastructure is the foundation of the global digital economy. A coordinated approach requires a government that doesn't shy away from large-scale reforms and a government that has a plan to capitalise on the potential of more jobs and increased productivity in the digital economy. That is not this government.

This government's lack of a plan in communications policy isn't just hurting our economy; it's hurting our democracy. While the government drags its feet, it's never been more important for Australia to safeguard a thriving, independent and economically viable media. Experts at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute tell us that a healthy and robust media environment is key to Australia's democratic resilience. There are—it's a sad fact—foreign operatives that seek to undermine our democracy by spreading misinformation in our democratic system. These influence operations operate by finding cracks in the fabric of society and exploiting them, expanding divisions to weaken trust in democratic institutions in our society.

We have seen recent media coverage of the pressure on Facebook to combat misinformation on its platforms. But one of the best things we can do to protect Australia from misinformation attacks in our democracy is to ensure our media environment is free, independent and economically viable. That is our magic weapon in defending our democracy from foreign interference. But this government's complete disregard for an independent and economically viable press is highlighted day after day. We have seen it with the raid on Annika Smethurst by the Australian Federal Police, in the $366 million of cuts to the ABC and in the constant flood of complaints to the ABC director and board from ministers of this government. This interference in and dismantling of the ABC further erodes the Australian public's trust in the media institutions, a trust that is so key to building a resilient democracy and to sustaining a resilient democracy in Australia. This government needs to develop a meaningful reform plan to tackle the big issues in the communications portfolio, not just because it is important for productivity in the sector, and not just because it will enable us to reap the benefits of the digital economy, but because it is crucial to Australian democracy.

Mr IRONS (Swan—Assistant Minister for Vocational Education, Training and Apprenticeships) (18:38): I would like to thank the members who have contributed to the debate on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2019. The bill will amend a range of telecommunications and broadcasting legislation to reduce the regulatory burden on the broadcasting and telecommunications industries. The bill will amend the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Act 2017 to increase the transitional support payments made to network investments to rectify previous underpayments. The bill will amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to apply a single classification scheme for all free-to-air television programs by removing the requirement for certain television broadcasters to apply a separate classification scheme for films when developing industry codes of practice. The bill will remove duplicative requirements for licencees, publishers and controllers to notify the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, of certain changes in control.

In the area of telecommunications, the bill will remove unnecessary arrangements for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, to issue tariff-filing directions to certain carriers and carriage service providers under part 11(b) of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The information captured by these divisions is readily available to the ACCC through other revenues, including through public sources. It will inform the ACMA's statutory information collection powers under the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the ACCC under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to ensure that the information collected from industry is relevant and serves a useful public policy purpose.

The bill will also simplify ACMA and ACCC's annual report publication requirements by requiring the reports to be published online rather than tabled in parliament. It will also amend the Telecommunications Act 1997 to enable the transition to an industry based scheme for the management of telephone numbering, subject to public policy safeguards. The bill will abolish the requirement for ACMA to consult an advisory committee especially established under the submarine cable protection regime before declaring, varying or revoking a submarine cable protection zone. This will reduce the administrative costs and reflect the requirements for ACMA to consult publicly on such proposals.

The bill will amend the Telecommunications Act 1997 to repeal the ability of NBN Co to issue a statement that it is not installing fibre in a new real estate development, as it is not appropriate for NBN Co as an industry player to exercise a quasi-regulatory power. Changes will also be made to the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011 to allow NBN Co to dispose of surplus goods without altering the fundamental line of business restrictions on NBN Co.

Finally, the bill will make other various amendments to remove redundant and unnecessary legislation, including repealing over 50 spent acts in the Communications portfolio. The bill is a further step in this government's ongoing commitment to boost productivity by reducing onerous legislation while maintaining consumer and competition safeguards. I commend the bill to the House.

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

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr IRONS (Swan—Assistant Minister for Vocational Education, Training and Apprenticeships) (18:43): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (18:43): Labor will not oppose the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2019, which provides indexation to the Australian Research Council. This government, now well into its seventh year of office, let down Australian universities and undermined research and development in this country. Last year's mid-year update saw $328.5 million cut from research funding over four years. Universities Australia has forecast that government investment in research and development in Australia is set to reach its lowest level as a share of our economy in four decades to just half a per cent of GDP in 2019. I say this deliberately: that is a straight-out sabotage of Australia's future. That's a lower percentage than in 1978. Universities Australia said at the time that such deep cuts to university research were 'a ramraid on Australia's future economic growth, prosperity, health and development'. That is why, at the last election, we committed to a target of three per cent of GDP devoted to research and development by 2030.

I'll give you a snapshot of the ARC, and why this investment is wise. For every dollar spent, Linkage Projects partners get $1.91 back—a dollar in, $1.91 back. Over the 2018-19 financial year, the ARC funded 4,559 projects, and 81.5 per cent of these projects included collaboration from across the globe. The ARC schemes support researchers at all career stages and provide research, training and mentoring opportunities. They invest in the infrastructure and the equipment and facilities underpinning Australia's research competitiveness and encourage university researchers to productively partner with commercial, government, community and international stakeholders. Key findings from the Engagement and impact assessment 2018-19 national report released earlier this year showed that 43 per cent of research projects were rated as having a high positive impact on everyday lives and 34 per cent had a high engagement with end users.

Only Labor understands the value of investment in higher education and research. In 2019, Australia enjoys a reputation for punching above its weight when it comes to the higher education and research sector, and we see the trade benefits of having that reputation. In 2017, Australia was responsible for 2.7 per cent of the world's scientific output, while being home to only 0.34 per cent of the world's population. But we need to run faster to maintain our footing in this ever-shifting global landscape. Labor wants to see our position, our status and the economic benefits continue, and we want the capabilities and the productivity of our nation to thrive. How do we do that? Proper investment in research improves the lives of every Australian through the development of new medical treatments, improvements to drinking water management, innovations using smartphone technology and so many other areas.

For example, Australian scientist Howard Walter Florey was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1945 for his role, alongside Ernst Chain and Alexander Fleming, in the development of penicillin. At the time, Prime Minister Robert Menzies called Florey the most important man ever born in Australia, in terms of improving world wellbeing. La Trobe University's Graeme Clark successfully tested the bionic ear in 1978, which has since gifted over 200,000 people the power of hearing and speech. He later established Australia's first university training facility in audiology, the Bionic Ear Institute—now the Bionic Institute—which furthers research into bionic hearing, bionic vision and neurobionics to improve lives. In the 1950s, concern was growing around the effects of X-rays on pregnant women and their unborn babies. Working at the Department of Health, Australia's David Robinson and George Kossoff built the first commercial practice ultrasound scanner in 1961, which changed the way medicine used the technology. Wi-fi, solar technology, the cervical cancer vaccine and the truly exciting developments made now and into the future—I could give examples all night.

One of my local universities, and one my alma maters, the University of Queensland, has reaffirmed it's position as a leading research institution for science and social sciences, with 28 UQ researchers identified as among the world's most influential scientific minds. Their research was ranked in the top one per cent of the most referenced papers in their fields from 2008 through to 2018. This is an impressive feat. For example, there is Professor Naomi Wray, whose outstanding work in the field of psychiatric genetics has rightly been recognised. She's written 153 publications and been cited more than 20,000 times. Her publication Biological insights from 108 schizophrenia-associated genetic loci has been cited on nearly 3,000 instances. There is Professor David Paterson, the director at the University of Queensland's centre for clinical research, whose clinical work, research and teaching has been recognised internationally as well. His research focuses on the molecular and clinical epidemiology of infections with antibiotic-resistant organisms, with the intent of translation of knowledge into optimal prevention and treatment of these infections. He has recently conducted the world's largest trial on antibiotics for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, and his work has been cited nearly 33,000 times. Maybe, just maybe, it might save humanity from some of those issues.

Associate Professor Genevieve Healy is a National Health and Medical Research Council career development fellow at the Cancer Prevention Research Centre in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland, and an honorary research fellow at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and at Curtin University. Her current research builds on the work to examine population-level variation in prolonged sedentary time, as well as the feasibility and acceptability of reducing this behaviour in key seatings, such as the workplace. She is the lead investigator on the BeUpstanding program of research, a program aimed to support workplaces to stand up, sit less and move more for their health and wellbeing.

I congratulate the few that I've listed and many, many more. They are fantastic examples of what Australian ingenuity can achieve. But more needs to be done to connect our world-leading research with businesses and industries. Internationally, we are definitely lagging behind on collaboration with research institutions. The 2016 Australian innovation system report ranked Australia as the lowest of 27 countries of the OECD in terms of our higher education and research institutions collaborating with large businesses and small and medium businesses. We're 27th in the OECD—that's an F-minus. Our research sector and our research capacity is one of the keys to being future ready. It will drive future growth in our economy. We need to ensure that we have the capacity to turn our discoveries into something that has concrete benefits for Australians to commercialise. When we get the balance right with combining our research with industry, the results speak for themselves. We could look at wi-fi and so many examples I have touched on.

Creating these industry links has been found to more than triple productivity growth in business and increase other performance measures. For example, Queensland Health and Griffith University have enjoyed a longstanding, mutually beneficial partnership ever since Griffith University first offered health degrees back in the 1990s. This partnership allows for clinical placements of health students as well as an array of joint research projects. Queensland Health is a major employer of Griffith graduates. The colocation of Griffith campuses—for example, alongside the Gold Coast University Hospital, or, in my electorate of Moreton, the QEII hospital at Nathan, alongside the Nathan campus of Griffith University—enriches this relationship. This training also facilitates the transition from study to employment, as Queensland Health attracts top graduates who already have hands-on knowledge of their systems and processes. Research collaborations between the university and Queensland Health greatly benefit the two parties, and the benefit then flows out to the community as a whole. Collaborative research projects between Griffith University and Queensland Health continue, and to date have spanned a broad spectrum of areas including nursing, patient management, suicide prevention, cancer diagnosis and treatment, and a range of genetic studies. It is creating jobs and improving productivity.

Continued research and development could see Australia expand our capabilities and prosperity. The University of Queensland's partnership with Australian wastewater management technology has developed a new way to treat wastewater which reduces corrosion of wastewater pipes, which obviously lowers maintenance costs. This has led to savings of $400 million for the Australian water industry. La Trobe University has been effective at taking advantage of this, creating its research and innovation precinct with the help of the Victorian Andrews Labor government. It has partnered with 14 industry organisations such as Rio Tinto, Agriculture Victoria and GeneWorks. It is a significant new step forward which will act as a catalyst for economic growth, innovation and, most importantly as far as the Labor Party is concerned, jobs creation—particularly in vital areas of health and wellbeing, digital and cyber innovation, agriculture, food and fibre; the jobs of the future.

The benefits of action are clear, and Labor is committed to working with universities and industry and taking on research and turning it into jobs, successful businesses and opportunities for future generations. What is vital for universities is ensuring they are in the position to build their research and development capacity. But what have we seen from this Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government?

Sadly, we've seen cut after cut after cut. For them education is a place holder, a portfolio to be taken from, not invested in. Their decision to cap student places by ripping $2.2 billion from the sector was a disaster. What has been the result? Ten thousand students missed out on a place at university in 2018 and 200,000 more students will miss out over the coming decade. Universities have been unable to lift their student profiles, and it's showing in their budgets. Is it any wonder that we have seen articles coming out recently with titles such as 'Enrolments flatlining: Australian unis' financial strife' at a time when Australia's population is increasing? Macquarie University has had to resort to budget cuts due to zero enrolment growth next year. Its vice-chancellor, Bruce Downton, said:

Enrolment growth domestically and internationally has slowed significantly at a time when our base operating costs continue to rise […] Current projections are that there will be zero growth—

on this government's watch. In 2018 the number of students starting a bachelor's degree fell for the first time since 2003. As I remind you, our population has been increasing over that time.

Increased reliance on international students is making up the shortfall, but we can't rely on that forever, especially those universities that are nudging towards having international students as 50 per cent of their student population. Enrolment from key source countries such as China has stabilised this year. Labor is very concerned about how the government is planning on dealing with a drop in international student enrolments, considering education is our third-largest export industry, representing $33 billion to the Australian economy. So when you look at those trains full of iron ore or coal, the next one to consider is our universities.

On top of this, the children born in the boom of the mid-2000s are about to reach university age. With the end of the demand-driven system there is no additional money to fund those extra students. What do we see from those opposite? The minister certainly doesn't have a plan. The Prime Minister doesn't have a plan. Without any decent plan, universities could have falling enrolments for both domestic and international students, which will place further stresses on their budgets. That will mean more staff cuts and less money for our world-class research, which will be a further strain for universities in the bush in particular. There are reports that staff at the University of Melbourne are bracing for cuts in response to the cut of $150 million from their university over four years. Up to 100 staff at Charles Darwin University are likely to lose their jobs by next year. That is unacceptable.

Labor is very concerned to hear that the ministerial veto has been used to restrict funding for research that doesn't support the education minister's personal world view. Political interference in independent peer reviewed grant processes is completely unacceptable. That's the sort of stuff that goes on in totalitarian states, not in modern Australia. The Australian Research Council has an independent and rigorous process for coming up with its recommendations on research funding. When you lock someone out of an education, you are locking them out of a job, but when you block research you damage Australia's international competitiveness and undermine growth in good, well-paid and skilled jobs.

So Labor calls on the previous minister and the current minister to explain their decisions, which they have not done, and on the government to reinstitute a rule for ministers to publicly explain why they have vetoed ARC recommendations. I ask for Education Minister Tehan's new tick-a-box form notification to be readjusted, because when it comes to notification of ministerial intervention it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. He must be prepared to front up and explain such interference in the ARC's decisions. Only Labor will restore independence and integrity to the Australian Research Council and Australia's research sector. That is why I move:

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

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the government has cut research funding, interfered in independent, peer-reviewed grants processes and abandoned nation-building investment in education and research infrastructure".

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

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (18:59): I second the amendment. It's a great pleasure to make a comment on the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2019 and also to endorse the amendment that's been moved by the member for Moreton. I really enjoyed the passion that the member for Moreton brought to the address he has just given. I know he's been a very staunch defender of our researchers, our scientists, in Australia and in particular has been arguing in favour of proper investment in the skills we need to grow our future economy. I'm grateful for the amendment he's moved to this bill. The bill before us is not particularly controversial—it's an update to the Australian Research Council's funding cap—but the second reading amendment allows us to put some very important points on the parliamentary record with respect to the coalition government and its approach and record on critical areas related to research, science, universities and innovation in Australia generally. And I'm very pleased to make a contribution on those matters.

When the shadow ministry was reshuffled five months ago, I was very lucky to be given the role of spokesperson on innovation, technology and the future of work. One of the absolutely brilliant parts of my role is to be able to spend time with scientists, researchers, inventors and entrepreneurs—some of the most extraordinary people in the Australian economy. When you sit in a room full of these people you think it is eminently possible that we as a society can solve any problem. It's actually an exhilarating area to be working in—and more so because one of the most important things Labor's thinking about at the moment and dwelling on as we go into the next three years is how we're going to make sure we can secure the high-wage, high-skilled jobs of the future for Australians.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is a massive opportunity here for the taking. When we look around this beautiful country of ours, we've got all the ingredients we need to become an innovation nation. The thing that worries me, and the thing I think is missing when I talk to global experts about our innovation system, is government and the important role in other economies where the government is playing that critical role of stitching together the different parts of the economy that make up an innovation nation. We see a great deal more engagement and leadership on these questions when we look around the world at best-practice countries. What we see when we look to the Australian government, unfortunately, is inertia—I think 'innovation' and 'research' are dirty words that they don't like to use unless they absolutely have to. We are going to have to change that approach if we are going to attract the jobs of the future to Australia.

The bill before the parliament is about research. It's a good opportunity to have a quick reflection on why this matters so much to building the jobs of the future. Put simply, the research that's conducted in businesses, in our universities and in other parts of our economy is our pipeline for future jobs and growth in this country. If we're not getting good ideas, inventing things in this country, thinking about those critical scientific research questions and conducting research that gives us new knowledge and information, we're not going to go far in a knowledge economy. All the research that's the subject of this bill is part of our pipeline; it's part of our ticket to a high standard of living in the future.

When we look at the economic future of our country, if we're looking at things like R&D and investment in our universities—the critical building blocks for growth in the future that, frankly, a lot of governments probably don't get much credit for investing in—they are being profoundly underinvested in and the government is profoundly lacking in focus in the way it is going about it. Innovation is part of my portfolio. We did some research looking at the recent election campaign and found that the Prime Minister uttered the word 'innovation' just four times that we could find during the entire election campaign. There's a pretty obvious political reason for that, and that is that we had the failed Turnbull experiment where for a brief moment innovation was put at the centre of our political discussion. Because that was seen as not being particularly politically useful in the way that it was done, the government will not talk about these matters anymore. They won't talk about innovation, they won't talk about research and they won't talk about the strategy for our universities. As we roll on into the seventh year of this lengthy but not particularly notable government we are losing time, while other countries around the world have been much more effective and strategic.

I think a killer statistic bears this out if we want the government's approach to research and development in a nutshell: between 2015-16 and 2017-18, so two full financial years, the federal government's research and development expenditure fell 19 per cent in real terms. We lost one-fifth of our spending in two financial years. That's absolutely unbelievable to me. Here's another one: in 2019 there are 2,000 fewer people working in government funded R&D projects than there were in the mid-1990s. Think of how much our economy has changed in that time, yet there are fewer people working in government funded R&D than there were in the mid-1990s. Last year's midyear budget update alone cut $328.5 million from research funding over four years.

Of course, it's not just the Labor Party raising these issues and trying to get the government to focus and pay a bit more attention to them; Universities Australia has forecast that government investment in research and development in Australia is set to reach its lowest share of our GDP in four decades. That's lower than back in 1978, before a number of us were even born. Universities Australia, when it released that research, emphasised the impact of those deep cuts to university research. They described it as a ram raid on Australia's future economic growth, prosperity, health and development.

I want to talk about some of the specifics of the way in which the R&D program is being designed and funded in Australia. I think the big picture, though, which is really an inescapable fact for us in this House, is that our R&D spend in this country is not high enough at the moment to sustain the improvements to the standard of living that Labor would like to see spread across the Australian community. Our national spending on R&D at the moment is about 1.8 per cent of our GDP. World-leading countries are spending more than four per cent. The OECD average is 2.4 per cent. In fact, 2016-17 was the first year that R&D in Australia went backwards. We actually spent less that year than we did in the previous year.

You're probably aware that R&D is usually measured in private and public sector spend. Our low level of private sector R&D spend is also a critical problem for us. We are massively behind leading countries and we need to do better, and I'll talk about some of the ways I see that that's possible a little bit later. The most important mechanism we have for facilitating private sector R&D spend is the research and development tax incentive. The whole point of that policy is to incentivise R&D spend, and $2 billion of taxpayer funds a year is actually a very large amount of money. In a $450 billion a year federal budget, it's quite significant. I think it's pretty clear that there is a reform opportunity here. If we're putting in quite a bit but we're not getting out of the system an impressive amount of private sector R&D spend, I do think we need to put this on the agenda of the very long list of national concerns that we have about how this area is being handled.

I want to say something quickly about basic research, which is research without a specific commercial goal in mind. It's the research that scientists usually do in a lab because they've found, with their curious brains, a question that they don't know how to answer. They seek to answer that question, and in doing so can make enormously profitable discoveries, although the focus of that research really is just about scientific curiosity, something that you would think the government would want to nurture. In the 1990s, about 40 per cent of our R&D spend was invested in basic research, and today, even with all I've said about how difficult and low our spending on R&D is in Australia, the figure being spent on basic research is 23 per cent. That has huge ramifications for our economic future, but there are also really immediate impacts on these wonderful scientists, whose work we want to support and nourish in this country. Largely because the funding amounts are so limited, the application process that our scientists have to go through to get research funded is insulting to these incredibly smart people who are just trying to do the right thing by the country. Sometimes it can take scientists months of their year to just submit these applications. Remember that, when they're in the lab, they're often breaking new ground globally in the science that they're doing.

In the last round of NHMRC grants for mid-career scientists—I'm talking about the level 1 leadership program here—just over seven per cent of the projects that were submitted for funding actually got funding. That meant 93 per cent of the scientists who put their blood, sweat and tears into creating these research programs basically didn't get funding for the important work that they were trying to do. A competitive process is something that Labor support; we're very much in favour of it. In leading countries you'll see a funding success rate in the order of 30 or 40 per cent. We're talking here about seven per cent of scientists getting their research funded. It is beyond demoralising as a success rate. If a government policy was to be designed to show these brilliant young scientists that we don't value their work, I think this would be a great way to go about it.

When the shadow minister for science, Brendan O'Connor, and I talk with scientists—as we do frequently—we hear that we are losing some of the smartest people in the country to Silicon Valley, Oxford and Cambridge—places where they are not having to go through this dispiriting process that indicates a lack of interest in the work they're doing. In a survey for young scientists, one responder said:

We are the most educated people in the country and we can barely provide for our families and have at most 3-4 years' job stability.

Research from the Australian Society for Medical Research tells us that a very large number of young scientists have considered leaving a career in research, and that 61 per cent have considered leaving the country to continue their work. At a recent roundtable that Brendan O'Connor and I had with leading scientists, we heard of an Australian researcher who had trained at one of the most prestigious universities in Australia. She went overseas, studied again at a leading American university and then returned to Australia to build a career in research. Instead of the encouragement and nurturing that she wanted, she faced a life of precariousness and funding uncertainty. She later left science to become a real estate agent. I hear these stories over and over again.

I want to quickly go back through some of the brief history of our research and development, because there are some very important trends here about the way that we are funding research and development that I think need to be put on the record as issues for the parliament to discuss and resolve. In 1996, when the Keating administration left office, Australia ranked 14th in the OECD for research and development spend. Labor increased our ranking to 12th. By 2017 we had fallen back to 17th place, with countries like Slovenia and Iceland in front of us. Over that time, OECD average expenditure on R&D as a proportion of GDP increased from two per cent to 2.4 per cent. Australia's increased from 1.6 per cent to 1.8 per cent. So what you see is that, around the world, countries are seeing the big opportunity. They're increasing quite significantly, they're spending on research and development, and we're doing ours just a tiny little bit—nothing like what other countries are doing.

The short point is: we're not keeping up. I think that's really evident in some specific areas of innovation. Investment in energy R&D, for example—Australia should be a global energy powerhouse; I'm hardly the first person to say that. In the final year that Labor was last in office, the multisector R&D spend on energy and the environment was $464 million. Last year it was $296 million. This is in real dollars. If we're going to secure this new energy future and the great wave of jobs that can come with innovation in these areas, we're going to have to invest. That's what we seem to be failing to do at the moment.

Medical innovation is another pertinent example. Anyone working in this area would know that this is a core area of expertise for Australian scientists. In the final year that Labor was last in office, the multisector spend on the National Health and Medical Research Council was $223 million. Last year, under the coalition, it was $8 million less. It's very problematic and very concerning. These are areas of natural comparative advantage for us here in Australia, and to see the government not just underinvesting in R&D but ripping dollars out of these crucial areas where we should be spending more is a bit of a problem.

Finally, I want to make a few comments about the research and development tax incentive. Bill Ferris conducted a review of our innovation system for Malcolm Turnbull when Mr Turnbull was Australia's Prime Minister. He talked about this balance between providing direct and indirect support through the way that we fund research and development. This is something else that I think the parliament needs to have a really close look at. When we look at best practice countries, we see far more support being given directly. The government is able to design and drive much more of a strategy about how we spend our research dollars, as scarce as they are, in this country. I think that, along with some of the other issues that I've mentioned, there are real opportunities for improvement here.

The upshot of all this is the opportunity. There's a huge opportunity for us to create a new wave of employment for Australians to give the very best for our kids. We're only going to get it if we get that focus and energy from the government and, unfortunately, that's what's missing today.

Dr ALY (Cowan) (19:15): As the member for Hotham and other speakers before me have mentioned, the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2019 is a non-controversial bill which really is only about amending the Australian Research Council Act to apply indexation to the existing appropriation amounts for approved research programs in the forthcoming financial years. The amendment that we have moved to that bill mentions that, whilst we welcome a second reading of the bill, the House also notes that the government has cut research funding, interfered in independent peer-reviewed grant processes and abandoned nation-building investment in education and research infrastructure. While this is a very uncontroversial bill, I take this opportunity, as did the member for Hotham, to talk about research, talk about the ARC and talk about higher education.

I'm no stranger to any of those processes. As a professor and academic, I had or was part of four ARC grants. The first Australian Research Council grant that I was involved in was actually for my PhD. That was a discovery grant where the findings of my research informed Australia's first metric measuring behavioural responses to the fear of terrorism. A few years later I was successful in getting an early career research grant, which looked at—gosh, I don't know if I can remember what it looked at! Actually, I do remember: it looked at victims of terrorism and their contributions to policymaking on counterterrorism. In that period I was also involved in a linkage grant that involved several universities. We developed supercomputer software to look at scraping so that I could analyse trends in online terrorism. Then, just before I entered parliament, I was successful in a second discovery grant, which was a collaboration with a university in Dublin and the University of Haifa to look at the nature of terrorist propaganda influence.

So I'm no stranger to ARC grants and I can tell you with absolute surety that the process that an individual researcher goes through to get an ARC grant is a gruelling one. It often involves many years of preparation. It involves many years of undertaking things like pilot studies, building up your reputation as a researcher and building up your publications in your particular field just to get a look in to get an ARC grant. When I was an academic, they introduced the ARC early career researcher grants because the discovery grants had such a low success rate, and many of us who had had our PhDs for fewer than eight years—what were called early- and mid-career researchers—were just not competitive in getting discovery grants. So they introduced the early career research grants.

Even the early career research grants of the ARC are very gruelling in their process. It is an extremely rigorous process. The application for a research grant, whether it's a discovery, linkage or early career grant, takes you at least a year to develop. You have to develop your project. You have to have written about your project and had that published, often in some of the high-ranking journals. You have to show how your research has a benefit to the research community, a national benefit and an international benefit. It is no easy task.

But, what we've seen is an unprecedented case where the previous minister used his ministerial veto to restrict funding for research that doesn't support his particular world view. What we have seen is unprecedented political interference in an independent, peer-reviewed grant process. Absolutely, it is a shame, because, as I said, nobody can assess the value of a piece of research except experts in that field. For a minister to think that he or she has the skills, the knowledge or the experience to make an informed decision about which research projects go through and which don't is a slap in the face to every single person who has put their blood, sweat and tears into getting a PhD and into becoming an academic and going down that path of contributing to Australia's research knowledge and our research capability.

When you apply for an ARC grant, you have to put in a particular code, and that code determines which panel of experts—can I just repeat: panel of experts—will assess your application. That code is necessary for that panel of experts to assess your application, because that panel of experts are experts in the field you have selected your research to be assessed under. It's not like somebody who is a specialist in communication is assessing a research project on genomes. It's not like somebody who has a PhD and an international reputation in international relations is assessing a PhD on business in Malaysia. It's not like that. The ARC College of Experts and the panel experts are the top Australian experts in their field. So for the minister to undermine such an independent and such a rigorous process is really quite disgraceful.

The fact also needs to be stated that all of the research projects that were vetoed by the minister were in humanities and social sciences. As a social scientist, and somebody with a humanities background, I find that particularly disturbing. They were across a range of fields in the humanities—history, the arts, music and journalism. It was as if those fields could easily be judged on their worth and on the amount and the level of knowledge that they add to Australia's research capabilities by a minister, who—correct me if I'm wrong, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough—I'm pretty sure has no background in history, the arts, music or journalism.

The other issue is how we found out about this. Senate estimates was told in October 2018 that 11 grants totalling $4.2 million were secretly vetoed by the then education minister in 2017 and 2018. There were six discovery grants, three Discovery Early Career Research Awards and two Future Fellowships. I particularly think it's damning that the early career researcher awards were vetoed, because many early career researchers, or those who apply for early career research awards, are women who, for one reason or another, usually through having children, have had their academic progress and their academic careers disrupted. Until Senate estimates, the universities and the scholars had absolutely no idea that these applications had been rejected even though they had been approved by the college of experts, who are best placed to determine the worth of an ARC grant application.

Apart from this unprecedented undermining of the independence and expert process of the ARC, the government has also made three attempts to abolish the nation-building Education Investment Fund. The most recent attempt is currently before the parliament. The EIF was established in 2009 by this side, by Labor. The purpose of the EIF was to provide important capital funding for transformational education and research infrastructure which would enable Australian universities to compete internationally. We have a very good reputation in terms of education. It's important that we keep that reputation. It's important that we continue to be held up as a great example of a great place for people to come and study and get a good education. Our universities are internationally renowned, but without a commitment to research and without universities being able to do the kind of research that informs teaching and makes us competitive on the international stage, there is a real danger that we are going to lose that reputation and we will stop having students coming here from overseas to study in Australia. It's one of our biggest exports; I think it's our third-largest export. It would be a huge blow to the economy if we were to lose large numbers of international students because our research could not keep up with international trends.

The Education Investment Fund was the key plank in the Labor government's move to transform Australian education and research capability. We introduced it in 2009 to address years of underfunding and underinvestment by the coalition government during the Howard era. We doubled, or nearly doubled, the Higher Education Endowment Fund. We brought in the EIF to make substantial investment in renewal and refurbishment of universities and vocational institutions as well as major research institutions. Under Labor, around $7 billion was provided to co-finance the update and modernisation of our vocational higher education and research facilities across 71 projects.

Just before I decided to get distracted by a political career, I set up one of those research facilities at Edith Cowan University in Mount Lawley. I set up a research program and the infrastructure to look at global issues. So I know how important the funding for this kind of infrastructure is and how important it is to enable our universities to partner and have MOUs with universities overseas and to develop our international reputation and the international reputation of academics.

There was once a time when academia would have been a very attractive option for somebody to work in. You did your PhD, you got your PhD, you joined academia and you devoted your life to your subject area and to increasing knowledge and developing the skills of future generations in a specific subject area. Whether that is something like counterterrorism, whether it is medical research or whether it's in the sciences or the humanities, it's all contributing to knowledge and contributing to our knowledge pool as a nation. Increasingly, academia is becoming less of an attractive option for young people in particular. The member for Hotham mentioned one particular case, but there are many like that where young people are leaving research in droves because they can't get funding, because their ARC grants are being knocked back, vetoed by a minister who knows nothing of their particular area and who continues to undermine the experts of the ARC.

In closing, I would urge this government to really put their money where their mouth is and support research, because it's the future of our country. It's the future of Australia and our competitiveness on the international stage.