2010-05-12 42 1 8 SENATE 0 0 2010-05-12 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. John Hogg) took the chair at 9.30 am and read prayers. 2553 Committees 2553 2553 Senator PARRY (Tasmania —Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) 09:30:00 —by leave—At the request of Senator Cormann, I move: That the Select Committee on Fuel and Energy be authorised to hold a private meeting otherwise than in accordance with standing order 33(1) during the sitting of the Senate today from 3 pm. Question agreed to. 2553 Bills R4305 2553 Debate resumed from 11 May, on motion by Senator Ludwig: That this bill be now read a second time. 2553 09:31:00 Bushby, Sen David HLL Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator BUSHBY —I rise to contribute to the debate on the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010. The bill introduces a number of measures, the majority of which are supported by the coalition. But one measure in particular is not: that part of the bill which seeks to implement the government’s promised superannuation clearing house and does so by clearly breaching a key aspect of the government’s election promise in this regard. That is right: yet another broken promise by a government that is hard pressed to point to any election promises that it has actually delivered in full and as promised. Sure, it said it would put computers in schools and some schools actually have some; but not one for every secondary student as was originally promised—not even access to one by every student as the promise was later changed to. Of course, the government has mismanaged the roll out. The cost of providing computers that students can actually use with software and support has blown out exponentially. Then there are the childcare centres to stop the double drop-off and the GP super clinics, on both of which there has been little action at greatly inflated and blown out cost. None of them will be delivered in the numbers and locations promised. In respect of the GP super clinics, during the MPI yesterday on the government’s failure to deliver on its promises Senator Bilyk gave the big tick to the GP super clinic in Rosny in my home state of Tasmania. I tell you that delivery of that promise constitutes a big hole dug in the ground many months ago and no action since. If, in Labor’s view, that deserves a big tick it says a lot about how they see their obligation to deliver on their promises. Then there is the promise not to change the private health insurance rebate, the promise to introduce an ETS, the promise to take Japan to the International Court of Justice over whaling, and Mr Rudd’s promise not to live in Kirribilli house. The list goes on and is long—broken promise after broken promise. Media outlets have taken to compiling their own lists of broken promises and publishing them. It is almost a sport except for the fact that the target is such an easy one to hit. This promise of the government is no different. Before the last election the government promised that it would introduce this measure and that it would do so by contracting it out to a private clearing house—that is right, to a private operator to deliver. This was not just some slip of the tongue. It was a clear and concise, written, key part of the overall promise. Yet today we are debating a bill that sees the government trying to give the responsibility to Medicare Australia without implementing any public tender or other process to ensure that Australians will get the best value for money or even that the outcomes of the measure will meet an appropriate standard. And all in the face of a clear promise to the Australian people—another promise this Rudd Labor government has broken. The fact is that the coalition is broadly supportive of the government’s overall aims as set out in this promise. The government’s intentions might even be pure but as so often happens with this government it is in the design and delivery of its program that it has again cocked things up. The government has rightly recognised that red tape is a concern for small business and we on this side of the chamber will always support well thought out and balanced government measures to make things easier for small business to comply with regulatory burdens. This measure certainly had the potential to do that but, for some inexplicable reason, the government has chosen blatantly to break its promise to the Australian people and is introducing this measure in a way that almost certainly will not deliver the best results or even deliver it at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. The government has completely failed to explain why it broke its promise to tender the service to the private sector. Neither the government nor Medicare has publicly made a business case for establishing the clearing house in this way. Many operators in the superannuation sector have expressed concerns about the anticompetitive way it has been set up. I am particularly concerned about the anticompetitive nature of this measure and there are a number of other serious issues associated with giving Medicare the task of becoming the government-mandated superannuation clearing house. The support given by those in the industry is cautious at best but damning from most. The legislation requires further consideration and development prior to implementation. The recommendation of the majority of the Standing Committee on Economics that the legislation be passed unamended is inappropriate and is indicative of the government’s refusal to properly consider feedback and criticism from industry about this and other legislation. The principal concern regarding this bill emanating from the superannuation sector and from clearing houses that are currently operating in the private sector is the anticompetitive nature of the legislation. Private sector superannuation clearing houses have been operating in this space for some time. The sector’s largest clearing house, SuperChoice, told the inquiry into this legislation that this year it will process around 20 million contributions on behalf of 50,000 employers—40,000 of whom are employers with fewer than 20 employees. They account for two-million-odd employees. Overall, it is projected about $7.2 billion will be cleared through the SuperChoice service and SuperChoice estimates that that has around 20 per cent of the entire clearing market. If the government were to introduce its own clearing house operator and enforce preferential regulations on that operator when compared to currently operating clearing houses, as proposed, this would seriously impact upon the businesses of those privately operating clearing houses. Westpac’s QuickSuper would be forced to compete in a market distorted by the change and no longer uniform or equitable for public and private sector participants. This will have negative consequences for small businesses that choose to continue to use private sector clearing houses. As a result, the legislation should be amended to ensure clearing house standards are the same across both public and private sectors. Whilst the intentions of the government may be to provide a superannuation clearing house to those employers who currently cannot access a free service, the legislation and regulations will allow absolutely any business with fewer than 20 employees access to the service. For instance, the 40,000 employees who use the SuperChoice clearing house will have overwhelming incentive to switch to the Medicare clearing house for a number of reasons. The government recently said that the way superannuation can be strengthened is to drive efficiencies, reduce administrative costs and thus increase returns. AFSA, the Australian Financial Services Association, submitted to the inquiry and recommended the following: That the legislation be amended so as to provide a path forward whereby private sector organisations could achieve approved clearing house status. This would achieve a level playing field. The path forward could include the establishment of operating standards combined with regulatory oversight, as envisioned by the government’s original statement. Importantly, this would ensure clearing houses meet certain minimum requirements and provide a wider range of employers with the opportunity to meet their obligations by contributing through a clearing house. Such a recommendation, if implemented, would encourage the use of clearing houses and provide each clearing house with competitive incentives to create efficiencies and implement best practice. Indeed, the Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law, Hon. Chris Bowen, in his address to the Self-Managed Super Fund Professional Association of Australia in Melbourne on 18 February this year stated: ... an efficient clearing house system would be available to employers. Such a clearing house system could help drive reform of the superannuation system overall in such areas as how payments are made to funds, what sort of information is required by the fund and interfund transactions. They are nice words, but they are not reflective of the reality of the clearing house model he has put forward in this bill. Amendments are needed to be made to the bill to protect competition, encourage innovation and improve the access and services available to all businesses. The government has allocated $16.1 million to this project over four years. Why this amount? It was not based on any sort of public tender process. What guarantee does the government give of what can be delivered for the expenditure of taxpayer money in this way? Given this, what explanation can be made to taxpayers explaining why the Prime Minister failed to meet his election promise to implement the plan through a competitive tender process—a process that would have ensured the government could have delivered best practice clearing house functions at the best possible value? The government has also failed to demonstrate why Medicare is the most efficient or effective option and whether it can provide services comparable to what the private sector can provide. There is also some doubt as to how far the government got down the path of tendering out of the clearing house before pulling the plug and moving to the in-house Medicare option. Treasury gave evidence in the Senate hearing to the effect that tender documents were not actually drafted. This seems contradictory to evidence given on notice by Treasury to Senate estimates in February 2010 where Treasury responded that no draft tender document suitable for public release was prepared, suggesting the draft tender documents may have been prepared but not released. There is also a suggestion that the government went first to Australia Post as its preferred clearing house provider but that this was rejected as unworkable. Given the evidence provided to the Senate inquiry, I think it should have kept on looking. Medicare’s evidence to the inquiry hearing demonstrates that the agency has not completed a business plan to a level that would have been required as part of a competitive tender process, meaning that the government has not received any evidence from Medicare to a normal prudent standard that could satisfy the government of its ability to deliver for a reasonable price. Medicare made the following comments to the hearing: We do not have any targets at this point in terms of the number of businesses which are going to use the system.             …         …         … We did not go and cost an alternative provider. Medicare also commented, ‘We are considering options.’ That is, to accept employer payments. The Superannuation Information Centre submitted that the decision to send a clearing house to Medicare means that there is the serious potential for large-scale economic waste. Given the evidence presented, Medicare and Treasury have not been able to prove that Medicare can handle the scheme within the budget provided and without risk to employee superannuation payments and associated benefits like life insurance coverage. Many in the industry have legitimate concerns about Medicare’s ability to successfully and efficiently operate the scheme, particularly within the time lines provided. The evidence clearly supported the conclusion that Medicare operating the system would disadvantage the existing private industry. The government must also be held accountable for breaking its promises. When asked about this broken promise in particular, what was the response of the Treasury officials? They stated that the need for the government to break its promise to the Australian people arose from a concern that a private clearing house might have a problem with fraud or solvency and that the consequences of this to Australians and their super is too large to contemplate or to accept. They said that we needed to eliminate that risk and that the only way to do this was through breaking the promise and taking the clearing house within government. This statement by Treasury is ingenuous and, without wanting to cast any aspersions on the Treasury official involved, sounds more like a government’s spin line dreamt up by the hollow men in the minister’s office to explain a decision already made for less honourable reasons than a real reason justifying the blatant breaking of this election promise. It also demonstrates that the risks of private sector failure or fraud are not well understood by the government. This is in part because existing clearing house providers such as SuperChoice, Westpac and ADP are reputable, well capitalised and have extensive professional indemnity cover, thereby minimising the risk. They segregate duties by outsourcing payment distribution to banks which is a key fraud control. The Investment and Financial Services Association told the Senate inquiry that private clearing houses are well regulated through prudential reporting requirements and that private clearing houses must hold an Australian financial services licence. IFSA told the inquiry that the risk involved with private clearing houses was very low and that the use of private clearing houses provides certainty. ASIC requires clearing houses to issue product disclosure statements which must detail the terms and conditions of the facility, any fees and charges, how the transactions are made and authorised, and any risks associated with the facility. Medicare, however, will be exempt from this regulation. If the government is suggesting that companies with this level of regulation are risky, then the minister is suggesting that the current level of regulation is insufficient. And the officials’ protestations about risk and the need to look at likelihood of it occurring and the severity of outcome also do not hold water. The fact is that even if a private clearing house did see superannuation funds disappear through fraud or failure, as unlikely as that is, the consequences for individual taxpayers would at worst be one month’s or perhaps one quarter’s superannuation payments. It could in no way devastate their total super savings, as payments made for each and every other period would have been passed on to their superannuation fund long before the next payment would be sent to the clearing house. The superannuation clearing house was promised by the government during the Prime Minister’s 2007 budget reply speech when he was opposition leader. The Labor Party in opposition argued that the Howard government’s superannuation choice policies, as introduced in 2005, increased compliance costs for small businesses, which in many cases were then required to make separate superannuation payments for each individual employee. This situation was a by-product of the success of superannuation choice. So many employees chose their own superannuation fund after the policy’s implementation—clearly a popular move by the then government, as proven by the high level of take-up by employees who took an informed look at their options. Given the level of success, we supported the availability of a superannuation clearing house to small business to reduce compliance costs and could hardly argue against the then intention of the then opposition to implement such a policy through a privately tendered private operator. But, by not even testing the private market, the government decision to go straight to an in-house superannuation clearing house option—one which has the legislative backing to provide real and definitive advantages over private sector operators—can only be seen as a prime example of another blatant broken promise by this Rudd Labor government. The government did put out a consultation paper on its proposal, one that attracted a lot of submissions detailing the challenges of delivering the government’s desired outcomes and the advantages, both in cost and in terms of delivery, of doing this through a private operator. When I asked at the inquiry if responses from the consultation paper into the clearing house were made available to Medicare for their consideration in terms of building and delivering the system, Ms Hughes from Medicare admitted: We have not asked for any of those documents. So here we have the agency tasked with delivering the government’s proposed clearing house option—something that has taken private operators more than 10 years and $50 million to develop, something that is hugely complex and fraught with challenges—and that agency had not even asked for or been provided with the submissions from the government’s own consultation on the measure. I guess this shows yet again the weight that this Rudd Labor government gives to the consultation it undertakes on measures it wants to introduce. We know that the government refused to listen to the experts on home insulation and now it is refusing to listen to the experts in superannuation and payment processing with regard to the clearing house. I ask the government: why do you bother to consult and why do you have so many reviews into superannuation and finance if you refuse to listen to the views of experts? It is all spin and no substance. How Medicare can possibly understand the concerns of industry if they did not consider their submissions relevant is beyond me. The fact is that existing private clearing houses have systems in place to process transactions that reflect the systems and information requirements for the vast array of super funds that exist in this country and the even longer list of products they offer in this space. They know how much each transaction costs and they could implement the government’s policy in a relatively short time span and present a full business plan demonstrating the outcomes and the value for money. These businesses are being told that they have lost out to a government agency that has not finalised its plan, that has no apparent regard for industry concerns and that does not even know if there will be ‘issues with matching and some requirement for them to do follow-up work’, as was admitted by the general manager at the hearing. Why would the government award the contract to Medicare, which has no experience in superannuation? And this is after the government received overwhelming evidence that the private sector could easily handle the additional transactions at a fraction of the cost proposed. The legislation provides that employers will be able to discharge their superannuation guarantee obligations by making a bulk payment to the approved clearing house on the 28th day of the month in each quarter when the payment is required. This is different to the current system, where employers need to have the payment arrive at the superannuation fund trustee by the 28th of the month when the payment is due, regardless of whether they use a clearing house or not. Not allowing private operators to be approved in accordance with this bill means they will not be able to compete in terms of timing, which is important to cash flow for many small businesses and will render private operators largely uncompetitive as a result.  Private clearing houses currently operating will still be forced to process their payments by the 28th of the month in which the payments must be made, which requires employers to pay their bulk payments in advance of that date. On the other hand, employers will be able to pay the Medicare clearing house on the 28th, when the payment is required. Under these conditions, why would any employer not choose Medicare as its clearing house? As ASFA have argued, the government’s scheme ‘has the potential to deliver commercial damage to existing providers of clearing house services’. The industry is questioning whether this was a rushed Rudd government decision to give Medicare the contract so that it could announce that it was meeting its clearing house commitment before the next election. Peter Philip, CEO of SuperChoice, puts the issue plainly by saying: … we certainly feel that what the Government is proposing will create distortions in the market …How could it not when they’re funding with public money a clearing house that will be a significantly advantaged competitor to existing clearing houses? Private sector clearing houses have worked to meet the needs of the market. They have been operating efficiently without issue. The bill as drafted will damage this market. This entire clearing house exercise has been another example of waste and mismanagement. The government is showing a reckless disregard for the companies backing Australia’s retirement system. As mentioned, $16.1 million has been allocated to the clearing house over four years and we still do not know if Medicare is able to deliver an effective scheme within the allocated budget. Private sector clearing house operators have delivered efficient and low-risk services to employers for many years. The legislation as drafted will give Medicare a significant competitive advantage over private sector operators, who have found a need in the superannuation market and developed innovative technologies to fulfil that need. It will put the premium services they offer at a reasonable price at risk and potentially replace them with substandard services at a bureaucratically inflated, heavy Rudd Labor Party cost. I have support for some elements of this bill but have major reservations with regard to the impact of the proposed government funded clearing house. It has been a retrograde step by this government to depart from its promise to have a service that is provided on a contestable basis. I will support the amendments that we will be putting forward. 2559 09:51:00 Fielding, Sen Steve E4R Victoria FFP Leader of the Family First Party 0 0 Senator FIELDING —It is tough enough to run a small business without having to wade through all the paperwork and red tape. As someone who used to work in the superannuation industry and knows this field quite well, I am aware of the headache it causes small businesses when they have to pay contributions into numerous superannuation funds. It is an administrative burden that small businesses do not have the time for, and most of them do the right thing by their workers. That is why the decision by the Rudd government to set up a free superannuation clearing house for those businesses with fewer than 20 employees is a good thing. Having a clearing house available for small businesses is an important measure, because it will allow them to fulfil their obligations in respect of paying superannuation contributions through just a single payment each time instead of multiple transactions. As a nation, we need to do more to help small businesses flourish in Australia, because they are the lifeblood of our economy and the largest employer of Australian workers. The Rudd government should be commended for helping to ease the administrative burden faced by small businesses. Back in 2007, the Labor Party promised the Australian people that if elected it would set up a free clearing house for small businesses by 30 June 2009, not 30 June 2010. Guess what? Yep, the Rudd government broke that election promise. It is almost a year after the deadline and it is only now that we are finally debating this with the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010. Unfortunately, this type of behaviour of breaking election promises is something that the Australian public are growing more and more concerned about with the Rudd government. In fact, I could name a whole list of election promises to the Australian public which the Rudd government has broken. But now the Rudd government has another broken election promise to add to that list, because instead of providing for the clearing house to be run by a private provider, as the Labor Party promised, it is now going to have this run by Medicare. This is a broken election promise that I know has caused a lot of angst amongst private sector clearing houses who feel that they should have been given the opportunity to tender for the business. Instead, the government has turned to Medicare, who it also turned to to run the pink batts program—that is right, the pink batts program which the Rudd government totally mismanaged. We all know what happened to the pink batts program. We can only hope that the Rudd government does not stuff up this superannuation clearing house program. Family First is disappointed that the government has broken its election promise and let the Australian people down yet again. The Australian people are being treated like rag dolls by the Rudd government, which throws them from pillar to post without apparently really caring what they think or even caring about what it promised. When is an election promise a real promise? The Australian public is getting sick and tired of having the Rudd government constantly go back on its word. So what does this mean for this superannuation clearing house legislation? The establishment of a free clearing house for small businesses is a welcome initiative which will help small business. Family First supports this superannuation clearing house concept and will consider the amendments as the debate unfolds. 2560 09:56:00 Carr, Sen Kim AW5 Victoria ALP Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research 1 0 Senator CARR —I would like to take this opportunity to thank those senators who contributed to this debate and indicate that schedule 1 of the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010 delivers on the government’s 2007 election commitment to introduce an optional superannuation clearing house service that will be free of charge to eligible small businesses—that is, those with fewer than 20 employees. Senator Fielding would be interested in these remarks, because I think they directly address his concerns. This measure will reduce the red tape burden on small businesses. In particular, it will remove the need for small business to deal with numerous different superannuation funds where their employees elect to exercise choice and, consistent with the government’s election commitment, it will enable small businesses to discharge their superannuation guarantee obligations once the payment is received by the clearing house. The measure has been welcomed by the Council of Small Businesses of Australia as well as by a range of other industry bodies, including the Investment and Financial Services Association and the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, who described the measure as ‘the most significant first step in lowering administrative costs for employees’. The government’s decision to provide a small business clearing house service through Medicare Australia was not taken lightly. The decision had regard to a number of factors. The key consideration relates to the government’s commitment to offer small businesses the certainty of being able to discharge their superannuation guarantee obligations on payments to the clearing house. A responsible approach to policy design required attention as to how to deal with this particular risk. This included thinking about what happens when something does go wrong, rather than just naively trusting that things will go right. Therefore, the discharge of the super guarantee liability at the clearing house has an important bearing on the design of the measure. It is the view of the government that if you do that—and this is a very important part of our election commitment—the best way of meeting that obligation and ensuring the security of employee funds is through the delivery of a service through Medicare. Delivering the clearing house service through Medicare Australia will minimise these risks in comparison with the provision through a commercial operator, ensuring that small businesses can discharge their super guarantee obligations on payment to the clearing house. Medicare Australia has a significant payment processing capacity, processing over 562 million services annually to the value of $35.8 billion. Medicare Australia is able to leverage its existing infrastructure and capabilities while ensuring the privacy of information and simultaneously ensuring the security of funds. Moreover, this is a measure that will be fully funded from the budget and will not require Medicare to draw on its existing resources. The government accept that there are a number of private sector operators who believe they can deliver this service. However, it is not incumbent upon the government to deliver a solution which suits one particular segment of the superannuation industry. We have a duty to develop public policy in the interests of the whole nation—small businesses and employees as well as superannuation industries more generally. The government’s selection of Medicare is a responsible approach which will deliver significant compliance cost reductions for small businesses while removing any risk to employee superannuation entitlements while they are held by the clearing house. The Senate Standing Committee on Economics has recommended that we consider that the threshold value of 20 employees be monitored over an initial period of three years. The government welcome this as a sensible recommendation. However, for the reasons that have already been outlined, the government will not consider enabling a commercial operator to provide this service on the same terms as Medicare, particularly in respect to discharging super guarantee liabilities. The opposition has raised concerns about the government not tendering the service to the private sector and about the so-called anticompetitive effects of the selection of Medicare. It needs to be recognised that the significant segment of the market which are targeted by these measures involves employers with fewer than 20 employees. They are currently not extensively serviced by existing clearing house providers. This has been borne out in the evidence given by the superannuation industry participants to the Senate committee. The relatively low use of the clearing house services by smaller businesses could be due to a number of factors, including that it may not be commercially attractive for existing operators to provide services to such small businesses. But the willingness and capacity of smaller businesses also needs to be considered when it comes to the issue of actually paying for the service. Whatever the reason, the measure contained in this bill is designed to address the gap that currently exists in the market by offering a free, no-strings-attached clearing house service to eligible small businesses, and I urge the opposition to support this important initiative. I am sure Senator Sherry, who is now here, will be able to deal with any other matters in the context of the committee stages of the bill. I commend the bill to the chamber. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. 2561 Bill—by leave—taken as a whole. 2561 10:03:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —I table a supplementary explanatory memorandum relating to the government amendments to be moved to the bill. The memorandum was circulated in the chamber on 11 May 2010. 2561 10:03:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —I move opposition amendment (1) on sheet 6087: (1)    Schedule 1, item 5, page 7 (line 4 and 5), omit subsection (3), substitute:          (3)    An approved clearing house means one of the following:               (a)    a licensed superannuation clearing house, which meets the minimum standards specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph; or               (b)    a government-subsidised clearing house, selected subject to a competitive process for awarding a government contract, as specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph. This amendment is basically to encompass a wider capacity for the usage of clearing houses. We should not just have clearing houses such as the hand-picked Medicare clearing house. We should have the capacity for other people to participate in this process. If we are truly going to support small business—and I hear the Treasurer and the Prime Minister talking about their support of small business—then surely we should engage in the delivery of what would be access to government funds through a process that has no reason to just be quarantined to Medicare but should be widened. In our amendment we have increased the capacity of clearing houses to be ‘a government-subsidised clearing house, selected subject to a competitive process for awarding a government contract, as specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph.’ It has been stated through all the speeches that have been given so far from this side and through the committee work that there are people with the capacity to deliver a clearing house outcome, and we should be doing our best to endeavour to keep them in the marketplace. It does seem rather unfair that we have gone out and picked a winner in Medicare, especially when there has been no real diligence done on Medicare’s capacity to provide that outcome. I clearly spelt that out in my speech in the second reading debate on this matter. This amendment is basically going forward and saying, ‘Let’s test the marketplace. Let’s see if we can get the best value for our dollar. Let’s increase the description so that we allow other Australians to participate in this process.’ 2562 10:05:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —My colleague Senator Carr well covered the reasons why the government have opposed this amendment. There are just two elements that I want to respond to. The first is the question of why we need a clearing house specifically for small business, whoever provides it. Why do we need it? We need it because, as a consequence of superannuation choice provisions as introduced by the previous government, there has been an enormous new red-tape and regulatory burden placed on small business. We warned the previous government at the time they introduced superannuation choice about some of the difficulties that would confront business, particularly small business. Choice of fund requires in law that a business provides a choice-of-fund form to all new employees. It then legally requires the processing of those forms by that business where there is a departure from the default fund. There is an administrative cost to that. And then obviously there is the payment. A lot of small businesses, as I am sure Senator Joyce knows, do not have electronic transfer payment facilities in order to carry this out; they do it manually. So this is an additional problem for small business. One of the features of Medicare, of course, is that they have physical offices to which businesses can go to make manual payments. That is not available through a traditional electronic clearing house. I know some of these privately run electronic clearing houses, and they do not have physical offices on the ground—particularly in regional Australia, Senator Joyce—by which small businesses can continue, if they wish, to make manual payments. In the case of Devonport, where I live, there is a Medicare office for small business and people can, obviously, physically walk in. Our preference is electronic payment but the reality is that many small businesses will continue for the foreseeable future to do this work physically rather than electronically. That is one important advantage. The other issues have been well canvassed in this debate and Senator Carr has run through those. This issue has been the major point of contention during the second reading debate—not the only point raised but the major focus of debate—and I commend the government’s position on Medicare to the Senate chamber. The government opposes the opposition amendment. 2562 10:08:00 Milne, Sen Christine KA5 Tasmania AG 0 0 Senator MILNE —I rise to indicate that the Australian Greens will be opposing the opposition amendment. In addition to the reasons that have been cited by the government—and I did want to have discussion with the government about this and have now done so to my satisfaction—the issue for me is the level of risk that small businesses around the country are already suffering in terms of the financial advice and financial services that are provided to them. I think we are all aware that as a result of the global financial crisis there is also a crisis of confidence about the quality of advice and the capability of a number of businesses in the financial services area. The issue here is that when small businesses pay the superannuation guarantee for their employees they provide that to the default fund, or whoever is managing the transfer, but they bear the liability for it until it goes into the major super fund wherever that money is directed in the end. If those businesses in the middle go broke or are fraudulent then the risk comes back to the small business owner, whereas if it goes to Medicare then the minute that the payment is made to Medicare the small business operator’s liability ceases. That is an important issue in terms of who bears the risk. The second important point, in my view, is the one made by Senator Sherry. Coming from Tasmania, he is well aware of small businesses in rural and regional Australia. It is the case that many of them are not online and that they are not working with electronic transfer systems. I would hope that with the Medicare arrangements now in place many of these small businesses will use the opportunity for accelerated depreciation to become more electronically savvy, if you like, and to arrive at the greater level of efficiency that would come with that. As far as I can see, we have got major clearing houses for businesses that employ more than 20 people. We are looking at small businesses around the country, and this is offering them an efficient and convenient way of dealing with the superannuation liabilities that they have to provide for their employees. We are going to a system where the amount of money that is being transferred is going to be greater because of the rise from a nine per cent to a 12 per cent levy. The risk associated with shonky businesses in the middle is in my view considerable and if we can do anything to reduce that level of risk then we ought to be doing it. If I was in a small business knowing that the minute that I transferred this money to Medicare my liability ceased, as opposed to transferring it to a middleman and then waiting to see when it went into the fund and knowing that it is at that point that my liability ceased, I would prefer to get that liability off my back as quickly as possible. That is why I do not support the coalition amendment and will support Medicare becoming a clearing house. 2563 10:12:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —I think it is important to note the following words in the first part of the amendment: … a licensed superannuation clearing house, which meets the minimum standards specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph— and also, in the second part of the amendment— … as specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph. This means that there is oversight. There is not going to be a kind of laissez-faire approach; we just want to open up further the opportunity to participate in this marketplace. I do not know why we should quarantine everything within Medicare or why we should be inherently picking a winner in Medicare. When we drill down through Medicare they have provided us with no real reason for us to say that they are a winner. I have no doubt that they would have competence but they do not necessarily have it in this field. It may develop in this field, but we should be opening this up so that there is the capacity for wider participation by small business in this marketplace. The purpose of this amendment is not that any person for any reason should be able to decide to set things up. It is a case that if you meet the minimum standards, you can. To put it another way, it would be like starting up tax agents again and saying only Medicare could be the tax agent. Why? Other people are competent and have the capacity to deliver an outcome. Other people have the capacity to build a business. Why not let them do it? 2564 10:14:00 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 0 Senator XENOPHON —Could I just get some confirmation from the government. As I understand it, initially it was planned that there be a tendering process for a private clearing house to deal with this—I think that is the assertion made by the opposition—and that it was due to start on 1 July 2009. I want to understand whether the premise of the coalition’s argument in respect of that is correct or not. 2564 10:15:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —I can firstly confirm that, yes, it was scheduled to commence on 1 July 2009. Secondly I can confirm that it was originally envisaged that there would be a private clearing house. However, on being elected, the government assessed the implementation of the policy and it identified a range of risk factors and practical issues which have been well debated. I could repeat them but Senator Xenophon is always urging restraint in my contribution on these superannuation issues! The government did consider the option of developing a regulatory framework to apply to a private clearing house. However, while a regulatory framework could mitigate the risk employee entitlements are exposed to, it cannot remove it entirely. In contrast, delivering the service through a public sector entity removes the risk associated with private sector provision—and Senator Milne has just touched on one of those issues—because the Commonwealth will effectively be standing behind the clearing house and underwriting any risk to the security of employee entitlements. The government is also mindful that Medicare Australia has significant capacity and expertise in payment processing. We all know that because we all use Medicare. Medicare processes more than 500 million services annually to the value of more than $30 billion. It is uniquely positioned for the reasons I outlined earlier, particularly for small business and in rural and regional areas as well. 2564 10:16:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —This would deny APRA the capacity to actually be a regulator. If they are going to be APRA regulated you either believe that APRA can regulate the industry and provide competency in delivery or you do not. It seems peculiar. Minister, I think you have three times, in pieces, discussed wider engagement in this industry. We are merely going back to your former position. We are asking that you give APRA the capacity to do the job. If a person cannot pass APRA’s specification for what is required then it is not so much about Medicare’s competency to provide the service but APRA’s competency to do the job. I have confidence that APRA would be able to do the job. 2564 10:17:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —I too have great confidence in APRA in the area of superannuation regulation. The point is that APRA does not regulate any clearing houses at the moment; it is not a regulated or supervised set of entities. 2564 10:18:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —Are you saying that APRA does not regulate any clearing houses at the moment? 2565 10:18:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —Correct. 2565 10:18:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —If a clearing house has a financial services licence then surely it must be regulated by APRA. 2565 10:18:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —Australian financial services licences are regulated by ASIC, not APRA. APRA is a prudential regulator. 2565 10:18:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —Prior to this you stated that you would look for a wider engagement in this. That was your position before. What has changed? Why the epiphany? 2565 10:19:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —I have outlined the reasons. The reasons were outlined in the briefings that have been given, in the explanatory memorandums and during the course of this debate. 2565 10:19:00 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 0 Senator XENOPHON —I am grateful to the minister for his answer and also for the interchange with Senator Joyce. On balance, I cannot support the opposition’s amendments. I think the opposition has made a fair point—that the government did break a promise in relation to this—but I think the minister has squared off as to why the government considers this to be the best option. For me, this is about what is most convenient for small businesses to discharge the obligation alluded to by Senator Milne in her contributions. There is no question that there is no risk involved in this being dealt with by Medicare. In effect, Medicare is government backed as a clearing house, so there is no risk. There was an assertion made—not by Senator Joyce—that Medicare’s data requirements are still not finalised. I sought further information about that from the government yesterday, and I am grateful for that information. I have been advised that Medicare has finalised the datasets to be captured from employers and transmitted to superannuation funds and is on track to commence receiving payments from employers on 1 July 2010. So this clearing house is ready to go. If we went through a private process it would take a longer period of time. In terms of the issue raised by the opposition, which is a valid one in terms of efficiencies, what undertakings and assurances can the government give that this scheme will be as efficient as—or comparably efficient to—those run by the private sector? Secondly, what benchmarks, what devices, will there be to measure that efficiency so that taxpayers can be assured this is the most effective way? Again, to put those questions in context, it seems to me that this is about administrative efficiency for small businesses and an assurance that, once they have made the payments to the clearing house, they will have discharged their obligation without any risk to them or to their employees. 2565 10:21:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —Just for clarification: the clearing houses have to provide reporting data to APRA so that APRA do have an involvement in this. Their licensing may be under ASIC but they have to provide reporting data to APRA. A number of people in the box are going to say that that is not the case. 2565 10:22:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —As I have indicated, the AFS licence is an ASIC requirement. APRA is the prudential regulator. There are no reporting requirements for clearing houses to APRA. 2566 10:22:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —I can see that neither the Greens nor the Independents are going to be supporting this amendment, so we will not be dividing on it. So, for the sake of prudence, we will move on. Question negatived. 2566 10:22:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —by leave—I move government amendments (2), (3), (5), (6) and (7) on sheet CG234:  (2)   Schedule 3, item 4, page 16 (lines 24 to 26), omit paragraph 275‑15(1)(b), substitute:               (b)    every *member of the trust is a managed investment trust in relation to the income year (or a trust that is treated in the same way as a managed investment trust in relation to the income year through the operation of this Subdivision). (3)    Schedule 3, item 4, page 17 (lines 6 to 13), omit paragraphs 275‑20(b) and (c), substitute:               (b)    the trust would be a managed investment trust in relation to the income year (or a trust that would be treated in the same way as a managed investment trust in relation to the income year through the operation of this Subdivision) if the trustee of the trust had made the first fund payment in relation to the income year on the first day of the income year; and               (c)    the trust would be a managed investment trust in relation to the income year (or a trust that would be treated in the same way as a managed investment trust in relation to the income year through the operation of this Subdivision) if the trustee of the trust had made the first fund payment in relation to the income year on the last day of the income year.  (5)   Schedule 3, item 4, page 21 (lines 32 and 33), omit “year of income”, substitute “income year”. (6)    Schedule 3, item 4, page 22 (line 1), after “Division 6C”, insert “of Part III”. (7)    Schedule 3, item 4, page 22 (line 2), omit “year of income”, substitute “income year”. I am not aware that there is any opposition to the amendments that have been circulated. I was here yesterday when Senator Milne raised some concerns about any potential interaction between these amendments and managed investment schemes. There is none, for the record. And I understand she has now been briefed on that. 2566 10:23:00 Milne, Sen Christine KA5 Tasmania AG 0 0 Senator MILNE —I want to thank the officials for taking the time to explain one of the technicalities of the amendments that I was concerned about, and that was whether, as to the managed investment trust changes and some of the managed investment schemes, there were a crossover and whether that effectively meant that managed investment schemes not only got the 100 per cent tax deduction upfront but could also opt, at the other end, to take advantage of the provisions relating to a choice of income or capital gains. But now I am satisfied that the forestry managed investment schemes are not captured by the changes to the managed investment trusts as proposed, and therefore I will not be opposing those government amendments. 2566 10:24:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —Just for the record: we got the additional EM and the other amendments yesterday. There was a substantial amount of material there, and we would, in the future, appreciate just a little more time to go through it. 2566 10:24:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —I accept that criticism, Senator Joyce. Certainly, as the responsible minister in this area, it is always my intention to endeavour to provide access briefings. That did not occur as efficiently as it should have on this occasion. As I have indicated to Senator Milne, you have my assurance that we will always do our best to ensure maximum time for amendments. Question agreed to. Senator SHERRY(Tasmania—Assistant Treasurer)(10.25 am)—The government opposes schedule 3 in the following terms: (1)    Schedule 3, item 4, page 13 (line 23) to page 16 (line 17), sections 275‑5 and 275‑10 to be opposed. (4)    Schedule 3, item 4, page 17 (lines 14 to 26), section 275‑25 to be opposed. 10000 TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN, The The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN —The question is that schedule 3 stand as printed. Question negatived. 2567 10:26:00 Milne, Sen Christine KA5 Tasmania AG 0 0 Senator MILNE —As I have indicated previously, every time there is a tax law amendment brought into the Senate, I will be moving for the removal of the tax deduction for the establishment of carbon sink forests. We have had a long debate on this matter previously and my concerns remain. In fact, they are now heightened by the complete mess that is the forest products industry around Australia. As a result of very poor government policy with managed investment schemes, we now have a glut of plantation timber from one side of the country to the other. There is no market for this timber. And the global projections of that market show that the glut is there to stay. China is not going to rescue anybody in this particular field. There is a wall of wood that has come on stream from around the world. And the best thing the government could do right now is to get rid of managed investment schemes for forestry and protect Australia’s native forests. That would improve our biodiversity outcomes. It would protect our standing carbon stores and it would increase the likelihood of a sale and a decent price for the plantation timber which has now come on stream for which there is no market. Subsidising the logging of native forests and subsidising the planting of plantations for which there is no market is a ludicrous economic policy. Whichever way you want to look at the mess in the forest industry around Australia, throwing government money at subsidies to make the matter worse is ridiculous. And, in difficult economic times, and climate change very much in our face, there is now I think a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, actually, to sort out, once and for all, the protection of native forests, the protection of those carbon stores, the removal of these subsidies which lead to competition for land for food production and for water, and to actually increase the price for those people who have put in place these forests. The next concern I have is that the $652 million that the government has put aside for renewable energy, that it has saved from the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, it has included in its renewable energy remit—biomass. Does this mean that we are now going to be in a situation where we have subsidised the establishment of these managed investment schemes and are about to subsidise more of them with the carbon sink forests? Are we now going to say, with the managed investment schemes: ‘We’ve already given you the money upfront to plant them; now there is no market for them, we’re going to subsidise you to cut them down and burn them in forest furnaces. That’d be a good idea; let’s give the money to do that’? When are we going to stop this sacred cow mentality? When are we going to adopt a rational and efficient forest industry in this country instead of pork-barrelling an industry which is now in a mess, largely as a result of government policy? So I am now concerned that we give it on the one hand by encouraging people to go and plant these plantations—taking that land out of food production and undermining the viability of many food processing areas. We have had Senator Boswell in here many times before, talking about the impacts on sugar in Queensland, for example, where you have had land taken out into managed investment schemes. I want to put the government on notice yet again. You now have a golden opportunity. This is first time in the whole 20 years that I have been campaigning on native forests that there has been such a logical and overwhelming imperative and opportunity to fix up this mess around logging and wood products once and for all. You have got all the ducks lined up, for once, and yet I do not see any serious whole-of-government analysis of how the tax breaks are impacting on land use, on carbon and on ecological integrity. If you want to have a vote winner at this federal election then get rid of managed investment scheme subsidies and carbon sink forest subsidies, and go and protect the native forests for the biodiversity outcomes and the carbon stores—therefore, getting yourself a big tick on the climate front and the biodiversity front—and look at what to do with this massive wall of wood for which there is no market. But do not come back into this chamber and make a big announcement prior to the election that we are going to spend more taxpayers’ money—in the $652 million over the next four years for renewable energy. Do not come back in here and tell me that we are going to have taxpayer funded forest furnaces to burn down the trees that we have subsidised people to put in in the first place. That is where I fear we are about to go next. But there is not only what we will find with the forest furnaces; there is also the issue that, under the renewable energy target, they will get counted as green energy—and that is a third subsidy. Now wouldn’t that be a fabulous outcome—the taxpayer gives you a tax break to put them in, gives you a furnace so you can cut them down and burn them up and gives you a fund to count it as green energy! What is more, the beautiful thing in terms of the ridiculous rules we have got for accounting on carbon is that, because you would have put these forests in post 1990, they would not be counted as a carbon loss when you cut them down. So, under the accounting rules, you would not have to count them as a loss. So you get your green energy; you get your government subsidy for your furnace and you get another government subsidy. Meanwhile, the poor, old farmers out there are struggling and are paying higher costs for their land use, having lost their water into their catchments. They are now struggling in those communities as the managed investment schemes go broke and are not being properly managed. There are feral animals, fire risks and all sorts of things because of this complete and utter disaster. Instead of maintaining it, why not face up to it and recognise that you have got an opportunity to fix things? It is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity. We have never had a situation where the native forest logging industry is in complete chaos and collapse, where the plantation industry is in complete chaos and collapse, and where the ecological imperatives are so great. At the same time, this is an opportunity to save money, by removing those subsidies which nobody in their right mind would support if they went out and saw what is actually happening on the land. I want to see the end of managed investment schemes for forestry. I want to see the end of a tax deduction for carbon sink forests. The only tax deduction for carbon sink forests that should be allowed is for the forests which are biodiverse and which are planted for permanency—for 100 years. Increase your biodiversity, by all means. But, by including a provision that you can plant plantations as carbon sink forests and continue to manage them as plantations for wood production at the same time—which you can do under this legislation—is a ludicrous proposition. I will be moving an amendment to get rid of this and I will continue to do so until the government sees sense with regard to getting rid of these subsidies that distort land prices, water issues and food production—distort everything. We have seen just how distortionary this has been with the rip-offs that have gone on with the commissions being paid right throughout rural and regional Australia. A lot of people have already lost money with the managed investment schemes for forestry. If you live in Tasmania you have seen the collapse of forest enterprises. You have seen Great Southern go down. You have seen Timbercorp go down. When you set up your carbon sink forests, you are going to see exactly the same mess with the middlemen making an awful lot of money ripping off the system. The people who lose are the people who live in those areas and have to put up with the consequences. So I now move Australian Greens amendment (1) on sheet 6089, to remove this tax deduction for carbon sink forests: Page 34 (after line 6), after Schedule 4, insert:            Schedule 4A—Carbon sink forests            Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 1  Subdivision 40‑J Repeal the Subdivision. 2569 10:35:00 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 0 Senator XENOPHON —I rise to indicate that I support the Greens amendment moved by Senator Milne. This is an issue that will not go away. When I speak to irrigators in Riverland in South Australia and to environmentalist and environmental groups in the Lower Lakes, there is a common ground when it comes to managed investment schemes and the impact they have on the water market and on land use. Carbon sink forests and the tax breaks given for them further distort the water market and distort the use of prime agricultural land. There is also the impact they have on water with respect to the interception of that water from going into river catchment areas. I endorse what Senator Milne has said. I note that the Nationals—in particular, in the work that they have done, and Senator Nash in particular—have been outspoken as to their concern about the distortionary effects of carbon sink forests. This issue will not go away. This is an issue where there is considerable angst in the community, particularly amongst river communities. Both environmentalists and irrigators have real concerns about these tax write-offs. These tax write-offs really need to be abolished, and we need to go back to the drawing board. 2569 10:26:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —I think this chamber is well aware of the National Party’s position on carbon sink forests. Using the parlance of the chamber, we have crossed the floor twice on them. We acknowledge that each time a TLAB comes in this issue can be brought back in. We have made our position on that quite clear to the Australia people, but we are not on this occasion going through that ritual because the effect will be that there is no effect—there are not the numbers to support this. Maybe that issue will change. We have made our statements in the past. We are coming from a completely different angle than what the Greens are coming from, but on some issues we are coming from the same angle. But unless we are going to evolve into a higher form of termite, it seems peculiar that we would be encouraging the removal of prime agricultural land to put a forest in perpetuity that, for all intents and purposes, is not even supposed to be milled. We think that would have huge economic ramifications in regional districts. This view has been well expressed and I am sure will be expressed again very soon by other senators here. It has huge effects in places such as Tully. We are very concerned and we have expressed that concern, but we do not intend today to provide numbers to a motion that is not going to get passed. 2570 10:38:00 Nash, Sen Fiona E5G New South Wales NATS 0 0 Senator NASH —I just want to take a couple of moments to echo the remarks of our leader here, Senator Joyce. Our position, as he said, as the Nationals has been very clear on this issue. Our view is that prime agricultural land is of vital importance to ensure the future food security of this nation and to ensure that we are able to have the domestic productive capacity that we are going to need not only for our own domestic consumption but also for feeding the world, and particularly assisting those developing nations that are going to need us to provide for them. As Senator Joyce as indicated, on this occasion we will not be providing numbers on the other side and certainly not at the risk of losing a job. I have already lost a job over it. I have got nothing left to lose. That is certainly not preventing me from voting elsewhere on this occasion. Our views are very clear. We are not going to continue down the path of providing numbers on this particular amendment. 8IV Xenophon, Sen Nick Senator Xenophon interjecting— E5G Nash, Sen Fiona Senator NASH —I am getting to that point, Senator Xenophon. But that in no way gives any indication that our resolve on this issue has lessened in any way, shape or form. To give tax breaks to the big end of town to plant carbon sink forests on prime agricultural is, to my mind, completely wrong and my view on that will not be changing. 2570 10:40:00 Williams, Sen John I0V New South Wales NATS 0 0 Senator WILLIAMS —I would just like to support what my leader, Senator Joyce, and my deputy leader, Senator Nash, have said. We have made it perfectly clear over a long time that planting down prime agricultural land to carbon sinks and to MISs with the tax deduction they get forces up the price of land and excludes those genuine farmers from being able to purchase more land, especially when youngsters come home from school and wish to go onto the land. We oppose it. We are not going to be crossing the floor on the issue. We have made our point very clear and just for the sake of numbers it will not make any difference in the chamber. 2570 10:40:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —Firstly, I want to recognise the range of concerns that have been put forward by the Nationals, by the Greens and by Senator Xenophon on managed investment schemes. I want to recognise that there are valid debating points and valid policy points in everything you raise. Some I would agree with; some I would not agree with—but this bill is not the place to deal with those concerns. I can confidently predict that at some point in time in the near future there will be legislation on managed investment schemes—whatever that final form is, I do not know yet—because of a couple of points Senator Milne raised in her contribution: the validity of the tax concession arrangements, the regulatory and supervisory arrangements, the impact on water and a whole range of other issues. The government at the present time has Minister Burke in respect to agriculture, Minister Wong in respect to water, myself in respect to tax concessions and Minister Bowen in respect to regulatory and supervisory issues on these things, all of which have been highlighted by the recent collapses of Great Southern, Timbercorp, and FEA in my own state of Tasmania. They are all being considered from a whole of government and whole of policy point of view. So there will be a time and a place for senators to put their concerns on that issue. The issue we are dealing with here in this tax bill is a measure to protect 19,000 investors in forestry managed investment schemes from an unintended and adverse tax penalty, which is going to flow—unless this bill passes—as a result of the collapses. That is the issue we are dealing with in this bill. It is a measure about the deductions of investors in forest managed investment schemes. The deduction that they have been given and allowed could be denied because they have not held the investment for four years. They have not held the investment for four years because a number of schemes have collapsed for a whole range of reasons—not their fault—and these 19,000 investors could now be double penalised. They are penalised because they have lost their investment in whole or part and they are going to be double penalised, unless this amendment is passed, because of an adverse tax outcome. That is what this bill is fixing: the adverse tax outcome and the double penalty that would apply to investors who have lost their money in whole or part. For goodness sake, my understanding of this amendment is that if an investor actually dies—obviously not their fault—they are tax penalised as well. We are clearing up a penalty that is totally unreasonable in the circumstances. That is what this bill goes to. I detect from the contributions in the chamber that whilst there is a whole range of concerns there is no opposition—in fact, I think there is resounding support for the particular measure we are taking to protect the 19,000 investors who, for reasons beyond their control, would be penalised unfairly. We are fixing that particular problem. The amendment moved by the Australian Greens goes to the broader issue of the debate—repeal of the carbon sink forest provisions. I accept that the Greens have moved this on several occasions. I am very confident, Senator Milne, that there will be another occasion—and, I think, a more appropriate occasion—when we can deal with that and any of the other issues that have been raised in the debate. We oppose the amendment. 2571 10:44:00 Milne, Sen Christine KA5 Tasmania AG 0 0 Senator MILNE —I am delighted to hear from the government that we are finally going to have legislation on forestry managed investment schemes. I really look forward to it, because it is time we got rid of them completely. I am glad that we have been pushing and pushing this debate, as a collective in this chamber, and finally we will have legislation. I do recognise that this amendment deals with the four-year investment rule in terms of the tax benefit, and we have said we will support that. I am not concerned about that aspect of it. But this is one of those omnibus bills with a whole range of tax issues in it, so it is entirely appropriate that we bring in this amendment. I want to go back to something that you did not respond to me on, Minister, and that is the role of the tax commissioner. I raised this yesterday in the second reading debate. In order to get the tax deduction from investment in a managed investment scheme—in other words, to offset your tax liability on another area of business, in order to get it through the managed investment scheme—the tax office had to determine that the investment you were making was commercial; so your investment in a managed investment scheme was commercial. It is implicit in the decision of the tax commissioner to allow you to have the offset that what you were investing in was commercial. That is my issue with the tax commissioner and managed investment schemes. There is a huge amount of evidence out there that the schemes were never commercial, and the tax office had all that information. The tax office had more information than was in the prospectuses that went out to the average investor. The tax commissioner had more information than that. Therefore, why did the tax commissioner give the tick allowing the tax deduction to offset other tax liabilities through investment in managed investment schemes? Why was that allowed—unless the tax office had made a decision that it was a commercial investment? If it was a commercial investment, why have they all failed? Why have they been demonstrated to be exactly what we nailed them to be a long time ago—that is, Ponzi schemes? They borrowed from the investment from future years to pay the returns to previous years’ investors to make it look as if there was a rate of return similar to what had been claimed in the prospectuses, when in fact there was never that rate of return. And the tax office knew that—as did ASIC—rates of return were not there. They knew that for years and years and years. Yet they kept on approving it, and to this day they keep on approving a tax deduction into managed investment schemes in forestry. Allowing them to do that means that the tax office accepted that it was a viable commercial venture. Otherwise they would not have been allowed to make that offset. So I want to know what due diligence the tax office takes. What responsibility does the tax commissioner now take for having used his discretion to allow this tax deduction to go in? Why did he do that when it was clear that they were not viable—they have all collapsed? People have a right to know: why did the tax office exercise its discretion in favour of the tick for commerciality, if you like, of these schemes when they were never any such thing? 2572 10:49:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —I cannot respond—indeed, I legally cannot respond—on behalf of the tax commissioner. The tax commissioner is totally independent. As you know, Senator Milne, the question that you have posed is one that is appropriately directed to the tax commissioner himself. I can in no way direct or get involved in the decisions of the tax commissioner and the exercise of his discretions with respect to MIS projects. I will make a couple of quick points. It is not correct to say that all MIS schemes have failed in forestry. Perhaps with some irony I could highlight that Gunns managed investment schemes in forestry plantations have not failed. You may wish it somewhat differently, but that is an example of one that has not failed, and it is with some irony that I make that point. There is no doubt that there have been a number of failures. Managed investment schemes are supervised by ASIC, and I think you are aware of that, Senator Milne. The other point I would make is: I certainly have some concerns about the operation of some of these managed investment schemes. From what I have seen I do have concerns about the supervisory aspects, the auditing and the oversight of these schemes—not by ASIC or the ATO but by the responsible entities which, in law, are required to oversight the schemes they are operating. I do have some concerns, and indeed ASIC has indicated concerns and it has put out a discussion paper around improving the supervision of these entities. I accept there are some valid concerns. However, there are a range of financial and economic circumstances which, to be fair to at least some of these schemes, were not anticipated. Those circumstances include: the financial crisis, the increase in borrowing costs, the increase in the value of the Australian dollar, the world recession—which thankfully we did not have in Australia, but the markets into which many of these products are going have been hit hard by the world recession. There are a range of other financial and economic issues that have contributed to at least some of the failures, but, as I said earlier, there are valid concerns. Each concern that has been raised is under very close examination by a number of government ministers. But in terms of the commissioner’s discretion, it is an answer I am not able to provide, because I am legally not allowed to do so. The tax commissioner is arms-length; he is independent. You will have the opportunity—I am not giving this a flick; this is the legal situation I am in—to challenge and question the tax commissioner at estimates, for example, on this issue. Question put: That the amendment (Senator Milne’s) be agreed to. 10:56:00 The committee divided.           (The Temporary Chairman—Senator PM Crossin) 7 Brown, B.J. Fielding, S. Hanson-Young, S.C. Ludlam, S. Milne, C. Siewert, R. * Xenophon, N. 27 Adams, J. Bilyk, C.L. Bishop, T.M. Bushby, D.C. Cameron, D.N. Collins, J. Crossin, P.M. Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D. Forshaw, M.G. Furner, M.L. Hurley, A. Hutchins, S.P. Ludwig, J.W. Lundy, K.A. Marshall, G. McEwen, A. McLucas, J.E. Moore, C. Parry, S. * Polley, H. Pratt, L.C. Sherry, N.J. Stephens, U. Sterle, G. Troeth, J.M. Wortley, D. * denotes teller Question negatived. 2573 11:00:00 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 0 Senator XENOPHON —by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 6105 standing in my name: (1)    Clause 2, page 2 (after table item 7), insert: 7A.   Schedule 4A 1 July 2010. 1 July 2010. (2)    Page 34 (after line 6), after Schedule 4, insert: Schedule 4A—Public benefit test Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 1  After section 50‑50 Insert: 50‑51  Public benefit test for items 1.1 and 1.2 Public benefit test          (1)    The regulations must formulate a test (to be known as the public benefit test) against which the aims and activities of an entity may be assessed.          (2)    The public benefit test must include the following key principles:               (a)    there must be an identifiable benefit arising from the aims and activities of an entity;               (b)    the benefit must be balanced against any detriment or harm;               (c)    the benefit must be to the public or a significant section of the public, and not merely to individuals with a material connection to the entity.          (3)    The public benefit test may contain provisions relating to the manner in which the test is to be applied to the aims and activities of an entity, as well as ancillary or incidental provisions.          (4)    The Minister must take all reasonable steps to ensure that regulations are made for the purposes of subsection (1) before 1 July 2010. Entities must meet public benefit test          (5)    An entity covered by item 1.1 or 1.2 is not exempt from income tax unless the entity meets the public benefit test. During the last sitting session I moved two Senate motions calling for an inquiry into the Church of Scientology and in particular into the need for a public benefit test for organisations that receive tax exemptions from the Australian government. Recommendation 41 of the Henry tax review supports the establishment of a national charities commission which would monitor, regulate and streamline tax concessions for the not-for-profit sector. Importantly, it would also be tasked with codifying the definition of a charity. The government’s response during the last sitting session was that they did not want to pre-empt the Henry tax review in relation to considering the motions I had put before the Senate—in particular, one motion which specifically targeted the whole concept of a public benefit test like that which exists in the United Kingdom. The review is out and the recommendation is there, but the government has chosen not to adopt it. A public benefit test currently exists in the United Kingdom. This amendment would introduce a similar process here. In the United Kingdom it applies to religions and charitable organisations. It says that there must be an identifiable benefit arising from the aims and activities of such an entity, the benefit must be balanced against any detriment or harm and the benefit must be to the public or a significant section of the public and not merely to individuals with a material connection to the entity. This amendment puts in place a reasonable test for bodies seeking to be recognised as charities and seeking to get tax-free status. It ensures that their aims and activities are of true benefit to the community as a whole. For charities and other entities to receive tax exemption it seems only fair that they must meet this public benefit test if they are to be propped up and supported by the Australian taxpayer. I make no apology for introducing this amendment here in the context of this legislation. I have flagged previously that I will be persistent and relentless in pursuing a just outcome for the victims of Scientology to ensure that this organisation receives appropriate scrutiny. Indeed, for any organisation that receives the benefit of a tax-free status there must be a degree of accountability, and that is lacking in our current laws. This would fix that, by adopting the tried and tested UK test of a public benefit test. Some of the allegations that have been made against the Church of Scientology include criminal behaviour, coerced abortions and stalking. There is completely unconscionable conduct in relation to the way their members are treated. There are issues in relation to child labour laws and in relation to the way employees and volunteers are treated. The whole issue of the conduct of this organisation—the hundreds of thousands of dollars they charge, and more, for their courses—seems extraordinary. People are put under pressure and families are ripped apart. It causes harm and devastation to individuals. I acknowledge the support of Professor Pat McGorry, an Australian of the Year and one of Australia’s pre-eminent experts in mental health, and others, such as Professor Ian Hickie, who have expressed real concern that this organisation is against people seeking assistance from medical practitioners, psychiatrists or psychologists for mental health issues—that is dangerous. And that is why it is appropriate that we have once and for all a public benefit test. I seek the support of my colleagues to do so. If this is defeated, as I expect it will be, I indicate that, every week that this Senate sits, there will be a motion related to this issue. Senator Sherry is smiling and he does so with good grace, but this is an issue that will not go away. Too many people have been hurt by this organisation. We need to have a degree of accountability and public scrutiny. This mechanism of a public benefit test is a significant way forward. It has been tried and tested and been subject to robust scrutiny in the United Kingdom. We should adopt it here. 2575 11:04:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —Although we can empathise with many of the statements of Senator Xenophon, we do not find it appropriate to deal with this issue in this piece of legislation. It is an entirely different issue to clearing houses. We look forward to a debate and to the processes that will be more suited to this. But, in this instance, we will not be going down the path of talking about attributes or otherwise of Scientology or other groups in a debate about clearing houses. 2575 11:05:00 Milne, Sen Christine KA5 Tasmania AG 0 0 Senator MILNE —The Australian Greens will be supporting Senator Xenophon’s amendment. It is essential that we end up with this public benefit test, and I commend him for continuing the campaign for such a test. 2575 11:05:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —The government will not be supporting this amendment. There are legitimate issues that Senator Xenophon raises—some of which I agree with, some of which I do not agree with. As Senator Joyce has indicated, this legislation is about a clearing house for superannuation; it is not about a public benefit test for religion. It is about protecting 19,000 investors who have lost money in forestry investment schemes from an inappropriate tax outcome. The legislation is also about eligible managed investment trusts. It is about as far away as you could get from a public benefit test that would apply to charities. Senator Xenophon, you have pointed out that there were some recommendations in the independent tax review. I am also aware a Productivity Commission report has been finalised on this issue of charities. So, whilst I accept that you are keen to make your point—and you are perfectly entitled to make your point—this is not the appropriate place to be cross-inserting a public benefit test in this type of legislation. 2575 11:07:00 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 0 Senator XENOPHON —I thank my colleagues for their contribution, in particular Senator Milne for indicating the support of the Australian Greens in relation to this. To Senators Joyce and Sherry, I indicate they should think of this particular amendment as a ‘cult’ clearing house. Think of it in those terms because this is about behaviour. It is not about belief; it is about behaviour. It is important that having this sort of legislation would be a clearing house for determining who is legitimate and who is not in the public benefit. Senator Sherry may be bemused by my analogy, but I still think it is valid. It may be stretching it, but it is not improper under the standing orders to introduce this amendment in the context of this debate. We are dealing with tax laws. This is an amendment to the Income Tax Assessment Act and I am sure this chamber and my colleagues are more than capable of chewing gum and walking at the same time—they can consider other concepts. I appreciate where we are at on this. I will continue to pursue this issue through motions and other means, whether it be a private senator’s bill. I will continue to persist with this issue because too many people are being hurt, too many victims are coming forward and, if we had a public benefit test, I think that would solve many problems. 2576 11:08:00 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 0 Senator SHERRY —Very briefly, I accept your brave attempt to connect a ‘cult’ clearing house with a superannuation clearing house and I would suggest that if we were to have a clearing house for cults you would not want them to escape without penalty. Question put: That the amendments (Senator Xenophon’s) be agreed to. 11:13:00 The committee divided.           (The Temporary Chairman—Senator PM Crossin) 6 Brown, B.J. Hanson-Young, S.C. Ludlam, S. Milne, C. Siewert, R. * Xenophon, N. 28 Adams, J. * Bernardi, C. Bilyk, C.L. Birmingham, S. Cameron, D.N. Cash, M.C. Colbeck, R. Collins, J. Crossin, P.M. Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D. Fielding, S. Forshaw, M.G. Furner, M.L. Humphries, G. Joyce, B. Kroger, H. Lundy, K.A. Marshall, G. McEwen, A. McLucas, J.E. Moore, C. Parry, S. Pratt, L.C. Sherry, N.J. Stephens, U. Williams, J.R. Wortley, D. * denotes teller Question negatived. Senator SHERRY (Tasmania —Assistant Treasurer) 11:16:00 —by leave—I move government amendments (8) to (18) on sheet CG234: (8)    Schedule 5, page 37 (after line 11), after item 3, insert: 3A Subsection 701‑58(2) After “(5A)”, insert “, (5C)”. 3B At the end of Division 701 Add: 701‑90 Valuable right to future income treated as separate asset          (1)    This subsection covers a valuable right (including a contingent right) to receive an amount for the performance of work or services or the provision of goods (other than *trading stock) if:               (a)    the valuable right forms part of a contract or agreement; and               (b)    the *market value of the valuable right (taking into account all the obligations and conditions relating to the right) is greater than nil.          (2)    For the purposes of this Part, treat a valuable right covered by subsection (1) as a separate asset.          (3)    For the purposes of this Part, if:               (a)    a valuable right is treated as a separate asset under subsection (2); and               (b)    the contract or agreement mentioned in paragraph (1)(a) also includes one or more other rights; for the purposes of this Part, treat the contract or agreement (excluding the valuable right) as a separate asset.          (4)    For the purposes of this Part:               (a)    take into account all the obligations and conditions relating to a valuable right treated as a separate asset under subsection (2) in working out the *market value of that separate asset; and               (b)    if a contract or agreement (excluding the valuable right) is treated as a separate asset under subsection (3)—take into account all the obligations and conditions relating to each right (other than the valuable right) that forms part of the contract or agreement in working out the market value of that separate asset. (9)    Schedule 5, item 4, page 39 (lines 4 to 7), omit paragraph 716‑405(2)(a), substitute:               (a)    unless paragraph (b) applies—the amount determined under subsection (3A); or (10)  Schedule 5, item 4, page 39 (after line 22), after subsection 716‑405(3), insert:       (3A)    For the purposes of paragraph (2)(a), the amount is the lesser of the following:               (a)    the *unexpended tax cost setting amount for the asset for that income year;               (b)    the unexpended tax cost setting amount for the asset for the first income year ending after the joining time, divided by the lesser of:                     (i)    10; or                    (ii)    if the contract or agreement giving rise to the valuable right mentioned in paragraph 716‑410(a) is for a specified period—the number of days in that period that end after the joining time, divided by 365 and rounded upwards to the nearest whole number. (11)  Schedule 5, item 4, page 40 (lines 23 and 24), omit paragraph 716‑410(a), substitute:               (a)    the asset is a valuable right covered by subsection 701‑90(1); and Note:       Such a valuable right is treated as a separate asset for the purposes of this Part (see subsection 701‑90(2)). (12)  Schedule 5, item 4, page 40 (lines 28 to 30), omit paragraph 716‑410(c), substitute:               (c)    it is reasonable to expect that an amount attributable to the asset will be included in the assessable income of the entity or any other entity after the joining time; and               (d)    Division 230 does not apply in relation to the asset (disregarding section 230‑455). (13)  Schedule 5, item 8, page 43 (lines 12 to 14), omit paragraph (4)(a), substitute:               (a)    on or before 30 June 2011; or (14)  Schedule 5, item 84, page 66 (lines 2 and 3), omit “leaving entity” (wherever occurring), substitute “partnership”. (15)  Schedule 5, page 86 (after line 18), after item 146, insert: 146A Section 715‑230 (note 1) Omit “a direct or indirect interest in a subsidiary member”, substitute “certain kinds of interests in a member”. (16)  Schedule 5, page 86 (after line 28), after item 148, insert: 148A After section 715‑260 Insert: 715‑265 Head company does not have relevant equity or debt interest in a loss company if widely held top company does not have such an interest          (1)    For the purposes of Subdivision 165‑CD, treat the *head company of a *consolidated group as not having a relevant equity interest in a *loss company at a particular time if:               (a)    the head company is an *eligible tier‑1 company of a *top company at that time; and               (b)    the top company is a *widely held company at that time; and               (c)    because of subsections 165‑115X(2A), (2B) and (2C), the top company does not have a relevant equity interest under section 165‑115X in the loss company at that time.          (2)    For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), disregard the operation of subsection 701‑1(1) (the single entity rule) in determining whether subsection 165‑115X(2C) has the effect that the *top company has the relevant equity interest mentioned in that paragraph.          (3)    For the purposes of Subdivision 165‑CD, treat the *head company of a *consolidated group as not having a relevant debt interest in a *loss company at a particular time if:               (a)    the head company is an *eligible tier‑1 company of a *top company at that time; and               (b)    the top company is a *widely held company at that time; and               (c)    because of subsections 165‑115Y(3A), (3B) and (3C), the top company does not have a relevant debt interest under section 165‑115Y in the loss company at that time. (17)  Schedule 5, page 87 (after line 11), after item 150, insert: 150A Section 715‑450 (note) Omit “a direct or indirect interest in a subsidiary member”, substitute “certain kinds of interests in a member”. 150B Subdivision 715‑H (heading) Repeal the heading, substitute: Subdivision 715‑H—Cancelling loss on realisation event for direct or indirect interest in a member of a consolidated group 150C Paragraph 715‑610(2)(d) Omit “a consolidated group.”, substitute “a consolidated group; or”. 150D At the end of subsection 715‑610(2) Add:               (e)    all of these conditions are satisfied at that time:                     (i)    the realised interest was an equity or loan interest, an *indirect equity or loan interest or an external indirect equity or loan interest, in the *head company of a consolidated group;                    (ii)    the owner was not a member of the group;                   (iii)    the head company was an *eligible tier‑1 company of a *top company. 150E Subsection 715‑610(3) Omit “a *subsidiary member”, substitute “a member”. 150F Subsection 715‑610(3) Omit “the subsidiary member” (wherever occurring), substitute “the member”. (18)  Schedule 5, item 193, page 102 (lines 20 and 21), omit the item, substitute: 193 Application provision          (1)    The amendments made by this Part apply in relation to a consolidated group or MEC group on or after:               (a)    if the head company of the consolidated group (or the head company or provisional head company of the MEC group) makes a choice in accordance with subitems (2) and (3)—10 February 2010; or               (b)    otherwise—1 July 2002.          (2)    A choice mentioned in paragraph (1)(a) must be made:               (a)    on or before 30 June 2014; or               (b)    within a further time allowed by the Commissioner.          (3)    A choice mentioned in paragraph (1)(a) must be made in writing. Question agreed to. Bill, as amended, agreed to. Bill reported with amendments; report adopted. 2578 Senator SHERRY (Tasmania —Assistant Treasurer) 11:17:00 —I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. 2579 Bills R4295 2579 Debate resumed from 11 May, on motion by Senator Chris Evans: That this bill be now read a second time. 2579 11:18:00 Humphries, Sen Gary KO6 Australian Capital Territory LP 0 0 Senator HUMPHRIES —I rise to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. I acknowledge that this debate takes place at a time when the federal government is backflipping and backtracking left, right and centre as its disastrous performance, in this case on border protection, comes home to roost. The sound border protection policies of the Howard government have now been comprehensively undone, and this has sent a strong signal to people smugglers that Australia is fair game for their criminal trade. This has profound implications and has placed considerable strain on our facilities at Christmas Island. Indeed, those facilities are now so strained that asylum seekers have had to be moved from Christmas Island to places like Darwin and Curtin. Of course, there is also considerable strain on Customs officers and Navy personnel who are attempting to cope with the consequences of that failing policy. The government’s failed border protection policies have, at the same time, encouraged people smuggling across our region. They have persuaded vulnerable people to make dangerous journeys across the ocean in unsafe vessels, which has resulted in some cases in the tragic and unnecessary loss of life. Only in the last week or so we have seen what appears to be the loss of five lives in the Indian Ocean. That loss of life was unnecessary, it was avoidable but it was, in many ways, the consequence of policy settings which encourage people to engage people smugglers and to make these journeys. The Rudd Labor government has, in the face of ongoing pressure and swamped with continuing arrivals, realised that it has a policy setting which is unworkable and disastrous. It is in the process of taking stock of its policies and attempting to backtrack on the settings that it has put in place—but, in my opinion, only partially successfully. This bill amends several acts in relation to Australia’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework. In relation to the Criminal Code, the bill creates a new offence of supporting the offence of people smuggling which targets people who organise, finance and provide other material support to people-smuggling ventures entering foreign countries, whether or not via Australia. The penalty for this offence is a very steep one: imprisonment for a maximum of 12 years, a fine of $110,000 or both. The bill creates two new people-smuggling related offences in the Migration Act: firstly, the offence of supporting the offence of people smuggling and, secondly, the aggravated offence of people smuggling, involving such things as exploitation, danger of death or serious harm, which will carry a penalty of imprisonment for a maximum of 20 years, a fine of $220,000 or both. 11:21:55 There are also amendments affecting the enforcement mechanisms available to those attempting to combat people smuggling. In relation to the Surveillance Devices Act, the bill will extend emergency authorisation for the use of a surveillance device to investigations into the aggravated offence of people smuggling. Currently the ability to maintain emergency authorisation for a surveillance device does not extend to offences under the Migration Act. In relation to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, this bill will simplify the criteria to be satisfied by agencies when applying for telecommunications interception warrants for investigating people-smuggling offences under the Migration Act. Under these amendments, agencies will no longer have to establish that the offence involves two or more offenders and substantial planning and organisation as well as the use of sophisticated methods and techniques and so forth. This bill will amend the definition of the term ‘security’ in the ASIO Act to officially give the agency the statutory power to obtain and evaluate intelligence relevant to the protection of Australia’s territorial border integrity from serious threats. Such intelligence can then be communicated to agencies such as the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service or other law enforcement agencies. All of that is good insofar as it strengthens the capacity of Australian government agencies and others with whom we cooperate to detect and deter, perhaps through prosecution, the trade of people smuggling. So the coalition supports what is contained in this legislation, but we need to acknowledge that in a very substantial way what is contained in this legislation is simply window-dressing. It is an attempt to disguise the fact that this government has presided over a weakening of Australia’s border protection policies and so it has brought forward tough-looking, tough-sounding legislation to beef up penalties against those who engage in people smuggling in a way which is good insofar as it goes, but which fails to acknowledge that the vast majority of people smugglers in the past have not been apprehended and prosecuted and in the future they are unlikely to be apprehended and prosecuted. There is one arm of government policy which seeks to suppress people smuggling as an industry, but there is another arm of government policy which is quite clearly at the present time encouraging that trade to occur. The change made by the Rudd government to the Howard government’s border protection policies is precisely the kind of policy setting I am referring to. We have one part of government policy which is applying the brake to people smuggling and another part of government policy which is applying the accelerator. While that confused and mismatched policy is in place, we will not see an end to the very large trade in people carried out by people smugglers across Australia’s northern borders. It is worth reflecting at this point on how that dismantling of Australia’s border protection policies has come about. It is a matter of record that in 2000 and 2001, after a significant number of boat arrivals, the Howard government took strong action to deter the trade in people. It made the tough decisions in the interests of Australia’s border security through a range of settings including offshore processing of asylum seekers, maintaining a policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers, excising territories from our migration zone that were previously attractive to people smugglers and engaging in an effective partnership with regional players such as Indonesia. The result of that change of policy was stark and clear. After the surge of arrivals in 2000 and 2001 and the announcement of new policies, we saw in 2002-03 no boats arrive on Australia’s northern shores. In 2003-04, there were only three boats. In 2004-05, again there were no boats. In the following three years, eight, four and three boats arrived in each of those financial years respectively. The last of those years was 2007-08, a period which was partly under the new Rudd government. In the early year or so of the Rudd government’s reign, the slow pace of boat arrivals that had been characteristic of the previous government continued, but in August 2008 the government announced a change of policy. The government’s announcement was intended to send a signal that Australia was relaxing its previously ‘harsh’ border protection arrangements. Whether or not the government intended the signal to be as clear as it was is irrelevant. The fact is that it sent a very clear signal to people-smuggling operations around our region and the consequence was a surge in arrivals by boat. This all comes from the Prime Minister who, as the king of spin, the day before the 2007 election when asked: ‘What would you do about boat arrivals in northern waters?’ said: ‘You’d turn them back’. That was what the Prime Minister to be said on the eve of the 2007 election. He said he believed in an ‘orderly immigration system’, but after a suitable interval he then set about undoing the coalition’s policy settings and repeatedly blamed push factors for the surge of arrivals that followed. He is responsible therefore, through his government’s decisions, for the large number of arrivals on Christmas Island and elsewhere in the interim. When those arrivals began to become politically embarrassing to the government, the Prime Minister referred to people smugglers as ‘representing the absolute scum of the earth’. Even while he was in the process of stimulating their business and allowing them to make the profits that they made and continue to make from people smuggling, he was describing them as the ‘absolute scum of the earth’. It was this Prime Minister who called in a favour from the President of Indonesia in October of 2009 to stop a boat coming to Australia that he could not stomach, which subsequently led to an embarrassing and longstanding stand-off in Indonesian waters. This is the Prime Minister who offered a special deal to 78 asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking, including the transfer to Australia of four asylum seekers who were later deemed a security risk by ASIO after a rushed check of their security status. This is the Prime Minister who continued to let numbers increase on Christmas Island because of a lack of conviction and a lack of will to alter the policy settings and who placed such strain on the resources that eventually Australia has had to let that number of asylum seekers overflow to the Australian mainland and facilities that had been closed for some time have had to be reopened. This is also the Prime Minister who planned for only 200 arrivals at Christmas Island in the 2009-10 financial year and who embarrassingly had to come back to the Australian parliament and ask for a further $134 million to cover the 1,400 arrivals that had actually taken place. That in turn has turned out to be an inadequate amount of money to cover that cost, with a record 4,580 arrivals and counting this financial year to date, including two further boats in the earlier part of this week. It is not hard to see why people smugglers understand that a different policy has applied in Australia, that it is now open season once again and that the considerable profits that they are likely to generate from their nefarious activities are now available for them to continue to pursue. Welcome as the measures in this bill are and effective as they may be in the small number of cases where people smugglers can actually be intercepted and their work interdicted, the bill does not alter the fact that this legislation will not change the landscape with respect to that trade in people. It will not alter the landscape and it will not affect the number of people travelling to Australia. Nor, I suspect, will the government’s announcement that it will temporarily suspend the processing of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. We saw the evidence produced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report that showed a 29 per cent increase in asylum applications in Australia while countries such as the United Kingdom experienced a five per cent decline in 2009, the clearest evidence that these policies simply are not making a difference. The changes in policy are simply not going to make any substantial improvement in the outlook for this particular problem that the government is now facing. This is a government that clearly has difficulty in making difficult decisions. It is a government that cannot deliver and is flailing around desperately trying to make order out of chaos as it tries to satisfy both those critics on its left, who believe that it is already being too harsh with asylum seekers, and the critics on the right, a category which I suspect includes at this point the vast majority of Australians, who simply think that the government has lost control of our borders and who are not prepared to accept that the present policy makes any sense. I have to say that, although there is a very powerful debate that has taken place in Australia over the status and entitlements of refugees—and I do not propose to traverse that debate here today—I think that anybody who is concerned about the welfare of refugees and is concerned to make sure that their interests are protected would do everything in their power to ensure that those people are not encouraged to board those unseaworthy vessels in Indonesian ports for that hazardous journey to Australia. Whatever we think about the need to protect refugees and to offer them protection and safe haven, we would never want a policy that is as firmly based on passage across the sea in those boats as the present government’s policy appears to be. An indication of the way in which the government’s policy settings have changed the landscape came in an interview only a couple of weeks ago on the ABC, on 24 April, in which a would-be Iraqi asylum seeker had this to say: Kevin Rudd—he’s changed everything about refugee. If I go to Australia now, different, different … Maybe accepted but when John Howard, president, Australia, he said come back to Indonesia. I think that it is not surprising to hear those sorts of comments made. It is a question of perception, and the perception of those people who use the services of people smugglers is that this government’s policy has allowed them to make that journey and to obtain something of value from making that journey, and the people smugglers are more than willing to satisfy that particular market. It is not surprising, therefore, that on 23 February this year, in the midst of the hype surrounding the counterterrorism white paper, Ministers McClelland, Evans and O’Connor announced a policy shift to try to disguise the green light which has been given to people smugglers for some time. It appears to date as if that attempt at smoke and mirrors has not succeeded in changing the approach of either people smugglers or their customers. I suspect that the government will need something else to achieve the effect that it desires. To reiterate, the opposition does support this bill but we predict that it will have little impact on the scale of the people-smuggling industry in our region. In the future, we fear for the lives of those people who continue to make those journeys in that way and who obviously place themselves and their families at great risk by undertaking those journeys. We have a policy today that is neither tough nor humane. The Prime Minister said he wanted and was achieving a policy that was tough and humane. Clearly it is neither of those things. The 122 boats that have arrived since August 2008 and the 5,621 arrivals on those boats are stark testimony to the need to change policy, a change which we are yet to see from this government. The boats are still coming. There were two more earlier this week, carrying 36 and 86 people respectively. This indicates that the government still has not understood the nature and effect of its policy. I urge the government to assess the need to go back and revisit these policies. What is on the table today is welcome and will make a difference on the margin, but it does not tackle and address the real problem at the heart of the government’s flawed border protection polices. 2583 11:37:00 Cash, Sen Michaelia I0M Western Australia LP 0 0 Senator CASH —The Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, currently before the Senate, seeks to amend six principal acts: the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act, the Criminal Code Act, the Migration Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act, the Surveillance Devices Act and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act. In his second reading speech on this bill, the minister set out the proposed amendments to the various principal acts. In describing the purpose of the bill he stated: This bill will strengthen the Commonwealth’s anti-people smuggling legislative framework, supporting the government’s plan to combat people smuggling. I, and those on this side of the chamber, have no objection to supporting legislation that is designed to combat the insidious people-smuggling trade. But, as I will demonstrate in my contribution to this debate, this bill is too little too late and it has only become necessary because of the deliberate policy of the Rudd Labor government to soften the coalition’s tough but fair border protection policies. As I have indicated, this bill amends six principal acts. Firstly, the bill seeks to ensure that people smuggling is comprehensively criminalised in Australian law, with tough penalties for the most serious forms of the insidious crime of people smuggling. Secondly, the bill amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, the Surveillance Devices Act and the ASIO Act to provide the legislative authority to investigate people-smuggling activities and to enable law enforcement and national security agencies to play a greater role in support of whole-of-government efforts to address people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity. Thirdly, the bill introduces a new offence of providing material support or resources for people-smuggling activities. Again, the minister has indicated in his second reading speech: Such support or resources could include, but would not be limited to, property that is tangible or intangible, currency, monetary instruments or financial services, false documentation provided by corrupt officials, equipment, facilities or transportation. Fourthly, the bill will introduce a new aggravated offence in the Migration Act for people smuggling involving exploitation, or danger of death or serious harm. The offence will apply to people-smuggling ventures to Australia. Fifthly, the bill proposes to extend the application of the higher mandatory minimum penalty to the new aggravated people-smuggling offence involving exploitation, or danger of death or serious harm. And finally, the bill also proposes to extend the application of the higher mandatory minimum penalty to persons who are convicted of multiple aggravated people-smuggling offences in the same hearing. These are all very commendable amendments and there is no doubt at all that Australia’s laws need to be strengthened to take account of the unprecedented number of illegal boat arrivals of people who have been shipped to Australia by unscrupulous and uncaring people smugglers. However, having acknowledged the need to strengthen Australia’s laws, it is now appropriate to ask the question and to examine the reasons why there has been such a dramatic increase in illegal boat people arriving in Australia since the Rudd Labor government was elected to office. Following last night’s budget, why has it been necessary for the Rudd government to increase its spending on Australia’s border protection so dramatically? Again, in his speech the minister sought to hide behind the alleged push factors by referring to conflicts and turmoil in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Sri Lanka. He said that these are the driving reasons as to why there has been a global surge in people smuggling. Consistent with his performance to date in this portfolio, the minister continues to fail to admit that it is in fact the pull factors, not the push factors, that he and the Rudd government alone have created that are the real reason we have seen an increase in the unprecedented number of illegal boat arrivals coming to Australia. Have you noticed that when anything goes wrong on the Rudd government’s watch it is always someone else’s fault? Mr Rudd is a gutless wonder; he is spineless—he has no backbone. If he were a true leader, he would stand up and take responsibility for his failed border protection policies. As I said yesterday, no wonder there are rumours circulating of a Gillard/Emerson ticket. Gillard and Emerson must be rubbing their hands in glee, watching Mr Rudd slip and slide down the little slope that he is now on. If things get much worse, who wonders whether or not Mr Rudd will be replaced? In terms of the failure of their policies, let us just reaffirm for the Australian people a number of other Rudd government failings to accept responsibility and their blaming of someone else. What about the failed insulation scheme? This has now cost Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But on top of that it has tragically claimed four innocent lives to date, and there is a complete failure by those on the other side to take responsibility for it. We all now know, of course, of the revelation in the Weekend Australian that officials in the Prime Minister’s and Peter Garrett’s departments assessed the risk of death or injury of the program to be extreme three times in the three months before the four young workers were killed. Yet, despite the irrefutable evidence of Rudd Labor’s mismanagement and incompetence, Rudd Labor continue to blame everybody else but themselves. Then we go back to the current legislation, which they tell the Australian people is designed to strengthen Australia’s border protection regime. And it is, but the problem is that the government are the reason behind why we now need this legislation. If they had not touched the Howard government’s strong border protection policies, we would not be here today in this chamber debating the need for the additional measures to assist our border protection. When it comes to the failure of their border protection policies, Rudd Labor are always full of excuses. It is always the push factors coming from overseas; it is never the pull factors. But the bad news now is that there is so much on the record—and it is not just coming from this side of the chamber—that refutes the claims made by the Rudd Labor government. As the previous speaker, Senator Humphries, stated, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has stated that push factors have been easing in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, providing increasing opportunities for those previously seeking asylum to return home. But Labor cannot admit this. They will not admit it, as it will undermine their push to have Australians believe that global push factors are the reason that the boats continue to arrive here. It is not only the United Nations commissioner who has commented. You will also recall, Mr Acting Deputy President Hutchins—in fact, you will recall them well—the comments from Dr Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who said on the ABC’s Lateline program—not this year, but in November 2009: I think this talk about the push factor is an over-exaggeration. If there were, as I said, a push factor, why didn’t they go across to India which is so close by, 22 miles away from Sri Lanka? Instead they head all the way to Australia. There must be another reason than simple push factor here. There is another reason, and it is sitting across from me in the chamber: the good minister Senator Chris Evans from Western Australia. Most Australians believe the influx of illegal immigrants is due to the widely publicised invitation that the Rudd government extended to people smugglers after the election in 2007. The people smugglers saw Australia go from a very tough place to get to—in fact, under the Howard government, the boats had stopped arriving—to having the red carpet thrown down for them and the Rudd government saying, ‘Come on down; the Rudd government have invited you here.’ The people smugglers now know—and, again, this is because of the Rudd government’s policy failures—that so long as their boats carrying illegal immigrants can get within about 200 kilometres of Christmas Island, they can make a phone call to the Australian Navy, claim that their boat is sinking and, guess what, the Rudd government are there to welcome them into Australia. Soon after that, what do the Rudd government then give them? We all know, based on what they gave those on the Oceanic Viking, that it is an endless list of handouts that the Rudd government give to illegal people, handouts that the pensioners and the mums and dads in Australia must only wish that they had access to as well. What is Mr Rudd’s response to this influx of illegal immigrants? His response was: We believe that we have got the balance of the policy right … You have got to be kidding me. I say to the minister: ‘What do you say, Minister, to those people who have sat in refugee camps, who have done the right thing by Australia, who have done the right thing by the United Nations and who have sat in those camps year after year, waiting their turn and wanting to come to this country the right way? What do you say to them every time another boatload of unlawful immigrants arrives?’ You say, ‘Too bad mate; really sorry but there is no place for you because under our policies we allow queue jumpers into Australia.’ Minister, that is not good enough and it is certainly not fair to those people who are doing the right thing in the United Nations refugee camps. Mr Rudd’s election promise to Australians that he would keep our borders safe was nothing more and nothing less than hypocritical rhetoric. It is a little bit like the promise he made to Australians prior to the 2007 election that he was an economic conservative. We all now know that that was blatantly untrue. If Mr Rudd and his minister honestly believe that the legislation that we are debating today is actually going to protect our borders, based on their current record, they are in absolute denial. We have all known for several months that the number of illegal arrivals from Sri Lanka has been declining, but the government refuse to acknowledge this as, once again, this undermines their spin that it is all about global push factors. Labor’s policy solution to the increasing number of boat arrivals was to just increase the capacity of Christmas Island. There is a policy solution for you: we acknowledge that they are on their way; we will do nothing about actually stopping it, but what we will do is increase the capacity of Christmas Island. But, hold on, there is no more capacity at Christmas Island. So what did they do? The minister said, ‘Well, the good news is that there is another base that we can open in Derby in Western Australia’—his home state—‘and we will put the overflow of the asylum seekers there.’ That has gone down very well with the people smugglers, because they now know that when these bases actually reach capacity all the Labor government will do is just open another one. They are saying, ‘Come on down’ yet again. As the previous speaker, Senator Humphries, outlined, when the coalition were in government we were given a problem, and the minister is right in acknowledging that we did have a number of illegal arrivals on our watch—we did. The difference between us and Labor, however, is that we saw that there was a problem. We acknowledged that tough decisions needed to be made to ensure that Australia’s borders were protected. So what did we do? We took tough policy measures. We had a problem, it was reflected in the number of boat arrivals, we put in tough policy measures, and what was the outcome? We reduced the boats to nil. That is the gift that the coalition government gave the Labor government when they took office. We gave them a solution. The Labor Party, as they do with most gifts they are given, looked at the solution and said, ‘How can we make a mess of it?’ That was very easy. All they needed to do was to make some very weak policy decisions to wind back the tough measures that the coalition had put in place. And guess what? All bets were off and the people smugglers were back in business. Tony Abbott, our leader, is correct when he says that people are entitled to think that the Prime Minister has dudded them when he assured them that Australia’s border security would be safeguarded by his government. As with everything that came out of the mouth of the now Prime Minister prior to the 2007 election, that was nothing more and nothing less than Ruddspeak for ‘I want your vote and I will do and say anything to get it’. The actions of the people smugglers are well and truly speaking louder than any of the policies that Labor have implemented. Labor’s failure to control our borders, and it is a failure, means that Australians are no longer in charge of deciding who comes lawfully to this country and under what circumstances they will come. It is a responsibility which the Rudd government have gladly abrogated and it is a responsibility that they should be ashamed of abrogating. Notwithstanding the amendments proposed in this current legislation, Mr Rudd and his government have an appalling record in relation to Australia’s border security and their lack of strong, decisive action continues to confirm that Rudd Labor are failing to protect our borders. 2586 11:55:00 Back, Sen Chris J7Q Western Australia LP 0 0 Senator BACK —I rise to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 and I pick up the point from my colleague Senator Cash, which is in summary that we can see that the Howard government saw and inherited a problem and found a solution for it. When this government came into power, Prime Minister Rudd had a solution at his hands and rejected every platform under which that solution had been developed. Of course, he now has a problem. The fundamental point is that to stop this trade the people smugglers have got to be stopped in the first place. Why do they do it? Because, as we know, it is a very lucrative trade—up to $US10,000 per person delivered onto vessels upon which in the first place they should never be placed. Where do we have to stop the problem? We have to stop it at its point of origin. We have to stop the advertisements that we know exist in Sri Lankan newspapers, in Afghani newspapers and in other locations that are saying that Australia is now open for business. And we have seen nothing and they have seen nothing, regrettably, and neither will this proposed legislation provide any more that is going to discourage them. What a shocking, lamentable, despicable trade it is in human cargoes, yet that is what we actually see: a trade in human cargoes. Let me put it to the perspective here in Australia regarding one of those costs that is not often recognised. I asked a question in Senate estimates earlier this year of the Australian Federal Police and they have provided me with this information. Between September 2008 and February of this year, in Western Australia 106 people smugglers were apprehended. Seventy-six of them are on remand and 28 of them have already been dealt with and found guilty and are now in our prison system. So we have 106 people who we did not budget for for whom there should be no burden on the Australian taxpayer or the Western Australian community. It may be of some interest to the Senate to learn that that figure alone equates to in excess of $10.6 million per year of cost to the Australian taxpayer for those people. According to the annual report of the relevant department in Western Australia last year, it costs just on $100,000 per annum, $2,000 a week, to keep somebody in our prisons. That is $10.6 million each year for that group, and that is only for those who have come since September 2008 through to February 2010. The cost, unfortunately, is borne by the Western Australian community in the main because there is no direct payment back from the federal government to the state government to actually take account of those costs. I learn that it is picked up in the GST calculations by the Grants Commission. We all know what Western Australia’s share of GST is this financial year. For those who do not, it is a mere 68c in the dollar, a 68 per cent return. So those hard-earning taxpayers of that state are picking up the $10.6 million. As I learnt in the media only yesterday, in most instances we are looking at a minimum of four-year terms of imprisonment, so you can multiply that $10.6 million by four. The other cause of concern I have, and this legislation is not going to change this position one iota, is the question of how these people are arriving at our shores in the first place. In many instances they are people of Islamic background. Over the years we know that they have come into Asia, into Malaysia, another Muslim country, where they had been made very welcome but only in transit. They make their way then from Malaysia down to Indonesia, where they are made welcome in transit but not to remain. Of course, their objective is Australia. I have asked myself over the years why it is that those of an Islamic background, keen to pursue an Islamic tradition, for which I applaud them, want to move through Islamic countries—through Malaysia; through Indonesia—to come here to Australia. But the case gets worse for them: they are, for whatever length of time, left in camps. They have not come through the front door in their application to come to our country. For whatever period of time, these poor people are left in camps and then they are put on leaking, unseaworthy vessels to come across some of the more dangerous of waters. We saw only this week a case where there have apparently been drownings of would-be asylum seekers. The people smugglers, at $10,000 or more per head, are reprehensible. Do many of them actually make the voyage from these countries to Christmas Island or to Ashmore Reef? The answer is: no, they do not. In some instances they pay impoverished Indonesian fishermen—and that was the situation with a case that was dealt with in the courts in Darwin the other day. They pay them a meagre amount of money. But it gets even worse than that. I want to draw attention to the exercise involving the Customs contracted vessel, the Oceanic Viking, in the northern waters in October-November last year and draw attention to what is actually happening in many of these cases. These vessels are unseaworthy and have insufficient water and insufficient fuel. They are going outside the territorial waters and the people smugglers are being taken off those vessels to return to the safety of home ports. In the case of the 78 Sri Lankans, when they actually made their call last year to Australia for some degree of assistance for survival at sea, their vessel was disabled—the rudder was not functional and there was insufficient fuel. They were simply at sea, in the water. So we had the circumstance where there was an incredible amount of money paid, yet these people were left to their own devices. Did that group make contact with the Indonesians, given the fact that they were in Indonesian territorial waters? We think, no, they did not. According to Mr Carmody, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, when answering questions from me in Senate estimates, direct contact was made from the vessel to AMSA here in Australia. We of course then had an obligation under the safety of life at sea convention. But did the issue stop there? No, it did not stop there. As we know, people were transferred onto the Oceanic Viking. It is true that, at the time they went on board that vessel, they were inspected, checked and searched for, amongst other things, mobile telephones. So you might say, ‘Well, this is all fine; this is safe. We’ve got an Australian vessel,’ and you would think that, for that complement of crew, including the security officers, the commercial crew—the vessel being under contract to P&O—and the 78 asylum seekers, a contingency plan would be in place should any untoward activity take place. You might ask: ‘Why would there be any untoward activity?’ Go back to April last year when we had SIEV36—which has now played out its role in the coroner’s court in Darwin. On that occasion, fuel was thrown into the bilges and as naval and other Australian Defence Force personnel were either on board or approaching it the vessel blew up. So one would have thought that there would definitely be a contingency plan in place to assist the security and other personnel on the Oceanic Viking should there be a similar event—for whatever reason. I learnt, to our regret, that there was no contingency in place. We had an Australian flagged vessel in international waters, close to Indonesia—well away from Australia—and that group of personnel had no back-up. It was then said to me, ‘The Indonesian Navy were to supply some form of back-up and assistance.’ The advice to me was that that group never came within a kilometre of that vessel. So you go a bit further and ask under what circumstances people might have been at risk. Surely, if it was possible for any vessel to come within a commutable distance of the Oceanic Viking, it would have caused some degree of concern. But we learnt from the Australian that a correspondent actually got close enough to throw a mobile phone on board the Oceanic Viking—and great jocularity took place. In the words of the journalist: ‘Threw the mobile phone on board. They slipped it; couldn’t catch; couldn’t bowl; and the mobile went over the side.’ So what did they do? Typical journalists—they threw another mobile phone on board and it was through the agency of that mobile phone that the asylum seekers were continually in contact with the Australian media. When I put to the head of Customs that this was potentially a dangerous circumstance for all on board, he rejected that. He said, ‘No, I can’t see where your concern was.’ I can assure you that those in the security contingent on board that vessel certainly saw the cause for concern. Under their rules of engagement, they had no capacity at all to inspect those on board—to search them and to find out if there were any items at all on board. So the mobile phones remained and the calls remained. But the question must then be asked: if it is possible to get close enough to throw a mobile phone onto the deck of the Oceanic Viking, what else may have been able to have been thrown on board? What else may have been able to be propelled from a vessel onto the Oceanic Viking? Remember who was on board: Australian border security personnel, the asylum seekers, the commercial crew actually in charge of the vessel and the various officials who were trying over time to negotiate with the asylum seekers—a totally and utterly unsatisfactory circumstance which could have had a similar outcome to SIEV36. I then asked the question, ‘In terms of those on board, who was actually negotiating with the asylum seekers?’ You may recall the asylum seekers were refusing to leave the vessel. I could get little information as to the qualities, the competence or the qualifications of those who were undertaking it. We were then told by the minister opposite that there was no special deal done with those asylum seekers. Of course there was a deal done. I do not know why the minister persisted with that line for as long as he did when we know that a deal was definitely done. Ask them on Christmas Island whether a deal was done. Then, worst of all, we had the scenario in which a person on board that vessel was the spouse of somebody who had already been refused entry to Australia as a result of ASIO investigations. I tried to establish whether it was known that that person was onboard the Oceanic Viking and the answer was that I could not be supplied with that information. As we know, subsequent to them being taken off the Oceanic Viking, one of those people was in fact denied entry to Australia as an asylum seeker. This is a totally unsatisfactory set of circumstances. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —Factually wrong. J7Q Back, Sen Chris Senator BACK —The minister has made the point that it is factually wrong. I will seek the minister’s advice because the advice to me and the advice publicly is that a person who was onboard the Oceanic Viking at that time— AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —There were four. J7Q Back, Sen Chris Senator BACK —There were four. I am referring specifically to the spouse of a person who was denied entry to Australia. My point is that ASIO and others should have known that. The minister is quite right when he says that not one but four people on the Oceanic Viking were subsequently refused entry. Surely that must have sent a flag to Australian authorities that there was the possibility of greater risk to all of those on board—yet no action was taken, no contingency was put in place and no protection was given. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —They were already off the boat when they got the security assessment. You are completely confused. J7Q Back, Sen Chris Senator BACK —The point that was made in my presentation was that the spouse of one of those people had already been denied access and she was on the vessel at that time. I conclude with the observation that Australia is a very, very generous country when it comes to accepting refugees. It is my understanding that we are only second to Canada on a per capita basis in our acceptance of refugees. The point has been made and laboured, and has to be made yet again: for every person who comes in through the back door, who fails to apply to come Australia as a refugee in the normal way and who is accepted into this country, there is a person who has been a legitimate applicant waiting in a refugee camp elsewhere in the world actually being up for a longer period of time. When I first came into this place there was derision from those on the other side about the amount of money that the Howard government had spent on Christmas Island—derision of that fact because at that time there was no great need. What do we see now? We see not only Christmas Island overfilled with asylum seekers but also a cost which will surely be blowing out. I think from last night’s budget, if I am correct, another $1 billion has been allocated to this whole exercise; yet the scenario continues that little action is being taken at the root cause—not attacking sufficiently the very people smugglers who are the genesis of this whole program. 2590 12:11:00 Barnett, Sen Guy 00AUF Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator BARNETT —I stand on this side of the chamber to support the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 and to also concur and associate my remarks with those of Senator Back, Senator Cash and other coalition senators who have expressed their extreme concern about the way that the government is handling the boat people and the immigration system, and the fact that it appears based on all the evidence available that the government has simply mismanaged this situation, which is basically bordering on being out of control. Before I talk more broadly about some of those concerns, I want to commend the bill before us, and refer to the technical and administrative reforms and recommendations made to this bill by the government and to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee report tabled just a few weeks ago. As the deputy chair of that committee, the coalition senators support the amendments that improve and streamline the federal government’s approach to anti-people-smuggling legislative efforts. The bill before us amends the Migration Act to create new people-smuggling offences and harmonises the existing offences. It broadens the role of ASIO in gathering intelligence on people smuggling and other serious threats to border security. It increases the powers of law enforcement agencies to utilise surveillance devices and telecommunications intercept devices, and it expands ASIO’s powers to utilise telecommunications interceptions to collect foreign intelligence. There is a recommendation regarding the latter in the Senate report. I thank the committee secretariat for the support in pulling this report together and the other members of the committee, including my fellow coalition senator, Senator Parry, and also the participating member, Senator Trood, on this occasion. We noted article 6 of the people-smuggling protocol. It does require state parties to criminalise people smuggling when it is committed intentionally and in order to obtain a financial or material benefit. We looked at article 19 of the protocol, which clarifies that the protocol is not intended to affect the responsibilities of states under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and we looked at the Bali process which kicked off in 2002, around the time of the Bali bombings. I will come to the extent of people smuggling in a moment. It is a very, very serious issue and this is why, it seems to me, the government is out of kilter and the whole immigration system seems to be out of control. We noted in the budget last night that they plan to spend an extra billion dollars to try to alleviate some of the concerns, and that just confirms again, in my view—and I think in the view of many others—that the government has not got its act together. In terms of the recommendations in the Senate committee report, the coalition do support the reforms to expand the roles and achieve the objectives as we have indicated. There is a recommendation regarding foreign intelligence warrants, and that is recommendation 1, which states: … that the proposed definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in subsection 5(1) of the TIA Act should be amended to ensure that ASIO can obtain foreign intelligence warrants in relation to the activities of foreign nationals who are in Australia. Now I want to come to the fact that the way in which our borders are being managed and mismanaged is out of control. It was confirmed last night in the House of Representatives, as I said, that the government plan to spend an extra billion dollars to try to fix the problem. It is a problem of their own making. The issue of waste and mismanagement is supreme. It is at the highest order. We had the pink batts fiasco where we saw—and confirmed in the budget last night—a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money go down the chute to try to fix that program. I0V Williams, Sen John Senator Williams —Borrowed money. 00AUF Barnett, Sen Guy Senator BARNETT —‘Borrowed money’, says Senator Williams, and he is quite right. It is borrowed—as confirmed in the federal budget last night—to the extent of $100 million a day, $700 million a week, to pay for the reckless spending of the Rudd Labor government. It is shambolic. It is disgraceful. The government feel as though they have been forced onto the backfoot to pull out another billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to try to rectify a system which they have broken, which they muffed, which they stuffed, and that is what that money is being used for. That is taxpayers’ money, that is money that is being borrowed, and that confirms again that the system is out of control. I want to put on the record that the coalition will be digging deeper into these matters at Senate estimates in the weeks ahead, to make sure that we get to the bottom of it as to why these problems occurred and why we are in a pickle at the moment in terms of border mismanagement and maladministration. We were advised yesterday that the Rudd government have decided to spend $1.2 million to house 79 asylum seekers in a four-star hotel in Brisbane, and that is frankly a consequence of the government’s failed border protection measures and policies. That is the bottom line. That is why those asylum seekers are there. If the government had proper policies in place, like we had under the previous government, they would not be in this pickle and they would not be causing Australians to borrow that extra money to spend in this way. Of course the neighbours are concerned; why wouldn’t they be? They have expressed their concerns publicly, and I hope that there will be coordination and liaison between the relevant authorities, the local police and the people in that community. This is, in fact, occurring in Treasurer Wayne Swan’s own electorate in Brisbane. The government are now paying $179 per night because there is no room left at Christmas Island. We had another government backflip not long ago with respect to offshore processing. They slammed their hand on the desk and said, ‘We will have offshore processing.’ They were so adamant that they would continue to do this, and yet there was another backflip just months ago. That is another result of their failed border protection policies. Let us have a look at the facts and the figures. Since Kevin Rudd started rolling back the strong border protection regime that he inherited from the coalition, 122 boats have arrived carrying 5,624 people. Apparently yesterday two more boats arrived, taking the total for the year to 54. I am advised that as at the same time last year, only 12 boats had arrived. It appears to me that the boats keep on coming. The report that I referred to earlier, the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—which was tabled just a week or so ago—says, on page 2, that as at 3 May 2010: … there had been 92 unauthorised boat arrivals carrying approximately 4,300 people (including crew) during 2009-10. There is a reference on that page that refers to some research undertaken by the Parliamentary Library, whom I want to commend for their research and diligence. I thank them for that and for the tremendous work that they do for the members and senators in this place. The report goes on: In 2008-09, there were 23 vessels carrying 1033 people, while in 2007-08 there were three vessels carrying 25 asylum seekers. You can see that the numbers are increasing fast and vigorously. Under the coalition, the average number of boats per year was about three. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —That is not true. 00AUF Barnett, Sen Guy Senator BARNETT —That is the advice I have got, and that was in the last six years of the government. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —So you forget the big years— 00AUF Barnett, Sen Guy Senator BARNETT —I am happy to be corrected by Senator Evans, and he can put his views on the record, but let us compare the record. In those last six years, the average of three boats— AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —Why only six years? Why not the full 12 years? Aren’t you proud of the first six years of the government? 00AUF Barnett, Sen Guy Senator BARNETT —What is it now, Senator Evans? How many boats, on average, are coming per year, per week and per month? Let us have a look. There are three boats per week at the moment, so do not crawl around here and try to snivel away and avoid the accusations and allegations. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —You just be honest. Be honest with the figures. 00AUF Barnett, Sen Guy Senator BARNETT —You can have the opportunity to respond, to put your view forward here, and you can say: ‘Yes, our border protection measures are 100 per cent right. Everything’s going fine and dandy.’ I can tell you, Senator Evans—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President Hutchins—that the Australian public do not think so. They are not happy pumpkins. They are worried. They are concerned about the numbers and the fact that our borders seem out of control. Senator Evans knows that. He knows that the government changed the policy in 2008 and, as a result, there has been a surge in the number of boat people seeking asylum who are coming to this country. There has been an average of three boats per week under the Rudd Labor government. They are the facts. Let him deny them and let’s see what he says about them, because we have the research. It is in the report. It has been referred to, I have tabled it, and there is a library research document which confirms the matter. It seems to me that the government are saying one thing and doing another. Why shouldn’t the people in that community express concern? Apparently they had no notice of it or advice about it. Senator Brandis asked a question about this yesterday and Senator Evans’s responses in question time were very disappointing indeed. He was saying: ‘This is inappropriate and unfair. This occurred under the Howard government, and why should the people in the local community be advised?’ I think he has it wrong. I think they should be advised and communicated with, including local authorities such as local law enforcement agencies. They should be and they need to be. They are acting as if nothing ever happened in terms of the communication process. We would like a full explanation as to exactly what the situation is and how that could have happened. I am not going to spend a lot of time on it today, but the fact is that Christmas Island is at boiling point. It appears as though this government have the red carpet out and are saying, ‘Come on down and come on in.’ The boats are arriving just off Christmas Island—not that far away. Now the surge has occurred to the degree that Christmas Island is overflowing. The government’s policy said ‘offshore processing’ but the fact is that that is now not the case. They have done a backflip. Even the local member in Darwin has been commenting. In the NT News yesterday there was an article that said: Darwin’s immigration detention centre is already over capacity just weeks after it started housing asylum seekers. Goodness me! How do the people of Darwin feel about that? The article says: The Northern Detention Centre has an operating capacity of 382 people. But the centre has been forced to go into ‘surge’ capacity—offering a further 164 beds—to cater for the 430 detainees who reside there. The fact is: it is out of control. This government have no idea what they are doing and how they are doing it. Their mismanagement of the whole immigration policy is an example of putting the cart before the horse, and it is very disappointing. The report also says: The Federal Government announced last month it would transfer detainees to the mainland after Christmas Island reached capacity. That is exactly my point: this is another government broken promise. Of course, it is on the back of the ETS, the ‘great moral issue of our time’, and the backflip on that and other broken promises, whether they be GROCERYchoice or Fuelwatch, or whether they be the GP superclinics, of which there are only three that are fully operational. What a joke: they have announced extra phantom GPs superclinics—I think that makes 59 in total—when there are only three that are fully operational. That was a promise before the last election. There have been so many broken promises. G0D Bernardi, Sen Cory Senator Bernardi —Childcare centres. 00AUF Barnett, Sen Guy Senator BARNETT —There were the childcare centres, as Senator Bernardi indicates. The government have ripped that promise up and thrown it away. In the quiet of a late Friday night, I think it was, the minister made that announcement at the bottom of a press release she put out, just quietly trying to tell people, ‘It’s not a big deal.’ The fact is: honesty is important in politics. Integrity is critical to building trust in members of parliament and decision-makers at the federal, state or local government level. And you have lost that trust. People do not trust what the government say anymore. That will be the problem with your federal budget—your assumptions and your figures just will not be believed. They are dodgy, unbelievable assumptions. On the one hand you say, ‘Put a tax on smoking and smoking will go down,’ but on the other hand you say, ‘Put a tax on mining and mining investment will go up.’ Come on! Pull the other one! Who is going to believe it? Your assumptions simply are not believable. There is plenty more to be said about this, but I know others need to share their views. I do just want to refer to an article in the Age entitled ‘Push for missing asylum seekers inquiry’. What are the government going to do about the prognosis and the problems before them? They seem to have mishandled this issue so badly. Of course there should be an inquiry. We have had the tragic situation in which five Sri Lankan Tamils are believed to be dead after abandoning their failing boat last Wednesday, which is five days after Australian authorities learned it had run out of fuel. The issues are coming at us thick and fast, and the government simply cannot get a grip on the situation. On the whole immigration process, Australia has a good record, and I am proud of that record of welcoming refugees to this country—those people who are doing what they consider to be the right thing in the various refugee camps around the world. We care for our fellow Australians, whether they be refugees or otherwise, and we should continue to do so. There is no excuse for not showing care and compassion. At the same time, we need to protect the national interest. We need to protect our immigration system and to make sure that our borders are secure so that we know exactly who is coming to this country and the manner in which they are coming. That is up to us as a parliament. I think the government has not got it right. It needs to get it right and the time has come for the government to be called to account. This will happen, of course, in the weeks and months leading up to the federal election. People will have an opportunity to decide who is better able to manage our borders, to keep them secure, and who is better able to ensure that we have a professionally administered, carefully and properly operating immigration system so that we know exactly who is coming to the country and the nature of their coming. At the moment the immigration system is being run very poorly indeed. Turning to population policy, the government seems to have and to accept the view that the population is huge and growing, but there is no rationale, no management and no thinking behind that particular view. It is a concern for a lot of Australians—they do not like it. I know, whether it is in Tasmania or other parts of Australia that I visit, people are feeling unsettled about this government’s approach to border security, about this government’s approach to population policy and to immigration policy more generally. The rubber will hit the road in the next weeks and months as we head into the election. I ask Australians to think carefully about who is better able to manage our borders, our immigration system and our population policy. 2594 12:31:00 McGauran, Sen Julian WH4 Victoria LP 0 0 Senator McGAURAN —I join my colleagues in this debate on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, the changes in which the coalition duly supports. But, as previous speakers have said, it is all too little too late. I will get onto the details and technicalities of the bill, but I could not help notice, in my rush to get onto the speaking list on this matter, that it is an issue which has moral, financial and social dimensions. It is probably the No. 1 issue in this country since climate change has been taken off as the No. 1 issue, and it ought to be. This is not pink batts. This is not a portfolio that is in the mess in which Peter Garrett, the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, left his portfolio. It is not the embarrassment and disgrace in which Penny Wong, the former Minister for Climate Change and Water, left her portfolio. It is not the portfolio of Julia Gillard, the Minister for Education, with its memorial halls and billions of dollars of waste. This is not the same. This is a portfolio in shambles. It is a portfolio that deals with human cargo. This is a little more serious. We have the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship sitting on the other side reduced to interjecting speakers on this side because he has surrendered every other part of his portfolio to the Prime Minister. What an embarrassment he has made of it. What a castration he has made of this minister. It must be embarrassing to see him stripped of his powers in the media and in the department. He is not interjecting me now; he is playing the ignoring game. Every other speaker—and I watched it on TV—he sought to interject, and that is what he has been reduced to. By the way, no-one else around here is backing up the minister at all. Not one of them is on the speakers list. This is a pattern of course with this government. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —Because you’re voting for the bill, you goose! WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —I would have thought on this issue they might have backed you. They might have thought to back you. They may have had a case to mount. You seem to want to mount your case through interjection. That is how you mount your case. What an embarrassment! The Prime Minister has stripped you of all your authority and of your voice in public. You wander around, if not waddle around, Christmas Island saying, ‘We’ll fix this,’ as it bursts at the seams, and that is all you have done. In 2008 your own department warned you about all of this. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans interjecting— WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —Yes. You do not know—you never read it, like Peter Garrett never read his reports. You were given a report in October 2008, if not the Federal Police report—the one by your own department. Both of them warned you that the changes in the laws would create a surge in illegal boat arrivals, as it has. You can screw up your face and say you never read it. Actually, I think you did not. I would agree: you probably did not read it. You are not on top of your portfolio—you never have been. I think you have been found out. You got to the leadership position through lack of talent on that side. You slipped into it. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —You’ve been here 20 years and you’ve achieved nothing! WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —I have still got the passion, I have still got the ideals and I have still got the belief—and I have never lied to this chamber. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —They regard you as the village idiot. Even the National Party disowned you! WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —I have never lied to this chamber. You have stood there and misrepresented this portfolio and what is happening in it. You have lied to this chamber. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —Twenty years of failure! WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —I have never spent 20 years lying. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator Chris Evans —Even the National Party disowned you! WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —You are an embarrassment! You are useless! You are more useless than Peter Garrett, because you deal with human cargo and people’s lives are being lost. 10000 Troeth, Sen Judith (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Troeth)—Order! Senator McGauran, your remarks towards the minister are verging on the personal. I would ask you to stick to the subject in hand. WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —I withdraw those comments, as he scurries out of the chamber. You may like to know that another boat has arrived, Minister. Mr O’Connor, the Minister for Home Affairs, now makes a statement on your behalf. Mr O’Connor has made the statement that— E5E McEwen, Sen Anne Senator McEwen —It’s Mr O’Connor’s responsibility! WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —Oh, it is his responsibility now, is it? Duck-shoving it—which he has always done. In fact, he has been stripped of all his authority. The Oceanic Viking picked up another boat yesterday with 48 people aboard. They must have been thrilled to have been picked up by the Oceanic Viking. Here we go again, I suspect. Of all the boats you could be picked up by, that is the lucky draw. If the minister had stayed in the chamber and I had read to him Mr O’Connor’s press release, which has just come out—I was fortunate enough to pick it up—I bet you he would not have known. I bet you he would not have known there has been another boat arrival. What are we up to—over 120; maybe 123 or 124 since the law’s change? You can map it from August 2008. From the point that the laws were softened the boats started to arrive—the product started to look attractive. People smugglers were back in business, and the tragedy is the human cargo. Whatever morality you want to put up on that side , people’s lives are being lost. Whatever morality you saw in those laws to soften them, whatever group you sought to pander to, they have failed. Admit that; change it. Change it because, as I said, this is not pink batt backflips, this is not ETS backflips, this is not Julia Gillard’s wicked waste. This is dealing with people’s lives. There is a moral dimension to this portfolio and that drongo you have in charge of all of this has led you to this point. It is more than just a political matter. He is not only doing you untold political damage. He is not only weakening our border security which is a fundamental responsibility of any government—put politics aside; it is fundamental—but also risking the lives of every person who jumps on those boats when he can make it better. We reduced the boats to zero—to three. You cannot stop them forever. You will get the boats coming through but not 124 boats. You will get three. Reduce it. Have some compassion. Look at that sort of morality. That is where we are coming from on this side of the debate. We are doing no more than that, as we did in government. We sought to fulfil the fundamental responsibility of a government: border security. We took up the moral dimension of it, as hard as it was. We sought not to pander to a certain group—and we know who they are—from the left. I appeal to the minister to get control back from his portfolio. Take charge. Admit or do not admit the error—it really does not matter which—but just make the changes. I appeal to the two senators in the Labor government who have bothered to turn up to this fundamental issue. It is actually a debate in which we are supporting the legislation of the government and they still do not have the courage to come in to talk even on the bill. There might be something you could boast about in this bill but you still do not have the courage to come in. I heard it reported the other day that at pre-budget drinks at the Lodge some of the caucus had the courage to front the Prime Minister and ask him a few hard questions. I have no doubt. I would hope a lot of it dealt with border security—the political effect it was having, the moral effect it was having. We know five Sri Lankans have tragically gone missing in the last week, because they were induced to come to Australia. They locked themselves into the hands of the people smugglers. Today where are those who approached the Prime Minister and asked him some hard questions at the Lodge? It was all a bit of Dutch courage by the sounds of it. They probably woke up and sobered up because they do not have the courage today to take the Prime Minister on, to take their own government on on this deep issue. This cuts deep. In fact, the senator on the front bench knows it only too well. If she wants to interject and say she does not, that I am misrepresenting her, she can. But I know only too well this is one she should walk into her caucus for—not down at the Lodge where you have a few drinks in you. Go into your own caucus party room and raise this issue about the softness of the laws. Have they got the courage? Well, they do not have the courage to stand up in the parliament they were elected to and speak on the issue. How would they have it in caucus? I would hope they would and you should. We have done it. The coalition party room has no fear or favour in it, and you saw that recently on the issue of the Emissions Trading Scheme. What an eruption within a party room that was. You will not see the likes of it ever again—at least I hope not. I had not seen it prior to that and I lived through opposition once before. We believe in some things over here. We do have courage from time to time. We do allow dissent. You do not like it when it gets out and you do not like it when it is close to an election, but I keep saying this issue is an exception and you ought to treat it as an exception. You ought to start saying, ‘We have to get tough.’ This is not enough. This bill is too little too late. It makes technical changes to the penalties if someone is caught people smuggling. Trying to get them to and through the courts in Australia is very difficult but a worthy aim. But most of them, as we know, are operating over in Indonesia. We need Indonesian laws. They are many years away. You have given ASIO extra powers. That is good, but they were operating anyway, if the truth be known. But it has clarified their powers. They know they can go straight to the source of people smuggling and not via some sort of border security issue. That is a good thing. You have broadened telecommunications interception powers to define a serious offence that entitles telecommunications interception to include people smugglers. Those are all very good and we support them, but there is a bigger and more important issue here. Those changes do not go to the heart of the problem. You know what the heart of the problem is. It is staring you in the face and, because you have all allowed yourselves for three years to be cowed by a Prime Minister, his department and his kitchen cabinet, you are not willing to stand by the oath of your office just once in three years on this critical human issue, this moral issue. It is not a financial issue. Politics plays second to it, quite frankly. It is a moral issue. Senator Hutchison has walked in. He has just got himself another six years in parliament after the New South Wales pre-selection deals which are done before the real pre-selection. G0D Bernardi, Sen Cory Senator Bernardi —Mark Arbib. WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —He must have really shook the hand of Mark Arbib. I do not seek to belittle that. I am glad. Thank goodness for Senator Hutchison— 84P Hutchins, Sen Steve Senator Hutchins —Hutchins. WH4 McGauran, Sen Julian Senator McGAURAN —You ought to get up and speak more; I would know your name better! You know who I am of course. I can honestly say he is one who would stand up in his caucus party room and I am absolutely bewildered why he has not to date. Debate interrupted. 2598 Motions 2598 2598 12:45:00 Stephens, Sen Ursula 00AOS New South Wales ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and Parliamentary Secretary for the Voluntary Sector 1 0 Senator STEPHENS —I table a statement relating to the order for the production of documents concerning therapeutic groups. 2598 Matters of Public Interest 10000 Troeth, Sen Judith (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Troeth)—Order! It being 12.45 pm, we will now move on to matters of public interest. I call Senator Hutchins. 2598 2598 12:45:00 Hutchins, Sen Steve 84P New South Wales ALP 1 0 Senator HUTCHINS —Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President, for the call and for getting my name correct. I will deal with Senator McGauran on another date, but I want to deal with a serious matter today. On 10 April, the nation of Poland suffered a tragic loss, in a part of the world associated with horror and brutality of the worst kind. The Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, along with his wife, Maria, and a high-level delegation of senior members of his government, was killed after their aircraft came down over north-west Russia. They were en route to the city of Smolensk to pay tribute to those who fell victim to a war crime of gross inhumanity perpetrated by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union—the Katyn forest massacre. Kaczynski, a titan of the Polish political landscape, has gone but the contribution that he and his peers in the Solidarity movement and the independent trade union movement made will live on well beyond today in the democratic institutions of Polish government that now stand testament to their great works. It was in the harsh and unforgiving environment of communist Poland that Kaczynski, an academic with qualifications in law and a doctorate in industrial relations, became active in the Polish trade union movement. Most notably, he was an activist for workers’ rights and democratic freedom. He became an influential figure within the Solidarity movement and a close ally of Lech Walesa, who was to become the first democratically elected leader of a free Poland. Walesa is also remembered for his lead role in forming Solidarity, as leader of the Gdansk Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee, to which Kaczynski was a senior adviser. An industrial dispute organised by this committee at the Gdansk shipyard was one of the pivotal events in bringing about the end of communist rule in Poland. This action took advantage of widespread discontentment, forcing the government to legalise trade unions independent of the communist state. This set the stage for disparate workers committees to unite under the Solidarity banner, which would eventually lead them to freedom and democratic elections a decade later. Lech Kaczynski’s career in Polish government began in 1989 as a senator in the Polish Senat, representing the Gdansk region. By 1991, he held the post of security minister, a position where he played a hands-on role in exercising a strong commitment to ‘decommunising’ the machinery of government and redefining Poland’s national security regime. Kaczynski held the view that corruption was caused by the lasting influence of former communist agents and officials in public and corporate life. During his time as minister for justice, beginning in 2000, his public profile and respectability among Poles was buoyed by his firm and unapologetic stance against corruption in government and against the pervasive threat posed by serious and organised crime, including the Russian mafia. These same themes carried him to popularly elected office in his own right, first as Mayor of Warsaw, a post that he held until his election as President of Poland. As President, Kaczynski’s policy successes include ratification of the Lisbon treaty and reforms to financial markets aimed at further integration into the European Union. He was seen as a nationalist but viewed the extension of Polish influence in regional and international forums as a foreign policy priority. He developed close ties between Poland and the state of Israel, expanding cultural links between the two nations. Helping to overcome differences between the Catholic and Jewish communities at home that had been created by wartime experience, Kaczynski was a leader who reached out to bring people together. As Mayor of Warsaw, he donated public land and money to establish a Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the city. In 2008, he was the first Polish head of state to attend a Jewish religious service, at the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw. President Kaczynski was acutely aware of the suffering of the Polish people in the last century of its history and lent the power of his office to commemorating their ordeal while seeking truth and reconciliation for the families and communities touched by the pain of such memories. But the deepest wounds take a long time to heal, and the Katyn forest massacre was no exception. This act of mass murder saw the execution of 21,768 Polish prisoners of war, academics, professionals and law-makers at the hands of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, an atrocity personally approved by Stalin and the most senior members of his politburo. It represented the loss of an entire generation of Polish community leaders—those most likely to resist communist control—and was indiscriminate. This incident had long been a roadblock to Polish-Russian relations, a result of the deception and secrecy of the Soviet government. Until 1990, when the Soviet Union finally declared the truth of its involvement, they had claimed that it was an act of Nazi Germany and was even included by Russian prosecutors in a list of charges at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. No former Soviet official has ever been prosecuted over the incident. For half a century, this represented the lack of trust between the Polish and Russian peoples. It was a truth too shameful to bear and an act too barbaric to forget. The text of the speech President Kaczynski intended to give later in the day on 10 April is available on the President’s website. The importance of the Katyn incident as a lasting symbol of injustice in the minds of the Polish people is clearly evident in his words. This is what he was to say: Lies about Katyn were a part of this attempt to deceive and historians even refer to them as the ‘founding lies’ of the Polish People’s Republic ... The world was never supposed to know the truth—families of the victims could not mourn them in public, could not grieve for them or pay them a decent last tribute ... The People’s Republic of Poland was based on lies about Katyn and now the truth about Katyn constitutes the foundation of a free Poland. We have already seen strong symbolic steps towards a closer relationship for Poland and Russia and, on Russia’s part, unprecedented openness about the Katyn massacre. On 29 April, the Kremlin ordered the publication of once-secret documents relating to the atrocity on the internet. At a press conference shortly after the release of these files, the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, said: Let everyone see what happened at that time, who made decisions, and who ordered the execution of Polish officers. All written documents are there, with all the signatures. This is a potent symbol of increased transparency and a clear indication that Russia wants to set the record straight in order to improve future relations. On 9 May, President Medvedev further reinforced this move towards reconciliation, as he personally handed the Acting President of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski, over 67 volumes of documents relating to the Katyn massacre and has vowed further cooperation. The Russian Federation of today is not a totalitarian state with delusions of empire, as its predecessor surely was. It is an extremely different nation, one that has made tremendous progress on the path to democratic reform, free markets and open government. The political culture is no longer based on ideological withdrawal from development, commerce and the concept of a government accountable to its people. The call for closer ties between Russia and Poland has been echoed by Acting President Komorowski, who has said ‘President Lech Kaczynski’s testament must be fulfilled through rapprochement and reconciliation’ with Russia. He said further: The truth about Katyn is a common test that both the Polish and Russian people have endured ... this truth could be a good basis for the development of relations between the two countries. President Kaczynski’s efforts to achieve full disclosure over the Katyn forest massacre and his tragic loss in pursuing justice and recognition for the victims and their families have not been in vain. From this accident, the gaze of the world’s media has been drawn to Katyn and, through this, the world has learnt of the events that transpired there 70 years ago. The global community will now remember the victims and the man who fought with such determination for their memory. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the nation of Poland in this time of overwhelming national loss. Over the last century, the Polish have proven time and again their resilience of spirit, strong sense of community and ability to recover through seemingly insurmountable adversity. While President Kaczynski and the 92 other military, political and cultural leaders who travelled with him will be sorely missed by a grieving nation, the legacy of a democratic, free Poland, which they played such a pivotal role in shaping, will stand as a lasting monument to their service and sacrifice. 2600 2600 12:56:00 Cormann, Sen Mathias HDA Western Australia LP 0 0 Senator CORMANN —I rise today to speak about Labor’s great big new tax on mining. Labor’s latest massive tax grab is a tax grab which, it saddens me to say, has been initiated by a Prime Minister who has completely lost the plot, a Prime Minister who has gone mad, a Prime Minister who, quite frankly, is getting dangerous and for whom it is time to go. I say this because Kevin Rudd’s latest tax grab is a reckless and irresponsible attempt to nationalise our mining industry. It is already putting our economy at risk and it is already putting jobs at risk. Of course, the way that Labor is trying to spin their way out of the absolute disaster they have created over the last week is just breathtaking. Yesterday, here in this chamber we had Minister Kim Carr trying to suggest that this massive new tax will actually result in increased investment, increased mining production and more jobs. I guess it takes a real socialist minister to come up with the view that massive new taxes will actually lead to new jobs and new investments. Only a socialist minister could come up with that sort of response. But I did go out of my way and had a close look at exactly what the minister said yesterday in his remarks during question time, because sometimes in the hurly-burly of question time you cannot hear every last word. In fact, there was a very important qualifier in his response. He said that, in the long run, mining investment will rise by 4.5 per cent, jobs by seven per cent and mining production by 5.5 per cent. I do not know what Minister Carr meant when he said ‘in the long run’. All I can say is that in the long run we are all going to be dead. What I am concerned about is the short and medium term and that the short- and medium-term actions of this government are going to put the long-term future of Australia at risk—and I believe they will. The latest massive and reckless tax grab that Kevin Rudd has put forward here is going to put our short-, medium- and long-term economic security at risk. Of course, Kevin Rudd has form on this. In his first budget we had the $2½ billion tax grab on the North West Shelf gas project. Those of us from Western Australia are used to this eastern states centric, antiwest Australian Prime Minister running policies and running tax grabs that are bad for Western Australia. I guess the point to be made with this latest tax grab is that it will hurt not only people across Western Australia but people right across Australia because it will cost jobs, it will drive investment offshore, it will have a serious impact on the superannuation incomes of Australians right across Australia and it will have an impact on the standard of living of people right across Australia. Kim Carr might think that this tax grab is going to generate new jobs but his Prime Minister, who is running different spins depending on which part of the country he is in, does not actually agree with him. I draw the attention of the Senate to an article in the West Australian on 30 April which quoted Kevin Rudd quite extensively. Essentially the argument that Kevin Rudd was running in the West Australian on 30 April—I am paraphrasing but I will get to the quotes in a moment—was that the super tax on the mining sector would help us address the skills shortage. In Western Australia we are facing skill shortages. He said: ‘You’ve got a problem; I’ve got a solution. Your problem is skill shortages. You know what? I have a massive new tax which can help fix it for you. In the eastern states you need more money for this, that and whatever. I have a response for you. A massive new tax will fix it for you.’ Kevin Rudd said in the West Australian that: A growing resources sector will draw capital and workers to the mining States, increasing pressure on other industries and regions as they compete for employees and investment … So he is saying, ‘There are too many workers coming from the eastern states into the mining sector, so we have to slow that down. The only way you are going to slow that down is if there are fewer jobs in the mining sector.’ So, according to Kevin Rudd himself, he is pursuing his tax as a strategy to make sure that mining companies and resource companies in Western Australia—and perhaps Queensland, Senator Mason—will not draw on the workers from western Sydney, Melbourne and perhaps around Cairns. He is saying, ‘We cannot have the resources sector draw on all these workers. We have to make sure that, rather than having a two-speed economy, we have a one-speed economy—one where we all slow down and do not have this massive growth in jobs et cetera.’ We have Kevin Rudd on the one hand saying, ‘This massive new tax is part of our strategy to slow down the resources sector and to slow down the economy in Western Australia and parts of Queensland to the lowest common denominator so that the slower economies of New South Wales and others can catch up.’ Then we have Kim Carr on the other hand saying in here that over the long run this is actually going to lead to significant growth in the mining sector. The government has got to get its messages right. This Prime Minister has hung all the WA Labor members and senators out to dry—and they know it. Sharryn Jackson in the marginal seat of Hasluck is fighting for her life. I hope the good people of Hasluck will be supporting Ken Wyatt, the Liberal candidate for Hasluck, who will stand up for Western Australia and will stand up against an eastern state centric government like this one. We have an off-the-record revolt happening in Western Australia by Labor members and senators. There are not that many of them. We do not have that many Labor members and senators in Western Australia. We have eight. There are four lower house members and four senators. Two of them are ministers and one of them is a parliamentary secretary. There are five Labor backbenchers from Western Australia. In a recent article in the West Australian on 5 May 2010 titled ‘Labor knives out for Rudd’, four of them came out and attacked Kevin Rudd—off the record, of course—in the context of this latest tax grab, which they know is not in the best interests of Western Australia or the people they represent. I call on Glenn Sterle, Mark Bishop, Chris Evans, Louise Pratt, Stephen Smith, Gary Gray, Melissa Parke and Sharryn Jackson to come out of the shadows. Come out of the shadows and represent your constituencies. Stand up for Western Australia. Stand up for good public policy. Stand up for what is right for our economy, instead of, in this cowardly sort of way, briefing against your Prime Minister in an off-the-record fashion. I will give you just a few of those quotes. There are some interesting ones. Quote No. 1 says: “They— that is, Labor Party central command— have clearly made a political decision that there is more to be gained in margins and seats on the east coast than there is to be lost in Western Australia,” one Labor source said of the looming resource super profits tax. The second quote follows a comment from Treasurer Wayne Swan on the Newspoll drop down to 49 to 51 and various other drops related to the Prime Minister’s ratings. It reads: Treasurer Wayne Swan said yesterday the decision to increase tax on cigarettes last week could be among the unpopular decisions that triggered the poll drop. A senior MP quipped in response: “Mate, that’s a s...load of smokers. But seriously, let’s wait and see if this is a trend. Government’s very hard and only the impotent are truly pure.” The next quote is a beauty. A Labor MP from Western Australia said: We have a spineless PM whose timidity is only matched by people around him … Quote No. 4 reads: Another said: “He will get the next crack (at the election) but that’s it and then there will be a new leader.” Here we have four out of eight Labor members and senators in Western Australia briefing off the record against their Prime Minister in the wake of this massive great big new tax on mining. We are saying to them: ‘Come out of the shadows. Join Liberal members and senators. Join federal Liberal candidates like Ken Wyatt in Hasluck. Join Donna Gordin in Brand. Join Michael Keenan in Stirling. Join Steve Irons in Swan. Join Luke Simpkins in Cowan. These are candidates and members of parliament who are standing up for Western Australia, who are standing up for their constituents and who are actually not frightened to criticise a government when it deserves to be criticised. There are some Labor representatives who, unlike Labor members and senators from Western Australia, are actually prepared to stand up and be counted. We have Martin Ferguson, of course—a minister in the Rudd government. He has conceded what everybody knows, and that is that nobody can give an undertaking or guarantee that the new resources tax will not jeopardise future projects. He knows that future projects are at risk. Western Australian Liberal members and senators met this morning with both BHP, as a representative of a large Australian resources company, and a group of junior explorers and mining companies. As one they said that this will have a serious impact on future projects across Australia. Investment has already dried up as a direct result of the Rudd government’s reckless, irresponsible and ill-thought out actions in relation to this tax. Who would actually invest money after the Prime Minister makes a half-baked announcement saying, ‘We want to whack a 40 per cent tax on you but we are going to tell you about the detail later.’ Well, let us sit down and see how it all works. ‘And, by the way, don’t worry because we have had this Petroleum Resource Rent Tax for the last 20 years,’—disingenuously, they said—‘and that didn’t have a bad impact.’ Let me just say a few things in relation to that. The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, which of course applies to resources in Commonwealth waters on offshore oil and gas production—not on a resource that is mined in the states and territories where there is already a royalty regime in place—actually applies on profits of six per cent plus five to 15 per cent depending on the circumstances, because there is a whole series of calculations and methodology in place that takes into account a much more reasonable profit assumption. This so-called superprofits tax is to apply on profits above six per cent. Since when was a profit above six per cent a superprofit? If six per cent is the only profit that you are reasonably expected to make, why would you not just put your money in the bank? Why would you not just invest in Commonwealth bonds? Why take a risk? This socialist government, of course, does not know about the risk/reward equation. They do not know that somebody who takes a risk would want to have the prospect of a reasonable reward. This is a government who thinks, ‘Just give them what everybody else can get and let’s collect everything else.’ And one thing that has not been widely understood, I believe, is that the government is actually now prepared to take a share of the risk too. If a mining project falls over, the government is going to cover 40 per cent of it. Since when is it up to government to take risk like this? The way it should work is that private businesses, individuals or companies who are prepared to take risk should be able to enjoy a reasonable reward. There has to be a reasonable risk/reward equation. But of course this government does not believe in that whatsoever. This is the most socialist government we have ever had in this country. Gough Whitlam was an outstanding Prime Minister compared to this madman that we have in the Lodge right now. This really is a matter of very, very serious concern. There is one other aspect to this tax, which is that it is extremely unfair. The PRRT was used as a justification by Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan as to why this should work, but the PRRT was applied as a prospective tax. It was a tax that was to apply on new projects. What Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan have come up with here is a retrospective tax. Retrospective taxes are unfair and unreasonable. They increase uncertainty and they have a significant impact on our sovereign risk profile as an investment destination. If you make a massive investment in a resources project across Australia, you should have a reasonable expectation that the tax arrangements that are in place are not going to be substantially altered. This leads me to my next point: Australia as a destination for investment is going to be seriously impacted by this. The competitiveness of our taxation regime compared to other countries around the world is an important matter, and of course we have had Canadian MPs and ministers running around saying: ‘Come here. Come and bring your investment to Canada. Don’t worry about Australia,’ because in Australia a resources company will pay around 57 to 58 per cent of their profits in tax if this so-called superprofits tax were to come into effect. I am about to run out of time and there will be other opportunities to talk about this. But just to conclude on this point: everything that this Prime Minister has touched, he has stuffed up. Whenever he runs out of money he goes for the tax grab. This is a prime minister who should not be trusted with more money. This is a prime minister who should have access to less money. (Time expired) 2604 2604 13:11:00 Ludlam, Sen Scott I07 Western Australia AG 0 0 Senator LUDLAM —I rise this afternoon to make some brief remarks on the government’s proposed mandatory net filter, and it is an issue that I have raised a number of times in this parliament over a period of nearly two years. The government’s proposed mandatory internet censorship scheme has been almost universally condemned. It is an inappropriate and off-target attempt to engage with a series of problems that deserve a much more serious and nuanced response. The Greens support the rights of Australian children to a safe online experience and we support the effective resourcing of law enforcement agencies to intercept and prosecute traffickers of online child pornography and other illegal material on the internet. We do not, however, support the mandatory filtering of the internet in Australia. This afternoon I would like to sketch the broad reasons for taking this position and then to propose to the government some ways forward. Our objections to the filter fall into three key areas. Firstly, it fails the objectives that the government has stated for it. It will not do anything to protect children online. That is the first broad category of reasons and I will go into them in some detail in a moment. The second category of reasons is that it establishes the architecture for future censorship of the internet in Australia, which I think is quite dangerous. Even if we take the minister on his word that he is not trying to set up a great firewall of Australia, we cannot trust him with the actions of future governments or indeed this government down the track, and I think that is very important. The third tier of arguments revolve around the technical unworkability which this minister and this government have been hearing loud and clear from the industry and from technical professionals for many years. In my comments on this issue over the last couple of years I have tended to rely less on the technical arguments, being somewhat less qualified to make those cases, but they have been made loud and clear by the industry holding up a red flag to the government, saying, ‘Even if this did meet your policy objectives, technically it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to actually achieve what you are trying to do.’ But in terms of the government’s key arguments around the filter protecting the experience of children online—and on this priority at least I do not think we around this chamber will find any key disagreements—this should not be seen as an argument between competing interests of free speech and the protection of children. Both of those things are very important. The government has never provided any evidence that the filter will have any impact on online safety, which has been defined most recently by the government as inadvertent access to child sexual abuse material. There is no research that the government has been able to provide to us. I asked three different agencies in the last round of estimates and nobody was able to quantify the degree to which inadvertent access to this kind of material actually exists. If such research exists I think it would be very interesting to see it and to put it in the public domain. Current threats to online child safety will still exist in the event that this filter is enacted and that is very important. If the government has its way and if it is passed through this parliament none of the issues that parents grapple with, that teachers are concerned about, that child safety and protection advocates worry about will have disappeared as a result of the enactment of this filter. It will not result in a single prosecution, it will not close down a single illegal website and it will not result in the removal of a single harmful image from the internet. So let us be very clear about that. Many child safety groups believe that the introduction of the filter may in fact foster an out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude by parents and may lead to a false sense of security on the assumption that the government has done something to somehow make the online environment safer for children, which of course is not the case. The current incarnation of the filter no longer proposes to filter pornography, violent material, gambling sites, violent or sexualised advertising or any other forms of content that could be considered harmful—depending on your point of view—to children of varying ages. The filter will not be able to block that volume of material. All of those problems will still remain and will need to be grappled with. Of course, the filter is easily circumvented by anybody with low to moderate technical literacy. Obviously, most teenagers these days fall into that category. If you are looking for illegal material you will still be able to find it. The filter will not actually be taking down these websites; they will still be there. Although we are, again, getting very mixed signals from the government, circumvention or instruction on circumvention will not necessarily be illegal. Perhaps most importantly, a failure with respect to the key objectives—on which, I think, again, I can speak for everybody in this place; we agree that the protection of children’s experience online and, for that matter, offline should be paramount—is that the kinds of material that the government frequently cites to justify this filter barely exist on the World Wide Web at all. This point has been made so many times as to be barely worth repeating. This material is largely trafficked in chat rooms, via peer-to-peer networks, over email and in other online fora, which, the minister had to acknowledge a couple of months ago, will be well beyond the reach of the filter. So we are really attacking the issue from the wrong end. Towards the end of my remarks I will come to some proposals for moving forward. The second tier of arguments relates to the fact that under this proposal we will be installing the architecture—that is, physical blocking devices on every internet service provider in this country—which later governments could use to target a much wider variety of content. Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has obviously promised to oppose any such scope creep in the future. We have to just take those commitments for granted. But many commentators believe that the scope is already too broad and the minister cannot guarantee that he will have the numbers forever. Four Corners ran a good piece on this matter the other night. One comment by the minister really stuck in my mind and summed up the issue of scope creep. Minister Stephen Conroy’s reassurance was unintentionally, I presume, quite instructive. He said: “If a majority of the Parliament in the future want to broaden the classification— meaning of material caught by the filter— well then, Australians should stand up and say ‘just a minute’, and I’ll be one of them.” Of course, by that time it will be too late. That is the future of this filter: a majority of a future parliament, probably under pressure of some kind of moral panic—whatever that may be—broadening the filter to include a larger scope of banned material and Stephen Conroy standing there in the minority, saying, ‘Just a minute,’ shortly before losing the vote. Once the architecture is in place, the idea that future governments will not be tempted to expand its scope is impossible to entertain. The reasons are technical, as well as political. The time for Australians to stand up is not down the track in that hypothetical vote; it is right now. People are standing up, and I will return to those thoughts in a moment. The current blacklist is proposed to be supplemented by a ‘refused classification’ only blacklist of web addresses, of which more than half are unrelated to children and include the kind of material that the minister has focused on, which most people have similar concerns about. It will include controversial films, such as Baise Moi, and publications by euthanasia support group Exit International. It has already caught an anti-abortion website with explicit images. What has caught the attention of many online civil liberties groups and other people is the fact that we are already drifting into political speak. This is not about the protection of children at all. The blacklist is already shrouding material which is arguably of a political nature. Whatever you may think of the opinions expressed on those sites we hope that, in a country with an open political culture such as Australia, that we will not be just hiving it off for the government to decide what we can and cannot see. It is proposed that the blacklist remain secret. The other night the minister, again, acknowledged even he has difficulties with that. That is one reason, among many, why the internet is different to books and films where packages of content come in discrete packages rather than the kind of flow that we see on the internet. That accountability mechanism which we have with films and books will not exist in the online environment. Perhaps most importantly, certainly from my point of view, the installation of a physical choke point on every internet service provider in the country, filtering against a growing secret list of material, ranging from illegal to unwanted, establishes hard-wired censorship architecture, which future governments will almost certainly be unwilling to dismantle. It should be judged not just against the current blacklist scope but against what future governments will do once the technology is installed and that, I think, is crucial. The proposal, being technically unachievable, is the third cluster of issues which I will not dwell on in the time that I have left, but it is in the technical literature. People from the Howard initiated inquiry, which the government kept secret until only six or eight months ago, said it could not be done and it was dropped by the former government. They said, ‘What you are trying to do is technically unachievable.’ Just to put this in context and then I will move on to where to from here, Google and Microsoft search engine Bing logged the trillionth—that is a one followed by 12 zeros—web page address in 2008. One trillion unique addresses, with several billion added every day. Google conservatively estimates that they have logged about 0.004 per cent of the five million terabytes of data on the net. This thing is already vast and I think the proposition that you could take a list, even with a classification scheme as vague as ours—this ‘refused classification’ bracket—and somehow plug everything that would be deemed to be refused classification is quite absurd. In terms of where to from here, there are a number of other very important technical issues around the proposal to move from filtering of a static list to the kind of dynamic, intrusive filtering which the government was proposing earlier and has since dropped because they were told it was impossible. But that is where the filter will need to go if it is instituted. As the web moves from a system of static addresses to much more dynamic database-served content, that is where this minister’s filter is going to need to go if it is to remain relevant—and that, I think, is somewhere that we should not countenance. In terms of the minister’s comments about people standing up and saying no if future governments proposed to increase the scope, and saying that that would be the time for Australians to stand up: the time for Australians to stand up is right now, and we are standing up. In response, the minister has spent two years vilifying anybody who criticised the proposal, accusing groups like Electronic Frontiers Australia of misinformation, and hitting back at everyone from me to Google to Reporters without Borders. And every time the government shoots the messenger, more messengers arise. Electronic Frontiers Australia has done essential research and advocacy over the last couple of years. I congratulate them for their work despite the hostility that they have drawn from the government. For a number of years, they have laid the foundations for a much larger number of individuals and organisations who have added their voices to the campaign. I will list these briefly, particularly groups or coalitions that have come together recently, like the Safer Internet Group—the Australian Library and Information Association, Google, the Inspire Foundation, Yahoo!, the Internet Industry Association, the Internet Society of Australia, the System Administrators Guild of Australia and the Australian Council of State School Organisations. They have come out from varying perspectives and condemned this proposal. Internationally, I have certainly taken a lot of press interest. I am presuming that the minister has as well. But certainly this filtering proposal has drawn a lot of criticism from overseas—most recently, last night from Google’s head of policy and government affairs, Ross LaJeunesse, who said: While intended to improve online safety, the filter could block access to important information online and have a broader impact than expected. They are very concerned about other countries taking their lead from this misguided proposal in Australia. What we propose is a three-fold strategy of education; law enforcement; and tailored, optional filtering solutions which I think will provide us with the best way of creating a safer online environment. The government established the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety. After one false start, I have managed to get on that committee, and I think it is going to do valuable work—not least in improving the net literacy of Australian parliamentarians. There is a place for filtering—of course there is. And one of the strangest and most curious policy zigzags of the government’s recent cybersafety reforms was to cancel the NetAlert free filtering software which was available to parents, claiming that there was no demand for it, but then turning around and saying that there is demand for a mandatory filter, which does not make sense to me at all. So I think the government is ducking this debate now and saying, ‘We’ll legislate after the election.’ We know that they are clearing the decks of anything controversial. I would like to pay my respects to everyone who played a part in this campaign for at least getting it onto the list of unpopular items to be taken off the table before the election. But I would like to know which way the opposition intends to vote on this. We have certainly heard very encouraging comments from various people in official and unofficial capacities. But I do not know and I do not think anybody who is following this debate knows which way they will vote when push comes to shove. I have also held back from declaring the Greens’ voting intentions on this issue in the faint hope that by the time we saw legislation the minister might have accommodated at least some of the concerns that have been put to him by a huge range of stakeholders. But, on the back of the Four Corners piece the other night, it is pretty obvious that this is a false hope. So let me remove that ambiguity once and for all. If the government presents its mandatory internet censorship scheme to the parliament in the form that the minister has been describing to us, the Australian Greens will vote against it. In closing, in the brief time remaining to me, I just want to give you an example of the kind of opposition that the minister has drawn, and one of the reasons why this proposal has drawn such far-reaching criticism. Suzanne Dvorak from Save the Children Australia has said: The lack of evidence to support the efficacy of the Government’s planned internet filter suggests that the money could be better spent on internet safety education for children and parents, an investment that will offer children greater protection online and offline. I would like to heartily endorse those comments. It is not good enough for the government to simply get this issue out of the way during the election campaign and then bring it back straight afterwards. That is an act of calculated cowardice. I think it is very important for the government to drop the mandatory filter; to do it now, before the election; and to work with the Greens, the opposition and, most importantly, with the broader community to provide a safe online environment for Australian children. 2608 2608 13:26:00 Collins, Sen Jacinta GB6 Victoria ALP 1 0 Senator JACINTA COLLINS —Today I would like to talk about health, education, infrastructure and how the Rudd government is delivering in these important areas. Let me take this opportunity to challenge the opposition’s selective reporting and misreporting of progress in several areas. Health has always been a top priority for Labor governments. It was a Labor government that introduced Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to make medical care and medicines more affordable. The Rudd government continues this commitment to continuous improvement in health care with the establishment of a single unified National Health and Hospitals Network that will deliver better health services and better hospitals for all Australians. This will be the biggest change to Australia’s health and hospitals system since the introduction of Medicare and has involved significant, if unprecedented, cooperation between the Commonwealth and the states. In education, the Rudd government is committed to delivering a world-class education system to ensure Australians have the knowledge and skills to meet the demands of the 21st century. As part of this commitment, a national curriculum will be introduced in 2011. For the first time in 110 years—for the first time since Federation—Australian parents can be confident that their child is being taught from a world-class curriculum regardless of the school they attend or its location. The Rudd government is investing a record $62.1 billion in Australian schools from 2009 to 2012. This is almost double the $33.5 billion invested in the last four years on funding and school infrastructure. As part of the government’s education revolution, this record investment will help ensure every Australian school is a great school and every Australian child receives a world-class education. The education revolution in Australian schools is an investment in jobs for today, as part of the economic stimulus, but also in jobs for tomorrow. With infrastructure, through its nation-building agenda, the Rudd government is investing in the future, to build up Australia’s economic capacity and to revive productivity so we can grow sustainably and lift our standards of living. The Rudd government has already delivered the most significant infrastructure package in Australian history, and the government’s microeconomic reform agenda is geared to creating a seamless national economy. To achieve these goals, the Rudd government is actively working with the state governments to deliver, and I would like to provide some recent local examples of this in my home state of Victoria. An example of this collaborative approach is the very important duplication of the Clyde Road in Berwick in the Casey-Cardinia growth corridor. This road is already duplicated, except for the last kilometre between the railway line and High Street. This is a major bottleneck that the Liberals had 12 years to fix. But they did nothing. When they finally decided to act, in the 2007 election campaign, the funding they committed to the project was a woefully inadequate $25 million, and they never sought to work with the Brumby state government to deliver the project. In fact, rather than support the project, last year the Liberals proposed an amendment to the nation-building legislation that would have specifically killed federal funding for Clyde Road. Yet, despite working against funding for Clyde Road while in Canberra, the Liberals have been supporting the project locally and blaming the Rudd government for the delays. Since committing that federal funding the Rudd government have been working directly with the state government, and last month Premier John Brumby announced that the state government were committing $25.6 million towards the $55.6 million cost of the project. Finally, after years of inaction by the Liberals, after they had the chance and after blocking and delaying funding in recent times, the planning works for Clyde Road will commence immediately. Construction will begin in 2011 and will be completed in 2012. The Labor candidate for La Trobe, Laura Smyth, has been a strong advocate for the Clyde Road duplication project, because she believes the voters of La Trobe are missing out because they do not have a strong voice in government—someone who will not say one thing locally and vote another way in Canberra. In education, a good example is Nossal High School. This is another example of the Rudd government working with the state government. Nossal High School is located in the city of Casey’s education hub on Clyde Road, Berwick. It shares this site with the Berwick campus of Monash University and, in the near future, the new Berwick superclinic. The school is named after the eminent Australian scientist Sir Gustav Nossal. Nossal High School, which started in February this year, is the first coeducational select entry school in Victoria and the first select entry school built in the state of Victoria since 1927. It will be part of the selective entry network of schools which comprises Melbourne High School, MacRobertson Girls High School and Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee—due to open in 2011. Working together, the federal and state governments contributed $3 million and $21 million respectively to this $24 million project, which has delivered a selective entry school that will provide opportunities for highly able students to pursue a focused academic pathway through their senior years of government secondary schooling. Nossal High School has reserved 10 per cent of its intake for disadvantaged applicants. Being on the same site as Monash University and adjacent to Chisholm TAFE will allow for sharing of facilities, joint programs and partnership arrangements. This project delivers an educationally enriched environment for 800 high-achieving, academically gifted students in Berwick and the south-east region of Melbourne. The Berwick GP superclinic is yet again another example of federal and state governments working together to deliver much-needed projects. On Friday of last week the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd visited the construction site of the new Berwick GP superclinic with the Labor candidate for La Trobe, Laura Smyth. The project is a joint venture between the federal government, Dandenong Casey Division of General Practice and Monash University, and will be located on the grounds of Monash University’s Berwick campus. The Prime Minister was shown the plans for this $2.5 million project, which will be completed in May next year, by Watson Young Architects. This clinic will do more than provide front-line primary care services and integrated healthcare services to meet the needs and priorities of the growing Berwick community; it will provide a strong commitment to teaching the next generation of doctors and health professionals and will focus on innovative teaching methods to support clinical placements for students. In conclusion, the Rudd government understands that the allocation of funding is not the end of the process of delivering on health, education and infrastructure. To deliver the results our local communities deserve means that funding is only the beginning. It means working with the state governments and local authorities—something the Liberals have never tried to do in these regions. Despite the duplicity of the Liberals in using every effort to frustrate the delivery of some of these important projects to the community—and indeed frustrate here in the Senate—then playing the blame game, the Rudd government has continued to successfully work with the Brumby state government and others to deliver successful outcomes and will continue to do so. 2610 2610 13:35:00 Boswell, Sen Ron YE4 Queensland NATS 0 0 Senator BOSWELL —The government’s renewable energy target is not 20 per cent. It may not even be 25 per cent. It could be more. Nobody knows how far past 20 per cent it will go. What we do know is that it is designed to exceed 20 per cent by an uncapped amount and is certainly expected by the government to exceed 20 per cent. How do we know that? Minister Wong has said as much at the Clean Energy Council national conference in Adelaide last week. She said that the government’s latest changes to the RET ‘are actually expected to deliver more renewable energy than the original 20 per cent target’. This parliament has previously supported a 20 per cent target, and I voted for it. It has not supported a 20 per cent-plus target. I will come back to the magic pudding—RET. But there is another unknown that needs to be on the table—that is, the price of power. How much will the second Rudd RET in a year drive up the price? We do not know. There are wildly different estimates. What we do know is that the scheme is deliberately designed to drive prices up, in the same way it is designed to exceed 20 per cent. Both issues need very close examination. I will deal with the size of the RET first. The necessary background is that in June last year the government legislated for 45,000 gigawatt hours of power to be sourced from the renewables by 2020. There were two other big variations to the Howard ERA MRET, which the first Labor RET replaced. The first was an increase in the penalty that so-called liable entities—the big wholesale consumers and retailers of electricity—who will have to meet the target will have to pay if they fail to meet their annual obligations under the scheme. That rose from $40 to $65 per megawatt hour per REC, which was a bid to carve room for a profit margin for the big end of town renewable producers who need a REC price of around $50—I would say it is slightly more—to make a profit and attract investors. The second major change from the MRET was totally contradictory of that bid to provide an opportunity for wind, and that was the provision of extremely attractive subsidies to the rooftop solar power generators, rooftop solar hot water systems and, to a lesser extent, rooftop heat pumps that were already flooding the renewable energy certificate market. This part of the RET, boosting the small-scale operations, had an immediate effect from the middle of last year. The government well knew, even when it legislated it last year, that the federal and state subsidies were creating a flood of RECs from the rooftops. They had doubled between 2007 and 2008 and were growing rapidly in 2009. But the government went ahead anyway with a policy designed to increase that flood and thus to defeat what was supposed to be the principal purpose of encouraging wind. That is exactly how it played out. Within weeks of the full implementation of the scheme in January, with the commencement of the need for liable entities to start accounting for their RECs, the policy was turned on its head. It was turned on its head in mid-February because the flood of the rooftop RECs had predictably totally collapsed the price. RECs fell late last year as the new policy bit from about $47 to barely $20. In 2009, almost half the RECs created, about 4½ million, were from subsidised rooftop domestic solar hot water systems. Another 16 per cent were from rooftop solar generators. Wind created 25 per cent of REC power. Wind could not compete with solar hot water. Co-generation in the sugar mills could not compete—and I warned them not to touch it. The price of RECs was so low it killed investment and the return from these projects was not enough. So Rudd’s first RET was a dud—it had it written all over it before it even started. The failure was built in. The first Rudd RET thus has the hallmarks of the insulation debacle, the building the education revolution debacle, the NBN debacle and the boat people debacle—badly thought through policy, badly administered, with poor oversight and lots of high-minded spin. In its place we now have a two-headed RET scheme. We have the LRET—the large-scale renewable energy target—which will be 41,000 gigawatt hours. That target will have to be met by liable entities exclusively from the big end renewable projects, which means basically from wind. We also have the SRES, the small-scale renewable energy scheme, which is mainly rooftop generating and water heating. The SRES is nominally, but only nominally, 4,000 gigawatt hours. In fact, it is uncapped, and that is the big trigger for a plus 20 per cent RET. Liable entities will have to buy every single SREC produced, even though they will not be able to use them against their target. That small-scale sector continues to boom. Big subsidies from the federal and state governments remain in place. People who put in rooftop solar generators still get upfront five times the number of RECs that their system will generate over 15 years. At a locked-in price of around $40 per REC in the SRES—small renewable energy certificates—that is an average of $6,000 plus subsidy on the installation cost. Householders then on-sell all or some of the power they generate. That is done through state power tariffs typically set at around three times the price of grid power. Solar hot water systems and heat pumps will also continue to be popular. Their upfront government subsidies have just been downgraded from $1,600 and $1,000 respectively to $1,000 and $600. They also still receive their phantom RECs upfront. I must make the point that it is not these subsidies that are generated that are paid for by the government. They are paid for by spreading the cost to other electricity users. In this area the SRES will provide the momentum for what The Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, Senator Wong, has described as the ‘original’ 20 per cent target being exceeded. As more people put these things on their roof, the higher the price of power will go and the more people will put these things on their roof to cash in. Let us consider the price issue. What is going to be the impact? The minister says it will be a mere $4 per household. Industry estimates are vastly different. Origin Energy, for example, suggests the RET will be a major factor—not the only factor but a major factor—in the 200 per cent to 300 per cent increases in power prices by 2020. ERM Power estimates prices will go up, again strongly influenced by the RET but not altogether by the RET, by about 170 per cent. The aluminium industry says in its submission on the new RET that prices will rise by almost as much as if the CPRS and the RET were in play. That will in part be driven by the fact that big-end RECs are now in a sellers’ market and are likely to hit $90. That is the real floor under the price, given that the $65 penalty for noncompliance is not deductible. Therefore, there is a $90-plus cost to liable entities. Minister Wong’s own departmental secretary, Dr Martin Parkinson, has said that rooftop abatement is vastly expensive, at $200 billion to put a solar power system on every roof. So we have vastly different assessments of the price impact of renewables. As with the overall size of the 20-plus per cent RET, the only thing we really know about its price impact is that we do not know what it will be, other than that there will clearly be upward pressure, and of course we have to know what the price impact will be. If we see prices double over the next 10 years, then it will not just be the aluminium and concrete industries that will disappear offshore; we will see food processors, abattoirs and fish processors disappear. Very few Australian industries or manufacturing processors could withstand a doubling of electricity prices. The first thing we need to see is the minister’s modelling. We need to know what it includes and what it does not include. For example, does it include the fact that wind power is so intermittent that much of it has to be backed up by conventional power? I will bet it does not. How many people realise that we are going to have to build thousands of megawatts of conventional capacity to make up for the fact that wind has a capacity factor of 0.3? That rating means wind is going to be useful less than one-third of the time. That means we are going to have to build thousands of megawatts of back-up capacity, at a cost of billions, with that huge investment then sitting idle for much of the time, ready to come into operation every time the wind drops or blows too hard, which is about 70 per cent of the time. Does the minister’s modelling take into account that often remote, relatively small wind farms will have to be connected to the grid and that that is going to be immensely expensive? These are the realities by which renewables, providing a fraction of power consumed, can have a massive end cost, way out of proportion to their scale and economic value. So I ask the minister to come clean. We are not going to give you a blank cheque. Just how big is this RET going to be, over and above the ‘original’ 20 per cent? And how much is it really going to cost Australian families and businesses? 2613 2613 13:47:00 Bilyk, Sen Catryna HZB Tasmania ALP 1 0 Senator BILYK —Today I want to speak on an important initiative by the Rudd government—that is, the move to help keep our children safer by introducing the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences Against Children) Act, which came into effect on 14 April 2010. Children are vulnerable and need our protection, and I do not think there is one person in this whole place that would disagree with that. As adults, we have an obligation to every child we come into contact with to make sure they are safe, healthy and happy. To put it simply, children just do not have the knowledge and experience to ensure their own safety. This legislation has two main purposes. Firstly, it is designed to strengthen existing offences. Secondly, it introduced a number of new offences to the protection framework in place for children. State and territory governments have a responsibility to ensure that our children are protected, but there are also Commonwealth responsibilities. Those responsibilities apply both in Australia and internationally. The Rudd government takes those responsibilities seriously, and that is why we had this legislation enacted. The system has been reformed to ensure that Australia has comprehensive laws covering those areas that are the responsibility of the federal government. Prior to this legislation, laws covered sexual offences against children committed overseas—that is, child sex tourism, as it is known. They also covered offences that are perpetrated using carriage services, such as the internet and mobile phones. This legislation has improved the law in relation to child sex tourism in a number of areas. It has simplified the operation of existing offences, increased penalties and created a number of new penalties. As co-convenor of Parliamentarians Against Child Abuse and Neglect, or PACAN, as it is most commonly known around this building, and along with a number of other senators and members, I attended a briefing last year by the Australian Federal Police in regard to child sex tourism. The information provided by Andrew Cassidy and Commander Stephanie Taylor was both informative and very disturbing. Hearing the statistics from people who deal with this horrific crime day in, day out certainly reinforces the seriousness of the issue. I must say that it is difficult to maintain the illusion that our children are safe, even without being briefed by experts. Not all of the community is aware of these concerns, and it is such an important issue that we need to bring it out into the open and make sure that people are aware of it. Time and time again we hear of children being abused by a variety of people. Unfortunately, it can be their schoolteachers or even their parents. Children are abducted, abused and even murdered. If this happens to one child, it happens to one child too many. We really have to take a stand on behalf of the children of Australia. In a world that relies heavily on technology, we hear of adults creating false identities online to lure children and of people posting pornographic images on websites. As at 1 April 2010, the Australian National Child Offender Register, or ANCOR, had 11,091 people registered. While that number is small in comparison to Australia’s population, I still consider it to be a number much too large. Anybody that works to reduce these horrific acts would agree with me that one child that is abused in any way is one child too many. It is even more concerning to note that the register does not include people who were not ordered to be on the register or those that no longer have to report, so the numbers quite possibly are considerably higher. ANCOR provides for people registered as class 1 to be on the register for 15 years, class 2 for eight years and repeat offenders for life. In my home state of Tasmania, there was a recent case where the offender was not placed on ANCOR due to the small age gap between the offender and victim and because the acts were not predatory in nature. I find that fairly disturbing. But others are placed on the register for only two or three years according to the discretionary rights of the courts. The nature of the offences committed that lead to a person being placed on ANCOR varies between states and territories. For example, what is a registered offence in Tasmania may not see a person who commits the same offence in South Australia placed on the register. Regardless of the offence, a person placed on ANCOR has violated a child in a way that will damage that child for life and I will speak on that issue later. ANCOR makes it easier for police across the nation to keep track of offenders even if they no longer live in the state in which the offence was committed. ANCOR requires offenders to provide a variety of information about their lives including personal details, employment status, vehicles registered in their name and travel plans just to name a few. Child sex offenders placed on ANCOR move through a number of stages with some people eventually being removed while others are registered for life, as I said. As politicians we have the power to act to make a difference for our children and we must do so. The Rudd government is determined to do what it can to ensure the safety of Australian children. The legislation that was introduced has new offences criminalising dealings in child pornography or child abuse materials overseas. Australian authorities are now able to prosecute Australians engaged in these activities while overseas. The improvements bring our overseas offences in line with domestic offences and ensure that abhorrent crimes against children by Australians will be punished consistently. The legislation has strengthened internet offences by introducing tougher penalties for child pornography and abuse materials and the new aggravated offence relating to online child pornography networks. The penalties range from 10 to 25 years in prison. The legislation includes new offences of exposing children to indecent material and engaging in activities of a sexual nature over the internet. In his media release announcing the introduction of the bill to parliament, the Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon. Brendan O’Connor MP, stated: These reforms will help law enforcement to combat the highly organised, technologically sophisticated rings of child sexual abusers who take advantage of the opportunities and anonymity that the Internet provides to cause horrific damage to their child victims. New offences regarding using the postal service for child pornography or grooming or procuring a child are also included. This is recognising that although many child abusers access the internet, some offenders are still using the good old-fashioned postal system. The legislation will ensure a consistent approach to crimes regardless of what medium is used. The legislation made minor amendments to a number of acts. These include the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002, the Crimes Act 1914, the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. These amendments were necessary to allow law enforcement agencies to use existing powers applicable to current offences for the investigation of the proposed new offences. The Crimes (Child Sex Tourism) Amendment Act 1994 has allowed individuals, companies and corporations to be charged and sentenced to a term of up to 17 years of imprisonment and heavy fines for participation in sexual acts or for encouraging, benefiting and profiting from any such activity. Since the original law was passed in 1994, 24 individuals have been charged under this legislation. This legislation has given authorities even more power to act against people committing offences against children. The Rudd government is moving with the times to ensure that our children receive the protection they deserve. This legislation resulted partly from Operation Achilles which was a worldwide investigation that saw arrests made in Australia, the US, UK and Germany. G0D Bernardi, Sen Cory Senator Bernardi —It took you two years. 10000 Moore, Sen Claire (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Moore)—Order! Thank you, Senator Bilyk. Please go ahead without interruption. HZB Bilyk, Sen Catryna Senator BILYK —I would have thought this issue was important enough for people to listen to. Honourable senators interjecting— HZB Bilyk, Sen Catryna Senator BILYK —I am astounded that people care to interject while I am talking about an issue as important as child sexual abuse. As I was saying, Operation Achilles is an example of how authorities across the world work together to protect the community. Cooperation is essential to achieve the best possible results when it comes to the safety of our children. It is essential when it comes to punishing people who have perpetrated violent crimes of any nature. This legislation also includes a new scheme to allow for the forfeiture of child pornography or abuse material or articles containing such material derived from or used in the commission of a Commonwealth child sex offence. Now that I have discussed the legislation, I am going to talk about the damage that abuse can cause to our children because some of those on the other side that have been interjecting obviously do not really understand. Of course, there are the physical scars. Some heal with time while others do not. Emotionally children can experience many problems and they may have issues with trusting people, with being intimate and with their sexuality. These problems often—in fact, usually—continue into adulthood. Child abuse is widely seen as the cause of mental illness in adulthood. This could include depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, post traumatic stress disorders as well as multiple personality disorders. Abuse can lead to the victim abusing others and to suicide, although I am not saying that that is always the case. Everything possible must be done to protect children from abuse. We must also act to provide help to victims and to do our best to minimise the harm and lifelong consequences. The Rudd government takes the welfare of our children seriously. That is why we are pleased that the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences Against Children) Act has been passed. This legislation was needed to give the courts more power so that they can sentence offenders to longer terms of imprisonment. It was needed to make activities that were not covered by law illegal. I reiterate: we must act to keep all Australian children safe. It is our duty to do so. We also have a responsibility to ensure that Australian citizens do not commit crimes against children while they are in other countries, and we must punish those who do. So I am pleased and proud to be part of the Rudd government and of a parliament that is looking out for the interests of children. Debate interrupted. 2616 14:00:00 Questions Without Notice 2616 14:00:00 2616 Abetz, Sen Eric N26 Tasmania LP 0 Senator ABETZ —My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Evans. Can the minister confirm that Labor has budgeted for a deficit of more than $40,000 million next financial year, the second biggest budget deficit in Australia’s history, beaten only by Labor’s record-breaking $57,000 million deficit this financial year? 2616 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —It is fair to say that I had not prepared for that question, because I was not down for a dorothy. I do not know whether Senator Abetz has read the papers, but I think he will find that people have universally acknowledged that the government has delivered a responsible budget—one that is very much focused on repaying debt and one that has at its core the early repayment of debt. Three years early the debt will be repaid compared to the budget forecast from last year. So not only are we in a situation whereby our current conditions have our economy stronger than all other comparable economies—we are in very good shape—but the government has taken advantage of those conditions and the fact that we have come through the global financial crisis in such good shape as a result of the government’s investment in the stimulus activity to protect Australian jobs. Having come through that, this government has delivered a fiscally conservative budget—one that focuses on repaying debt and meets the constraints that we predicted we would apply. So what we know is that we will repay debt three years early. The whole focus of the budget is on making sure that we repay debt as the economy recovers, that we have limited new spending and offset new spending with savings and that we are very much focused on returning the economy to a situation where we are in the black as quickly as possible. Unless Senator Abetz has missed all the commentary, even from those who are critical of the budget, he will know that they acknowledge that that is the centrepiece of the government’s response: getting rid of our debt as quickly as possible and taking advantage of the strong economic position we find ourselves in as a result of the government’s effective management of the economy— (Time expired) Honourable senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! On both sides I need order. 2616 Abetz, Sen Eric N26 Tasmania LP 0 Senator ABETZ —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that, in order to fund its deficit and, as we have just been told, to focus on repaying debt as quickly as possible, the government is in fact borrowing $783 million every week—that is, some $77,000 every minute of every hour of every day? 2617 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —Again I am perplexed as to why the senator seems to have missed the key component of the budget. The budget sees this country repaying its debt faster than any of the other major industrialised economies. We will be debt free before all our competing major industrialised countries. We already have lower unemployment rates and we have less debt as a proportion of our economy, but this budget delivers the return to surplus three years early. It is repaying the debt that was accumulated as we protected Australian jobs. We stimulated the economy to protect Australian jobs. What people ought to focus on is the figure for unemployment projection—down to 4¾ per cent. That is a great result for Australians. (Time expired) Honourable senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order on both sides! Senator Abetz is entitled to be heard in silence. 2617 Abetz, Sen Eric N26 Tasmania LP 0 Senator ABETZ —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Given that within just three years Labor has turned $44,800 million in the bank into a debt of $78,500 million, a turnaround of $123,000 million, how can Labor seriously claim to be economic conservatives? Has any other government in Australian history ever racked up so much debt so fast, or is this another Labor first? (Time expired) Honourable senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! If senators wish to debate this, there is time at the end of question time. 2617 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —I do not know whether Senator Abetz is operating in a parallel universe to everybody else, but, as I reiterate, the key direction of the budget was an attempt to reduce the deficit as quickly as possible. We set out to do that, and we achieved that three years early. Three years earlier than expected last budget, the budget will be back in the black. So that has been the focus. I do not know what Senator Abetz has missed, but that is the clear focus. We have kept fiscal constraint on the budget, we have matched all new spending with savings and we have focused the return to economic growth on reducing the debt. The budget delivers on that, everyone has recognised that and I think it is a hallmark of a very good budget. 2617 14:06:00 2617 Lundy, Sen Kate 7G6 Australian Capital Territory ALP 1 Senator LUNDY —My question is to the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Sherry. Does the fiscally disciplined budget delivered last night by the Treasurer deliver on the Rudd government’s pledge to reduce taxes for working families, and has the Rudd government included in its third budget initiatives to ease the cost of living pressures on Australians? 2617 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 Senator SHERRY —In addition to the issues touched on by my leader, Senator Evans—the budget delivering the lowest debt and deficit of any advanced economy in the world, and bringing the budget back into the black; into surplus three years early—there were a number of other important measures. One that I want to highlight to the Senate goes to a significant and major personal tax simplification. It is important that the government take action to address issues of cost of living pressures for working families and reward them for their efforts during the global financial recession. From 1 July 2012, taxpayers will be able to claim a $500 standard deduction for work related expenses. This will increase to up to $1,000 a year later. Under the current system, as I am sure everyone is aware, taxpayers face costly and unneeded complexity as they try to interpret what is deductible, to quantify work related costs correctly and apportion expenses between income earning purposes and private purposes. Providing a standard deduction will remove this burden from many taxpayers. No taxpayers will be disadvantaged. Taxpayers with expenses above the standard deduction will be able to continue to claim these expenses when lodging their tax returns. This will benefit 4.6 million taxpayers in 2012-13, and some 6.4 million taxpayers when that quantum increases to $1,000. Those 6.4 million taxpayers will no longer have to participate in complex claims. The standard deduction initiative delivers on another important recommendation of the independent Australia’s future tax system—report to the Treasurer. 2618 Lundy, Sen Kate 7G6 Australian Capital Territory ALP 1 Senator LUNDY —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. What other day-to-day benefits for ordinary Australians will the Rudd government’s responsible budget and strong economic management deliver? 2618 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 Senator SHERRY —Thank you. I have already outlined one very significant benefit, predominately for low- to middle-income earners, given the level of deductions they have in respect of the tax system. We have also fulfilled our election commitment to working families by delivering a third round of tax cuts from 1 July. This includes lifting the low-income tax offset to $1,500 to provide an effective tax-free threshold of $16,000 for Australians with incomes up to $30,000. This third round of personal tax cuts means a person on $50,000 will be $450 per year better off than last year. The same taxpayer will now be paying $1,750 less in personal income tax than they were when this government came to office. And, of course, this is at a time of global financial and economic crisis, which saw our budget go into deficit as a consequence. We have still delivered on our election promises in respect of tax cuts. (Time expired) 2618 Lundy, Sen Kate 7G6 Australian Capital Territory ALP 1 Senator LUNDY —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Is the Assistant Treasurer aware of any risks to the Rudd government’s bold plans for tax relief and to lower cost of living pressures on Australians? 2618 Sherry, Sen Nick ZW4 Tasmania ALP Assistant Treasurer 1 Senator SHERRY —Thank you. Before I get to risks, a third benefit is the 50 per cent discount on tax payable on interest income up to $1,000. That is another important benefit. The real risk, of course, is that which we see from those opposite. The challenge is now down to those opposite—the Liberal and National parties under the leadership of Mr Abbott. When will you deliver a budget surplus? Will you deliver it any time sooner than this government has delivered it against the backdrop of a world financial and economic crisis? YW4 Macdonald, Sen Ian Senator Ian Macdonald —That’s not relevant to the question! ZW4 Sherry, Sen Nick Senator SHERRY —Name your dates! Name your date when you will put the budget back into surplus. Identify the savings! 84M Mason, Sen Brett Senator Mason —Bring it on! ZW4 Sherry, Sen Nick Senator SHERRY —Identify the savings! Fess up and tell us what you are going to do to keep— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Sherry, you should address your comments to the chair. Those on my left should not interject. ZW4 Sherry, Sen Nick Senator SHERRY —It is time those opposite fessed up. When are they going to deliver a budget surplus earlier? Where are they going to cut? When are they going to make the savings? Where are they going to make the savings? Plenty of glib lines, but no policy from those opposite—no responsible policy— (Time expired) 2618 Miscellaneous 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! I draw the attention of honourable senators to the presence in the President’s Gallery of former senator, Chris Schacht. We extend a warm welcome to you, Chris, and trust you enjoy question time and remember what it was like. Honourable senators—Hear, hear! 2619 14:12:00 Questions Without Notice 2619 14:12:00 2619 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 Senator JOYCE —My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Evans. In the 2008-2009 budget, the Labor government forecast that this financial year we would have a surplus of $19.7 billion—that is a surplus. But they have delivered a record deficit of $57.1 billion— Government senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Joyce is entitled to be heard in silence. E5D Joyce, Sen Barnaby Senator JOYCE —As I was saying, in 2008-2009 they said they would have a surplus of $19.7 billion. They have actually delivered a record deficit of $57.1 billion, and this government now expects us to believe a forecast of $1 billion in three years time. How can the Australian public give any credibility to what Labor states they will deliver, especially when these figures are built on the assumption of the best terms of trade in 60 years and they are made by a government with a record in blow-outs, including the $1.5 billion blow-out in the Building the Education Revolution and a complete lack of prudence and lack of value in the buildings that actually turned up. 2619 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —I thank Senator Joyce for the question. He will forgive me if I do not take him terribly seriously when he quotes figures involving billions of dollars, but I have never sought to become finance minister myself. The opposition seem to be desperately searching around for an argument about debts without actually analysing the budget or analysing the reaction of all of the senior economic commentators on the budget. Everyone else recognises that the government is repaying the debt three years early. It is expected that we will see the budget return to surplus three years ahead of schedule in 2012-13, well before— Opposition senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! If you want to debate the issue, the time for that is post question time. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator CHRIS EVANS —The budget will return to surplus three years ahead of schedule in 2012-13, well before any of the other major advanced economies. Senator Joyce seems to forget that we had a global financial crisis that severely impacted on all countries around the world and their financial positions. But what we now have as a result of this budget is that our debt position will be one which will see us return to surplus well before the other major advanced economies. E5D Joyce, Sen Barnaby Senator Joyce —Mr President, I rise on a point of order. On relevance, I direct the minister to the question that was asked. Can he please point to one Labor target that they have actually met and how can we possibly believe them? 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —There is no point of order. Senator Evans. Government senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! Those on my right, Senator Evans is waiting to answer the question. AX5 Evans, Sen Chris Senator CHRIS EVANS —As a result of the government’s management of the economy, we are actually going to exceed the previous forecast by bringing the debt level down three years early. We have also met a whole range of the targets we set. To fully offset all new spending is one of them. We kept the fiscal discipline in terms of new spending, which has allowed us to take advantage of the improving economy and pay off the debt quickly. That is very much meeting our commitment to fiscal constraint. (Time expired) 2620 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS 0 Senator JOYCE —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. It seems that the minister is directing us to how responsible the government are. Can he please inform the Senate of a further increase in government spending since the budget forecast of over $26 billion over the next three years? As Prime Minister Rudd would say, why has this reckless spending not stopped? 2620 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —Clearly, Senator Joyce continues to struggle to read the financial statements, which is worrying for a former accountant. As has been made clear, not only are we repaying the debt early, but we have met the commitments which we made, which were to fully offset all new spending. Sure, we have invested heavily in health and heavily in skills, because those are the priorities for the economy, but we have offset all new spending so that we can bring down the debt quickly. We have held real spending growth to less than two per cent a year when the economy is growing above trend. We have saved and not spent recovering revenues. That will allow us to return the budget back to surplus sooner. So we have invested new money in things like health and schools, which are priorities, but we have fully offset all new spending with savings and this has allowed us to bring the economy— (Time expired) 2620 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS 0 Senator JOYCE —Mr President, I ask a second supplementary question. Does the minister agree with Prime Minister Rudd’s comments made on 4 December 2008 that he believes that there is a strong economic case for budget belt-tightening to make the job of the Reserve Bank easier? If he does, why has the government not made the tough decisions to cut spending and reduce pressure on interest rates? 2620 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —I am not sure where the Liberal opposition have been in terms of analysing the budget, but what is clear is that the budget has focused on bringing us back into the black three years earlier than expected under the last budget. The whole focus of the budget is to reduce debt and to take advantage of the fact that our economy is recovering much quicker than other economies because this government invested during the global financial crisis. We acted early, and by acting early we protected Australian jobs. The great result from this budget is the projection that unemployment will fall to, I think, 4¾ per cent over earlier projections of it being around eight per cent. That is a great result because it means more Australians are in jobs. If we had not put the fiscal stimulus in place, thousands more Australians would have been out of work. (Time expired) 2620 14:20:00 2620 Brown, Sen Bob QD4 Tasmania AG Leader of the Australian Greens 0 Senator BOB BROWN —Mr President, my question is to you. I ask about the budget item showing that $21.3 million extra will be spent on security for Parliament House in the coming financial year. I wonder if you would inform the Senate as to how that money will be spent and why it has been allocated. 2620 PRESIDENT, The 10000 PO N/A 1 The PRESIDENT —Senator Brown, at this stage I have not had a close look at the final program as to how it will be spent. That is the global allocation that has been given. I will seek to get a full, detailed analysis of it for you and deliver it to you as soon as I reasonably can. Government senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! I can do without the assistance on my right. Senator Brown is entitled to and has asked a very appropriate question. 2621 Brown, Sen Bob QD4 Tasmania AG 0 Senator BOB BROWN —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. It may be that some senators are not feeling as safe as I am in this place, but— Honourable senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! I need to hear Senator Brown, as the question is terribly important. QD4 Brown, Sen Bob Senator BOB BROWN —I wonder if you could also, in answering that question, Mr President, supply the House with any information there may be about further proposed spending measures to do with security in Parliament House. 2621 PRESIDENT, The 10000 PO N/A 1 The PRESIDENT —Senator Brown, there is one thing I can say in response to your question. There would be some matters on which, because of the general security interests and wellbeing of the occupants of this place, it would be inappropriate to make those details public. But we are quite prepared to have a private briefing with you to give you those matters that need to be held in confidence. I can assure you, though, that the information that we will supply comes about directly as a result of the Security Management Board briefing both the Speaker and myself on the security needs of Parliament House. I have undertaken to give you a detailed analysis of what will be in that $21 million and I will get that to you, as I said, at the earliest possible time. But bear in mind there may be some constraint in terms of real security issues. 2621 14:23:00 2621 Back, Sen Chris J7Q Western Australia LP 0 Senator BACK —My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Evans. The government has gambled its flawed budget modelling around huge new taxes on tobacco and the mining sector. Can the minister explain how the new tax on tobacco will reduce smoking while the huge new tax on mining will actually increase mining activity in Australia? 2621 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —The first thing I can say is that it is not Labor Party policy to encourage smokers to kill themselves by smoking and therefore provide a saving to the health budget, as my friend Senator Minchin suggested. It is a novel response but not one this government will be adopting. I heard Senator Conroy talking about elasticity of demand and I thought, ‘God, that brings back terrible memories of economics tutorials,’ but I think in fact he is probably right in terms of the answer. The tobacco excise increase is going straight into health spending. We are using that money to deliver a better health system for Australians. As the senator well knows, there is a huge cost to the Australian health system as a result of the health impacts of smoking. So the excise increase is going to go straight into health spending and trying to boost our capacity to provide better health services for the Australian population. The Resource Super Profits Tax will be devoted to new reforms to try and improve economic growth and make the tax system fairer and simpler. It is directed at supporting measures we propose, such as cutting the company tax rate to 28 per cent. I think everyone would recognise that that will be a very important achievement if we can achieve it. It is also about providing the $5,000 instant asset write-off for small business. It is about paying for the resource exploration rebate, which I think is a really important initiative for miners in our home state, Senator Back. We have done the economic modelling on the impact of the Resource Super Profits Tax. We do believe the industry will continue to grow, and all the independent economic modelling suggests that the economy will continue to grow. (Time expired) 2621 Back, Sen Chris J7Q Western Australia LP 0 Senator BACK —Mr President, I have a supplementary question. Clearly the minister agrees with the mining industry that there is no increase in activity as a result of it. Government senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! J7Q Back, Sen Chris Senator BACK —Given the popularity of mining sector investment by institutions, super funds, self-funded retirees and Australian investors, can the minister explain the effect of wiping $23 billion off the value of resource company values in the last two weeks as a result of the Prime Minister’s attack on this sector? 2622 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —The senator seems to ignore the impact of international events on the stock markets, just like the Liberal Party seemed to want to deny the global financial crisis. I am confident that the mining industry will continue to grow and prosper under this tax regime. Your Premier of Western Australia, Mr Barnett, is about to increase his royalties that he taxes those same mining companies on because he thinks they can pay more tax. Mr Barnett agrees with us; he thinks they can pay more tax. Even their own industry admit in some of their submissions and their private comments that they can afford to pay more tax. Our economic analysis of the proposal is that in fact the Australian economy will continue to grow and that replacing royalties with the RSPT will actually increase resource sector investment by about 4.5 per cent. (Time expired) 2622 Back, Sen Chris J7Q Western Australia LP 0 Senator BACK —I have a further supplementary question, Mr President. It is plain that the leader of the Senate does not understand the difference between royalty, which is the cost of sales— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! It should be a question. J7Q Back, Sen Chris Senator BACK —Superannuation funds have now taken two severe hits during the term of this government. What confidence can the community have that continued mismanagement and poorly conceived tax grabs will not further erode retirement savings of our ageing population? 2622 Evans, Sen Chris AX5 Western Australia ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship 1 Senator CHRIS EVANS —There are two responses to that. Firstly, the new resource taxation regime will see investment increase in the mining industry, it will see resource sector employment grow by about seven per cent and it will see resource sector output grow by 5.5 per cent. So the mining industry will continue to be strong and vibrant and its prospects are very good. In terms of superannuation, what this government proposes to do as part of the benefits from the Resource Super Profits Tax is to actually increase the superannuation guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent to support Australians in a proper retirement, to provide the income that they need to enjoy their retirement. It was a Labor initiative originally, and it is now a Labor proposal to build on that initiative to provide for the superannuation needs of Australians. It is about making sure there is a fair sharing of the resources boom, and part of that should be directed to improving Australian superannuation. (Time expired) 2622 14:29:00 2622 Sterle, Sen Glenn E68 Western Australia ALP 1 Senator STERLE —My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation, Senator Arbib. Minister, how in the budget package is the government addressing the growing needs of the economy? How will the government seek to steer off skills shortages and labour bottlenecks while providing flexibility to keep ahead of changes in the global economy? How will the government ensure that we do not have a two-speed economy that could see demand for skilled labour outstripping supply? What is the government doing to help adult literacy and numeracy to help older job seekers become job ready? 2622 Arbib, Sen Mark HES New South Wales ALP Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery 1 Senator ARBIB —I thank the honourable senator for his question. I say from the outset that this is a budget that makes a down payment on the skills we need to expand the productive capacity of our economy. Over the last year we have created 225,000 jobs, when many other advanced economies were shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs. While most economies shrank by three per cent, ours grew by 1.4 per cent. Opposition senators interjecting— HES Arbib, Sen Mark Senator ARBIB —Coalition senators do not like to hear it but it is true—1.4 per cent positive. When the global recession hit, the government acted. Without the stimulus—the stimulus that those opposite voted against six times—we would have gone into deep recession. We have avoided that. We have avoided the destruction of our skill base and protected jobs. It is not by accident; it is by design. And this budget builds on our success so far. Hard work and strong fiscal policies have seen us emerge from the global financial crisis with the lowest deficit and unemployment rates of any major advanced economy. These factors have also led to an escalation in demand for skilled labour. In the budget the Treasurer announced a $660 million Skills for Sustainable Growth package, which will deliver more apprentices, skilled adult literacy and numeracy programs and also better training for Australians. We will not just rely on importing skills; we want more Australians trained. We want more young Australians trained as apprentices. That is why I am so happy that the Apprentice Kickstart program—which has been so successful—has been expanded. That program started today, with a tripling of the commencement bonus for business to support them to take on a teenage apprentice. That is good news for small business. (Time expired) 2623 Sterle, Sen Glenn E68 Western Australia ALP 1 Senator STERLE —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, can you continue to tell us what the government is doing to help young Australians start a trade? What measures are in the budget to help create more apprentices in areas of skills need? Minister, what figures are available that show how the government have performed to date in ensuring we help support apprentices now to create the trades workers of tomorrow? 2623 Arbib, Sen Mark HES New South Wales ALP Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery 1 Senator ARBIB —Youth unemployment is still a big issue in this country—there is no doubt about it. While we have been successful in driving down unemployment to 5.3 per cent, there is no doubt that, across the globe, young people have borne the brunt of the global recession. Apprenticeships are the best way forward for young people—because you are not just giving them a job for the short term; you are giving them a career for the long term. That is what the government is delivering right now. During the recession of the 1990s, apprenticeship commencements dropped by over 20 per cent. It took 13 years to make up for that downturn in apprenticeships. The skills shortage that hit the country under the watch of the Liberal Party was partly caused by their neglect in developing skills and training. Thanks to the work of the Rudd government and thanks to Apprentice Kickstart, we have, in 12 months, made up for the drop in apprenticeships during the global recession—an outstanding result. (Time expired) 2623 Sterle, Sen Glenn E68 Western Australia ALP 1 Senator STERLE —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Is the minister aware of any alternative policies that can help Australia meet our future skills needs? Do any of these plans involve making it harder for young Australians to secure an apprenticeship? What would be the impact of these alternative jobs and skills policies? Finally, Minister, do any of these policies involve replacing young Australians seeking to enter a trade with non-residents? 2623 Arbib, Sen Mark HES New South Wales ALP Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery 1 Senator ARBIB —We have now been coming to this chamber for over two years, and I have asked the coalition to put on the table a jobs plan. After two years, they have no plans for jobs and no plans for employment—but they do have a plan for workers. It is called Work Choices. Senator Minchin again let the cat out of the bag on Sunday when he talked about the importance of Work Choices. We know that their leader, Mr Abbott, says that the term ‘Work Choices’ is dead— Opposition senators interjecting— HES Arbib, Sen Mark Senator ARBIB —And who do the Liberal Party promote to be their leader in this chamber? One of the architects of Work Choices, Senator Abetz. Senator Abetz, who wrote the book on Work Choices—wrote the book on individual contracts—is now leading the Liberal Party in the Senate. We know their plan for workers—bringing back individual contracts and driving down the wages and conditions of workers. That is what Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party stand for. (Time expired) 2624 14:35:00 2624 Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta E4T New South Wales LP 0 Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS —My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Ludwig. I refer in particular to Budget Paper No. 2, pages 223 and 224. Can the minister explain to frail and aged Australians who are waiting for a nursing home bed and explain to their families why the money put aside to pay for new high-care nursing home beds has now been shunted to failed state and territory public hospitals? Why is this money now being used for beds for the frail and aged in public hospitals who are waiting for a nursing home bed? Isn’t Kevin Rudd’s grand hospital plan simply shuffling beds and recycling money to buy off the states at a cost to frail and aged Australians? 2624 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 Senator LUDWIG —Unlike some of the facts—or perhaps the lack of facts—that have been outlined in the question, the government will invest more than $900 million over the next four years to deliver more qualified staff, more aged-care places, more healthcare services and greater protection for older Australians receiving care. This will include up to $280 million to the states and territories to support long-stay older patients in public hospitals for 2,000 time-limited places. That is what this government is doing. In addition, over the next four years the government will provide more than $47 million for aged care and community care and build on the more than 10,000 new places that have become operational, and also provide a 20 per cent increase in funding for aged care. That is what this government has done in this budget to support older Australians, particularly those people seeking aged care and stay. In addition, for a national aged-care system, which the opposition were incapable of delivering in their 12 years in government, we are looking at $38.3 million being made available to take responsibility for the Home and Community Care Program—other than in Victoria and Western Australia—and to build a consistent aged-care system covering basic care at home through to nursing homes. That is what this government is doing. In addition, there is $36.8 million to establish one-stop shops to provide aged-care information and assessments to help older Australians and their families to access the services that best suit their needs. This government is working in this area to ensure— E4T Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta Senator Fierravanti-Wells —Mr President, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I referred the minister to page 223 and 224 of the government’s own budget paper. He obviously has not read it. My question is: why have they taken money out of high-care residential aged-care nursing home beds for our frailest Australians and put it into the failed state and territory hospital system? That was my question. I was quoting from budget papers. 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —There is no point of order. I believe the minister has been answering the question. I invite the minister to continue his answer. He has 11 seconds remaining. 84N Ludwig, Sen Joe Senator LUDWIG —In 2010 the budget shows a redirection of funding of $247 million over four years from high-level residential care to high-level community aged care. (Time expired) 2625 Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta E4T New South Wales LP 0 Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Aged and Community Services Australia have described the budget as leaving ‘aged care in rags’ while Aged and Community Care Victoria state that the budget ‘fails frail aged again’, and the commentary gets worse. At a time when the aged-care sector is in crisis and calling for major reform, why has our all-talking, no-action Prime Minister shunted aged care to the Productivity Commission— (Time expired) 2625 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 Senator LUDWIG —In that failed attempt to ask a relevant question, I can answer that part. The government’s overall target of 113 operational places per 1,000 for people aged 70 years and over by 2010 will continue to be met. This government will continue to meet the needs of the aged people who require aged-care places. The aged-care places made available in the 2009-10 aged-care approval round will ensure that the overall target ratio will in fact be achieved. The allocation will also mean that the high-care to low-care ratio balance will be met. The 2009-10 aged-care approval round provides practical assistance that helps older people retain their independence. Initiatives in this budget will meet the needs of current aged-care clients, unlike what the inference was in that question. This government is acting in this area, unlike what the opposition did in their 12 years in government. (Time expired) 2625 Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta E4T New South Wales LP 0 Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. In 2007 Labor promised ‘a new direction for frail and older Australians’ and ‘making the transition from hospital to aged care a priority area’. Shunting money destined for the frail and aged in nursing homes to prop up failed state and territory public hospitals attacks our most frail and vulnerable and surely has to be one of the lowest acts of this government. Isn’t the government doing the opposite of what it promised in 2007? 2625 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 Senator LUDWIG —Again, the question is inaccurate in how it addresses this issue. What this government is doing is taking action in the aged-care area. Initiatives in this budget will meet the needs of current aged-care clients and prepare the system to meet the future demands of the increasing aged population. The Rudd government will invest the $900 million over four years to deliver more high-quality aged-care workers, more aged-care places, more healthcare services and greater protection for older Australians. That is what this government will do. This will include up to $280 million to the states and territories to support long-stay older patients in public hospitals. This government is taking action to support older Australians in aged care. This significant investment will support the integration of the aged-care system with local hospital networks as well. (Time expired) 2625 14:43:00 2625 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 Senator XENOPHON —My question is to the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, Senator Wong. It has been reported that pensioners who have installed solar panels or other forms of renewable energy generators into their homes and who are returning power to the grid will have these amounts treated as income by Centrelink and have their pensions reduced accordingly. Given that the government is committing $652.5 million saved from the deferral of the CPRS to the new renewable energy fund, as outlined in yesterday’s budget, doesn’t this move act as a disincentive for pensioners in particular to use renewable forms of energy and contradict the government’s ethos on reducing greenhouse gases? 2626 Wong, Sen Penny 00AOU South Australia ALP Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water 1 Senator WONG —I thank Senator Xenophon for his question. I start by reminding him and the chamber that this government has invested more in renewable energy than any government in Australia’s history and we have now added to that with the budget announcement of the renewable energy fund. In relation to the specific question that Senator Xenophon asked—and I have made this public previously when I have been asked this in the media—I want to first make clear that Commonwealth assistance for solar panels is not classed as income for the purpose of social security assessments. We provide assistance through our solar credits regime under the renewable energy target that will not affect people’s pensions and is not required to be reported to Centrelink. Opposition senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! When the interjections cease on my left, we will continue. Honourable senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order! When there is silence we will proceed. Senator Wong, continue. 00AOU Wong, Sen Penny Senator WONG —As I was saying, the Solar Credits regime, which is the Commonwealth means for providing assistance to all Australians who are seeking it for solar panels, is not income for the purposes of social security and does not have to be reported to Centrelink. It may be the case with some state regimes where, for example, power is sold back into the grid, that in some circumstances income generated through that would be classed as income. I want to make it very clear just how much a pensioner would need to receive, under current arrangements, before their pension would be affected. For example, a single pensioner would have to receive $142 a fortnight before it would affect their pension. That would be a very unusual situation, Senator, given that in New South Wales, for example, the gross feed-in tariff amounts to about $60 a fortnight. However, the government are aware of this issue, it has been raised with us, and we are looking to see if there is any finetuning required. (Time expired) 2626 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 Senator XENOPHON —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank the minister for her answer, but are there other circumstances where, for instance, other Centrelink recipients would have a lower threshold in terms of being affected by any income they receive pursuant to power going back into the grid? The Australian Taxation Office has made a recent ruling that it is not to be treated as income for the purpose of income tax, but it appears Centrelink is taking a different view. 2626 Wong, Sen Penny 00AOU South Australia ALP Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water 1 Senator WONG —Probably that is not really my portfolio area, Senator, but I think I can assist. I think what you are referring to is the difference between how income is classed under our social security system and how income is classed and assessed under the taxation system. They are different definitions. For that reason, people can get a deduction of their income for net losses—for example, in the context of negative gearing—that they could not utilise in relation to their social security entitlements. That is a longstanding differentiation within the Australian tax and social security systems. I again say: how the Commonwealth delivers assistance for solar panels would not be classed as income. There are some circumstances where state policies might be classed as income, but a significant amount would need to be earned before a pensioner would have their pension affected. (Time expired) 2627 Xenophon, Sen Nick 8IV South Australia IND 0 Senator XENOPHON —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Given that the government has deferred introducing an emissions trading scheme for at least two years, does the minister agree that a well-designed ETS is the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gases? As such, will the government take a fresh look at alternative schemes, including the one proposed by Frontier Economics? 2627 Wong, Sen Penny 00AOU South Australia ALP Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water 1 Senator WONG —Yes, Senator, this government believes that a well-designed emissions trading scheme is the most effective way to reduce our carbon pollution. Regrettably, despite presenting it three times in this chamber, we were not able to get the majority of the chamber to support this— Honourable senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Senator Wong, resume your seat. It is Senator Xenophon’s question. He is entitled to hear the answer to the question. If you want to debate the issue, debate it at the end of question time. Others get their question and they get their answer. Whether they like it or not, they can interject. But I do not think it is fair on Senator Xenophon, when he gets a limited number of questions in the week, that his answer should be drowned out by some people for their own self-interest. 00AOU Wong, Sen Penny Senator WONG —As I said, yes, we do agree with Senator Xenophon that a well-designed emissions trading scheme is the most effective way to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution. We did attempt to get it through the Senate some three times, and we all know the history of that and the political turmoil on the other side, and the assassination of Mr Turnbull as leader—although I notice he is back, most unfortunately to the disappointment of Senator Minchin and Senator Bernardi, no doubt. It is the case that many policy alternatives, Senator Xenophon, were examined over the years. It is very clear from those that the best way to reduce our emissions is through a cap-and-trade scheme, putting a limit on how much pollution can be produced. Even if the government thought that Senator Xenophon’s alternative was the way to go, it would fall short of a majority view of the Senate. (Time expired) 2627 14:50:00 2627 Cash, Sen Michaelia I0M Western Australia LP 0 Senator CASH —My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Carr. Minister, with the budget’s return to surplus dependent upon the imposition of a great big new tax on Australia’s resources sector—to which Western Australia is the largest contributor—how does the government reconcile its decision in the budget— Government senators interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Order on my right! Senator Cash is entitled to be heard in silence. HDA Cormann, Sen Mathias Senator Cormann interjecting— E68 Sterle, Sen Glenn Senator Sterle interjecting— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Senator Cormann and Senator Sterle: I have been calling for order so Senator Cash can be heard in silence while she asks her question. She is entitled to it. I0M Cash, Sen Michaelia Senator CASH —How does the government reconcile its decision in the budget to provide Western Australia with support for just one infrastructure project—a rail line in the state’s goldfields region? Why has the government neglected to provide the necessary support for the projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara, such as the Pilbara Cities project, which will provide much needed improvements to social infrastructure in Karratha and Port Hedland, when the Western Australian economy is driving the economic development of the nation? 2628 Carr, Sen Kim AW5 Victoria ALP Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research 1 Senator CARR —I thank Senator Cash for her question. I made the point yesterday that we are dealing with a group of economic knuckle draggers. Once again we have clear evidence of the simple failure of Senator Cash to understand the reality of how this scheme works. Mining activity is actually projected to increase, because the Resource Super Profits Tax is paid only after mines become profitable. The proposition she put to us is that this would undermine the mining industry. The Australian government will refund royalty payments to companies, which will be— 008W7 Brandis, Sen George Senator Brandis —Mr President, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The question was directed to why the Rudd government has elected to fund only one major infrastructure project in Western Australia. The minister has not addressed that issue. He has described the structure of the great big new tax. He should be brought to the question. 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —There is no point of order. Senator Carr, you have one minute, 14 seconds remaining to address the question, and I do draw your attention to the question. AW5 Carr, Sen Kim Senator CARR —The problem with the opposition tactics committee is that they have not actually had the discipline to work out what the question should be. What they do is spray a whole lot of abuse at the government— 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —You need to address the question, Senator Carr. AW5 Carr, Sen Kim Senator CARR —and then are surprised when we seek to answer the question. Of course, in Western Australia on 25 February, just this year, the Premier, Colin Barnett, said: I have to say that a few people who work around the mining industry came up to me over summer and said, ‘By the way, Colin, the mining companies are getting away with murder; they’re not paying enough.’ As a consequence, the Western Australian government— 3L6 Conroy, Sen Stephen Senator Conroy —Who said that? AW5 Carr, Sen Kim Senator CARR —It was Colin Barnett. The Western Australian government has imposed its own $300 million additional royalties charge, which one presumes the Western Australian government is spending on infrastructure. One would have thought a senator for Western Australia would have paid more attention to what is actually going on in her own party. (Time expired) 2628 Cash, Sen Michaelia I0M Western Australia LP 0 Senator CASH —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I again refer to the imposition of the great big new tax on Australia’s resources sector. Is the minister aware of the statement made today by the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, that: WA will lose 25 per cent of potential mining and petroleum industry investment under the new super profits tax proposed by the Federal Government. How can the Rudd government seriously claim that mining investment in Australia will continue to increase notwithstanding the imposition of a supertax? 2628 Carr, Sen Kim AW5 Victoria ALP Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research 1 Senator CARR —The government’s arrangements only cut in when projects become profitable—a simple proposition that even Senator Cash would be able to understand. Our arrangements are actually more efficient and more equitable for the mining industry and they were originally suggested as such by the mining industry for that very reason. What the Resource Exploration Rebate actually provides is an immediate cash rebate of 30 per cent for eligible exploration expenditure. It is actually a device to assist the industry to meet its payments. Of course, it is only part of the arrangements we have. This arrangement provides essential infrastructure to enable Australia’s resources industry to achieve its full export potential. (Time expired) 2629 Cash, Sen Michaelia I0M Western Australia LP 0 Senator CASH —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Minister, given that the government’s great big new tax on Australia’s resource sector, which is underpinning its budget commitments, is predicated on increased resource trade between Australia and China, will you guarantee to the people of Western Australia that the rail line infrastructure project promised to the state in yesterday’s budget will be funded should Chinese demand for Australian mineral exports falter? 2629 Carr, Sen Kim AW5 Victoria ALP Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research 1 Senator CARR —What I think this senator has failed to understand is that this government has actually doubled road and rail spending, bringing it to a total investment of $3.5 billion over six years, which of course has directly assisted Western Australia in a manner which is, of course, in sharp contrast to the years of neglect under the Howard government. What we have actually seen is a big— I0M Cash, Sen Michaelia Senator Cash —Mr President, I raise a point of order on relevance. I asked a very simple question: in the event that the Chinese demand for Australia’s mineral exports falters, will the minister provide a guarantee today to the people of Western Australia that the Rudd Labor government will deliver the promised rail infrastructure project? 10000 PRESIDENT, The The PRESIDENT —Minister, I draw your attention to the question. There are 33 seconds remaining. AW5 Carr, Sen Kim Senator CARR —This government in 2010-11 is investing $799 million for road, rail and port infrastructure—$243 million in funding for Western Australia; $51 million for local roads; $6.5 million to eliminate another 49 black spots on local roads—all in Western Australia; and $2.6 million for roadside facilities. This is a government that actually invest in infrastructure, unlike the 10 years of neglect we saw under the previous government. (Time expired) 2629 14:58:00 2629 McLucas, Sen Jan 84L Queensland ALP 1 Senator McLUCAS —My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Ludwig. Can the minister inform the Senate of the government’s health reform agenda, in particular how the health budget will deliver improved health and hospital services for Australia? 2629 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 Senator LUDWIG —I thank Senator McLucas for her question. I know she has a deep interest in this area. This budget is the culmination of our reform agenda in the health area. It delivers a comprehensive, $7.3 billion, investment to deliver more doctors, more nurses, more hospital beds and more accessible health care in the community. Last night’s budget delivered a massive $1.2 billion boost to GP and primary healthcare services to deliver real improvements in front-line health services across Australia. The government will invest $417 million to establish a national network of Medicare Locals to coordinate care in the community and make it easier for patients to get the treatment they need when they need it, especially after hours. We will invest $355 million to build around 450 GP superclinic type facilities. This commitment will lead to the construction of around 23 new, dedicated GP superclinics and the expansion of more than 400 existing general practices, community health centres and Aboriginal medical services around the country. This is also a budget for Australian nurses, with a $522 million commitment, which means patients will get better access to nurses when and where they need them. There will also be $390 million provided to support and recognise the work of practice nurses who will help take the pressure off GPs and provide additional services. There will be $103 million provided to support nurses working in aged care. There has also been $466 million committed to establish personally controlled electronic health records, which will allow Australians to check their medical histories online and allow the healthcare professionals to access their relevant history at the touch of a button. (Time expired) 2630 McLucas, Sen Jan 84L Queensland ALP 1 Senator McLUCAS —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister outline to the Senate the government’s key achievements in health? 2630 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 Senator LUDWIG —I thank Senator McLucas for her supplementary question. The record shows that the Rudd government can be justly proud of its record in health. Let me start with the government’s record $64 billion funding agreement for health and hospitals—something the opposition never achieved when they were in government. These health dollars started flowing last year and they represent a 50 per cent increase on the previous government’s funding agreement. Next is the government’s $600 million elective surgery waiting list reduction plan, which has already delivered more than 62,000 extra procedures—64 per cent more than the target of 25,000 procedures. In addition, 125 hospitals have received new elective surgery equipment and operating theatres. Opposition senators interjecting— 84N Ludwig, Sen Joe Senator LUDWIG —Those on the other side might laugh about this, but this is delivering real benefits to patients. (Time expired) 2630 McLucas, Sen Jan 84L Queensland ALP 1 Senator McLUCAS —Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Senate of plans to reduce smoking in our community? 2630 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 Senator LUDWIG —I thank Senator McLucas for her second supplementary question. Smoking is the largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in Australia. Each year, about 15,000 Australians die from tobacco related diseases, and it costs our community an estimated $31.5 billion each year. That is why this government has announced a comprehensive package targeting smoking. The government has decided to increase the excise for all tobacco products by 25 per cent. I am also pleased to inform the Senate that legislation was introduced into the House this morning. The government has also decided to lead the world  and introduce plain packaging of cigarettes by 1 July 2012. The Liberals, of course, do not have a health policy on this. So they are saving paperwork, but we also know the opposition have accepted donations from the tobacco companies. (Time expired) AX5 Evans, Sen Chris (Leader of the Government in the Senate) Senator Chris Evans —Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. 2630 Questions Without Notice: Take Note of Answers 2630 2630 15:04:00 Eggleston, Sen Alan 4L6 Western Australia LP 0 0 Senator EGGLESTON —I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Abetz), the Leader of The Nationals in the Senate (Senator Joyce) and Senator Back today relating to the 2010-11 Budget. I would like to make a few remarks about this Rudd government budget. This is just another big-taxing big-spending Labor budget—more debt, no hard decisions and no plan for real action. On the whole, this budget is uninspiring and has almost no unexpected announcements. It is totally unimaginative. It is a shameless deception, operating on the basis of new taxes and unrealistic expectations of the economy. It provides little in the way of benefits to the people of Australia. The budget confirms that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are addicted to spending and are allergic to tough decisions. As I said, this is just another big-taxing big-spending Labor budget containing no serious reform. The budget’s return to surplus is predicated on a great big new tax on Australia’s resources sector. This tax is a dagger in the heart of the Australian economy, putting major projects at risk and sending jobs offshore as well as weakening the superannuation of many thousands of average Australians whose superannuation funds have been invested in resource stocks. The Resource Super Profits Tax is a tax on so-called superprofits. There is no doubt in my mind that this supertax will kill the goose which has been laying the golden eggs for the Australian economy. The ALP likes to think that it was their stimulus package that saved Australia from recession, but it was not really that; it was China coming back into the resource sector in the second and third quarters of the last year and improving our balance of trade. If that had not happened, Australia would have gone into recession, notwithstanding any of the policies of the Rudd government. There is no doubt that what is happening in the resource sector with this supertax will mean that we will have projects not going ahead. We are going to see projects deferred and overall investment in mining decrease. Already we have seen doubt cast over the $200 billion expansion of Olympic Dam, Santos deferring a decision on a $15 billion LNG export terminal in Gladstone, Xstrata suspending a $30 million regional exploration program, and Origin Energy predicting increases in domestic energy and fuel prices. All of that is a consequence of this budget of the Rudd government. In addition, we have levels of debt which now mean that the government has to pay something like $700 million a week for the next three years to cover the cost of the deficit. That in itself will put upward pressure on interest rates and the cost of living for Australian families. The cost of merely servicing our interest repayments is $4.6 billion in 2010-11 and it increases to $6.3 billion in 2011-12. The peak debt bill of $93.7 billion will be the amount owed by the Australian people to pay for Kevin Rudd’s spending spree. The government is still spending $500 million on its flawed school halls program as well as on other programs from their flawed stimulus package. The government’s promise of a $661 million investment for skills rebadges the $601 million of existing spending, including a $456 million cut in the Productivity Places Program. Funding to trade-training centres in schools in this budget is set to be slashed considerably while we see the government spending millions and millions of dollars on unnecessary advertising for government services. (Time expired) 2631 15:09:00 Cameron, Sen Doug AI6 New South Wales ALP 1 0 Senator CAMERON —I would like to bring this debate back to some reality. The reality is that for a decade the previous Howard government allowed the opportunities for working families of this country to disappear. Opposition senators interjecting— AI6 Cameron, Sen Doug Senator CAMERON —You were an incompetent government and an incompetent group of economic managers. You were a failure in every key economic indicator. All John Howard was about and all Peter Costello was about was the pork barrel at budget time. You frittered away the opportunities for Australia. You frittered away the future of many young Australians. You were incompetent. You failed to bring investment to this country. You failed to bring innovation to this country. You failed to increase productivity. You failed to develop this economy. You were a failure in economic management and you now have the hide to look at a government that is taking steps to build for the future and criticise this government. To the Western Australian senators I have to say, ‘Don’t bow at the knees of the mining industry as much as you are doing.’ You should stand up for the rest of this country and the other workers in Western Australia who are not employed in the mining industry. If you look at this tax, it is a tax of fairness. This is the tax that is about bringing fairness into this country. In 2005-06 the mining industry had a profit of $30 billion and they paid $8 billion in taxes. In 2008-09 their profits were over $90 billion and what did they pay in taxes? They paid $11 billion. The coalition has got the gall to stand up there and say that ordinary Australian families should not share in the profits that the mining industry creates out of our resources—our resources! The resources do not belong to Clive Palmer and his ilk. The resources belong to the Australian people and those resources should be building for the future of this country. I say clearly that any company that is not paying its fair share in taxes has to pay its fair share. You know that the mining companies are running a scare campaign aided and abetted by the coalition—a scare campaign to try to make sure that the big end of town and the mining industry can still have their mansions on the Swan River while ordinary workers are doing it tough trying to keep their heads above water. We want to make sure that ordinary workers get a fair share of the wealth of this country. The tax that we are implementing will build this country for the future. It will build a good society, something that you know nothing about. All your society means is that workers are subjected to Work Choices. What was the first stop for Senator Abetz? Down to the HR Nicholls Society to bend at the knees of the HR Nicholls Society and tell them what he was going to do. The HR Nicholls Society for Senator Abetz—first stop. Work Choices is there. Work Choices is in your back pocket. You know it is there. That is where you are going to come from. It is about time the billionaires in the mining industry understand that a fair share is required for the rest of this country. We want decent health, education, infrastructure—something you lot never delivered over a decade of incompetence. (Time expired) 2632 15:14:00 Bernardi, Sen Cory G0D South Australia LP 0 0 Senator BERNARDI —It is easy to be fooled listening to that Scottish brogue as it rolls out platitudes about how the government is going to fix up the country. But it masks a dark heart, and one we have seen before: the dark heart of socialism. Socialism has failed all over the world, yet it is on the ascendancy in the Rudd government. Yesterday we saw Senator Cameron asking questions of Senator Carr. We have seen Senator Marshall asking questions. The socialists are on the march, and their mantra has not changed for decades. It is about finding something that makes money and creates jobs and prosperity and taxing the heart out of it. Mark my words: this is a government that is intent on finding those companies that dare make a profit and ripping the cash out of them to put back into its government, which has proven over and over again that it cannot manage public finances. Let us put this in perspective. Senator Cameron attacks the record of the previous government. The Howard government took 10 years to pay back Labor’s $96 billion debt. The debt it took 10 years to pay back is what this government is going to rack up in the next two years. 8O6 O’Brien, Sen Kerry Senator O’Brien —Which we’ll pay off in full. G0D Bernardi, Sen Cory Senator BERNARDI —In two years Labor will exceed its previous high point, and already debt is at $78 billion. I note the interjection from Senator O’Brien about paying back the debt. Let us put this in perspective. In the next three years the government is allegedly going to have a $1 billion surplus. At that rate, it will take 450 years to pay off your nonsensical spending. If you had not squandered billions of dollars on the pink batts program you could have doubled the surplus, because you are going to spend another billion dollars fixing up the disaster that no minister has been held accountable for. The minister responsible still sits at the cabinet table, getting his fat ministerial salary for nothing. Then there are the hundreds of millions of dollars which you have spent and wasted on your extreme climate change folly, which the minister did not even know was dumped by the all controlling and commanding socialist-in-chief, Kevin Rudd. She did not even know that it was going to be dumped. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered. This is a government that is absolutely drunk on reckless spending. There is no doubt about that. It has not managed its expenditure. It only knows: ‘There’s something that’s profitable; we’ll grab the cash from it.’ The government dresses it up in public health measures, like it did with the alcopops tax, which did not see alcopops, or ready-to-drink drinks, consumption fall at all. The government says it is going to reduce the incidence of smoking by putting the price up. Will we see the same result as that of the failed alcopops policy? Probably. Now the government is going to go into the mining sector, which has been the driver of growth and wealth in our economy, and tax the heart out of that. This is a government without a heart. It says it is going into bat for the people, but it is not. It has no plan to deal with the 500,000 people whose livelihoods are dependent on the mining industry in this country. Some of those jobs will go—make no mistake about it. We already know that industries are going to be closing up here. We know that they are going to move their exploration and mines offshore because they think it is a punitive tax regime. Not all the people on the other side believe in this. There are some who have been shut down, although I will not call them economic conservatives. The reasonable people have been shut down because the extreme Left is on the march. The government might indeed trot out someone like Senator Hutchins or Senator Polley, people who should know better, to defend some nonsensical lines that have put out by the Rudd bureaucracy, or central casting, but the fact is their heart is not in it. We know the government’s heart is in closing down industry. We know that this government is going to spend $36½ million dollars in the next couple of years promoting a review of taxation of which it has implemented one of 138 measures. We also know the government is going to spend a further $126 million, including over $30 million in this financial year, advertising government programs like their climate change program. Remember that one? What happened to that? That was ditched without even Minister Wong knowing. This government is a fraud, it is phoney, it is led by a phoney, it is led by a fake and the Australian people are waking up to the shemozzles that it is producing. 2633 15:19:00 Polley, Sen Helen E5X Tasmania ALP 1 0 Senator POLLEY —Senator Bernardi has covered himself very well in this debate, but his shallowness has still been exposed. The word that I have used most since we came into government about those opposite is ‘hypocrisy’. They try to rewrite history. This is a budget for all Australians and it is a budget that all my colleagues in this chamber are very proud of. It is history making. Finally, after more than a decade, there is a federal government that is not about pork-barrelling. That was what Peter Costello, the former Treasurer, and John Howard were not about. This is a budget for the future. N26 Abetz, Sen Eric Senator Abetz interjecting— E5X Polley, Sen Helen Senator POLLEY —Senator Abetz is the next big step to Work Choices mark 2. He is all about living in the past and what the Menzies government did. This government will not waste the opportunities or the resources that belong to the Australian people. We are actually reforming the economy. You talked about responsibility, Senator Bernardi; I think you will find that the Australian people are no longer fooled by you and those opposite in relation to economic sustainability and this country’s future. I am overjoyed at this opportunity to once again pick up on those opposite who want to rewrite history. When we talk about the health reform that this government and the Prime Minister are undertaking, we have to talk about aged care. I think those opposite should hang their heads in shame at their record during almost 12 years in government when they neglected older Australians in aged care. You talk about our record; let us talk about the record of former minister Santo Santoro. How many ministers were there? There were six in four years and we can talk about kerosene baths. When we talk about aged care, I notice that those opposite are very quiet. I also note that Senator Humphries at least had the gumption not to take that question on aged care. I want to put on record my congratulations to the Treasurer and to the leadership team for bringing forward a budget to sustain the long-term future of Australians, ensuring that all Australians share in the wealth and prosperity of this country. We are talking about investment in skills and apprenticeships, giving young men and women of this country the opportunity to have a start in life. I0Q Ryan, Sen Scott Senator Ryan —They want jobs. E5X Polley, Sen Helen Senator POLLEY —Yes, having jobs because if we had taken the advice of those opposite during the global financial crisis, done as Senator Coonan advised and put our heads in the sand and just sat back and waited, what a mess this country would be in. The Rudd Labor government acted decisively to ensure that Australians kept their jobs. We invested in infrastructure, something that those opposite would know very little about from their more than 11½ very long years of neglect. It does not matter what area you talk about, whether it is health, ageing, investing in our schools or investing in skills and training, we are the ones who have set the agenda— N26 Abetz, Sen Eric Senator Abetz —Jobs. E5X Polley, Sen Helen Senator POLLEY —Yes, we are the ones, Senator Abetz, that have ensured that Australians have retained their jobs. We will continue to do that, to ensure that all Australians have access to the profits from the resources of this country—resources that all Australians own not just the top end of town and those with shares, although there is nothing wrong with having shares in mining companies. When we come to superannuation, let us not forget that once again it was a Labor government that introduced superannuation. Those opposite, the Liberal coalition, would not even agree to the fact that Australian workers deserve the right to have superannuation. It is imperative for this country that everyone has access to superannuation and that all young Australians are encouraged to invest in their superannuation to ensure that they have a good standard of living as they reach their twilight years and can be self-sufficient. (Time expired) 2635 15:25:00 Ryan, Sen Scott I0Q Victoria LP 0 0 Senator RYAN —I am amazed by the gumption of the government. This government that has run up a level of debt that was unprecedented two years ago walked into the building yesterday and claimed credit for that debt being $50 billion less than it otherwise would have been only 12 months ago but three times what it would have been two years ago. Why is it that whenever we hear the word ‘reform’ from this government, every taxpayer in Australia has to reach for their wallet or in this case, with Labor’s mining supertax, to reach for their superannuation? It is because this government is incapable of taking a difficult decision. Not only does this government lack the ticker of Hawke, Keating or Peter Walsh, it also lacks the albeit flawed philosophical commitment of Whitlam. Since this government announced its mining supertax, this government has channelled Rex Connor. We have had the Prime Minister with his xenophobic campaign against foreign investment running around to try and justify his mining supertax, the same foreign investment which this budget counts on. Of course, there is one big difference between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and Rex Connor and that is that Rex Connor only wanted to borrow $5 billion, he did not want to borrow $150 billion. Secondly, Rex Connor saw development as good. He tried to facilitate the development of Australia’s resources whereas this government is trying to kill it. A decade ago, when the previous coalition government undertook the most drastic tax reform—the most significant Australia had seen since World War II—it convinced the states to abolish a raft of taxes and reduce other taxes—promises that many of them have not followed through—and it cut income tax rates. The catchcry was: ‘It is not a new tax, it is a new tax system’. Under this government, the Labor Party, it is not a new tax system; it is just a new tax. This is a tax on our most productive export sector; a tax on that sector which did more than most to get Australia through the global recession, the sector that is most exposed to growth in our own region. This government has done to the sector what it has done to everything else—whether health care or the so-called education revolution—it has created the illusion of reform. By throwing around words like ‘reform’ and ‘revolution’ often enough it seems to think they will eventuate. But it takes no difficult decisions. There are no real spending cuts in this budget, despite what they may say. The two per cent real growth cap represents a substantial increase in government expenditure of over $40 billion over the forward estimates. Government is getting significantly larger. In every sense this is a state Labor budget in spirit and in practice. It has rubbery forecasts. It has massive increases in expenditure and any semblance of claimed financial responsibility is based on one thing only and that is a dramatic increase in taxation. All the promises are on the never-never. The surplus is never today, it is never tomorrow, it is always after the next election, just like it is for every state Labor government when you see increases in taxes and massive failures in services. This surplus is illusory. Let us put it in context. At $1 billion allegedly in three years time, it is less than one-third of one per cent of government expenditure. That is a rounding error, a typographical error, a $1 billion surplus out of a $350 billion budget. That is not going to happen, it is an illusion. I recall when the former Treasurer Paul Keating promised he was ‘bringing home the bacon’. There was a small surplus promised, although in real terms it was larger than what this government is promising. He said he was ‘bringing home the bacon’. This was just before he put the budget into such massive deficit that it took the last coalition government a decade to pay it off. Labor then ran up tens of billions of dollars of debt for the same reason: no discipline in spending and an inability to take difficult decisions. But there are a few things in this budget that I am sure the Labor Party’s trade union mates will be proud of. I did pick up last night that there is a $10 million grant to the trade unions for the Trade Union Education Foundation. The government, of course, will just try to slip that in on a page of the budget: $10 million to the paymasters. It is nice to know they are doing well, but future Australian taxpayers will pay for a long time. Question agreed to. 2636 Notices 2636 Senator Ludwig to move on the next day of sitting: That— To ensure appropriate consideration of time-critical bills by Senate committees, the provisions of all bills introduced into the House of Representatives after 13 May 2010 and before 3 June 2010 that contain provisions commencing on or before 1 July 2010 (together with the provisions of any related bill) are referred to committees for inquiry and report by 15 June 2010. The committee to which each bill is referred shall be determined in accordance with the order of 13 February 2008 allocating departments and agencies to standing committees. A committee to which a bill has been referred may determine that there are no substantive matters that require examination and report that fact to the Senate. This order does not apply in relation to bills which contain no provisions other than provisions appropriating revenue or moneys (appropriation bills). Senator Siewert to move on the next day of sitting: That the Senate— notes that: the Government has included in the annual release of offshore petroleum exploration areas for 2010 an area 83 km off the coast of Margaret River in south Western Australia, the Government is expected to announce its final decision on the release of this area on 16 May 2010, up to 90 per cent of the marine life in the south west region of Australia is unique and half of the world’s whale and dolphin species use the region, the region is becoming increasingly important for the tourism industry, the area proposed for release overlaps the Naturaliste Plateau, which is considered likely to be a treasure trove of undiscovered species, the south west region is currently undergoing assessment as part of the bioregional marine planning process, the proposed new petroleum exploration area overlaps the ‘southwest corner’ area identified within this process for further assessment and potential inclusion in a network of new marine parks under the bioregional marine planning framework, and the Montara Commission of Inquiry is still underway, and at the same time a serious oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening large areas of the coast line of the United States of America; and calls on the Government not to pre‑empt the marine protection process and to withdraw the area off the coast of Margaret River from the offshore petroleum exploration areas release program until a network of marine protected areas has been put in place to protect the south west’s unique marine life. Senator Scullion to move on the next day of sitting: That the Senate requests the Auditor-General to undertake an urgent investigation of waste and mismanagement of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP), with regard to: whether value for money is being achieved with the construction and renovation of houses, particularly: the project management, administration and supervision costs being charged by the Alliance partner for houses renovated by sub‑contractors, whether renovated houses are meeting minimum applicable housing standards as stipulated by the Northern Territory Government upon handover, what financial penalties have been applied for any houses that have failed to meet applicable standards or have had defects noted upon handover, and how was any remedial work paid for, how the guaranteed profit margin for Alliance partners is calculated and does this represent value for money for taxpayers, and the comparison of actual construction costs of new and renovated houses through SIHIP compared with industry standard costs; whether the Commonwealth Government is exercising sufficient supervision of the Northern Territory Government over the administration and implementation of SIHIP in order to prevent mismanagement and minimise waste; the adequacy of tenancy arrangements and mechanisms in place for the Northern Territory Government to manage public housing stocks under SIHIP; and any other examples of waste and mismanagement by either the Commonwealth or the Northern Territory governments in relation to this program that the Auditor‑General deems relevant. That the Auditor-General is requested to respond in a timely manner in order for the public to be fully informed of the program in advance of further parliamentary scrutiny of the issue. Senator Xenophon to move on the next day of sitting: That the Joint Select Committee on Cyber‑Safety include in its terms of reference: the merit of establishing an Online Ombudsman to investigate, advocate and act on cyber-safety issues; and the risk of online gambling and simulated gambling applications, particularly those accessible to children. Senator Xenophon to move on the next day of sitting: That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to require that religious and charitable institutions meet a public benefit test to justify their exemption from taxation, and for related purposes. Tax Laws Amendment (Public Benefit Test) Bill 2010. Senator Fierravanti-Wells to move on the next day of sitting: That the following matter be referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report by 25 June 2010: The key outcomes agreed by the Commonwealth Government and five states and two territories at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 19 April and 20 April 2010 and the process of consultation between the states and Commonwealth prior to these agreements and related matters, including but not limited to: the new financial arrangements between the Commonwealth and states and territories over the forward estimates and the conditional requirements upon the states for receipt of additional Commonwealth funding; what amounts of the $5.4 billion Commonwealth funding is new spending, what is re-directed from existing programs/areas, the impact on these existing programs and what savings are projected in existing health programs across the forward estimates from these new financial arrangements, including the inputs, assumptions and modelling underpinning these funding amounts; the projected number of additional/new services this additional funding will provide in elective surgery treatments, in emergency department treatments, in expected numbers of patients to sign up to the diabetes spending measure, in additional general practitioner (GP) treatments in aged care facilities, including the inputs, assumptions and modelling underpinning these projections; the $15.6 billion top-up payments guaranteed to the states by the Commonwealth in the period 2014-15 to 2019-20, including exploring the breakdown of expenditure relating to hospitals, outpatient services, capital expenditure, GP and primary healthcare, aged care and other areas of health expenditure; the names, roles, structures, operations, resourcing, funding and staffing of any new statutory bodies, organisations or other entities needed to establish, oversee, monitor, report upon or administer the National Health and Hospital Networks, Primary Care Organisations and the funding channels to be established under the COAG agreements; what arrangements are in place, or are being negotiated for states that have not signed up, nor fully signed up to the COAG agreements, including what contingencies have been put in place for states that may want to alter agreements in future; the intent of the state and territory governments and their preferred number and size of Local Hospital Networks in each state and territory; the number of hospitals which will receive: activity‑based funding, block grant funding, or a mix of both; aged care: the 2 500 new aged care beds to be generated by zero interest loans, the 2 000 beds for long stay older patients to be established, the funding for the above, and the establishment of the Commonwealth Government as responsible for full funding, policy, management and delivery responsibility for a national aged care system; mental health matters; and any other related matter. Senator Bushby to move on the next day of sitting: That, when the Economics Legislation Committee meets to consider budget estimates in relation to the Department of the Treasury in the week beginning 31 May 2010, the Secretary of the department, Dr Henry, is to appear before the committee to answer questions. Senator Moore to move on the next day of sitting: That the time for the presentation of the report of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the Food Standards Amendment (Truth in Labelling—Palm Oil) Bill 2009 be extended to 31 August 2010. Senator McEwen to move on the next day of sitting: That the Environment, Communications and the Arts Legislation Committee be authorised to hold a public meeting during the sitting of the Senate on Tuesday, 15 June 2010, from 4 pm to 6 pm, to consider the 2010-11 Budget estimates for Australia Post. Senator Bob Brown to move on the 15 June 2010: That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to deliver essential financial services at reasonable cost, fair mortgages for families and increased competition for the community, and for related purposes. Banking Amendment (Delivering Essential Financial Services for the Community) Bill 2010. Senator Hanson-Young to move on the next day of sitting: That the following matters be referred to the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee for inquiry and report by 31 July 2010: the conflicting claims made by the Government, educational experts and peak bodies in relation to the publication of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing; the implementation of possible safeguards and protocols around the public presentation of the testing and reporting data; the impact of the NAPLAN assessment and reporting regime on: the educational experience and outcomes for Australian students, the scope, innovation and quality of teaching practice, the quality and value of information about student progress provided to parents and principals, and the quality and value of information about individual schools to parents, principals and the general community; and international approaches to the publication of comparative reporting of the results, i.e. ‘league tables’; and other related matters. Senator Bob Brown to move on the next day of sitting: That the Senate— notes: the calls from logging industry representatives in Tasmania and Victoria for assistance in the industry’s restructure, and the change in global wood market realities and potential; and calls on the Government to review the industry’s circumstances with a view to aiding an early resolution of its problems. Senator Hanson-Young to move on the next day of sitting: That the Senate— notes that: Enrol to Vote Week 2010 will run from 17 May to 23 May 2010 with the theme ‘You never know when an election might be called!’, and in 2007 only 17 208 Australians enrolled or updated their details by 8 pm on the day election writs were issued compared to 423 975 in the old 7 day period in 2004; and recognises the empowerment of young people to the democratic process. 2639 Committees 2639 2639 Senator FISHER (South Australia) 15:32:00 —by leave—I move: That the time for the presentation of the report of the Environment, Communications and the Arts References Committee on Australia Post’s treatment of injured and ill workers be extended to 24 June 2010. Question agreed to. 2639 Leave of Absence Senator O’BRIEN (Tasmania) 15:32:00 —by leave—I move: That leave of absence be granted to Senator Carol Brown for 12 May and 13 May 2010, for personal reasons. Question agreed to. 2640 Notices 2640 The following items of business were postponed: Business of the Senate notice of motion no. 1 standing in the name of Senator Xenophon for today, proposing a reference to the Community Affairs References Committee, postponed till 15 June 2010. General business notice of motion no. 694 standing in the name of the Leader of the Family First Party (Senator Fielding) for today, proposing the introduction of the Protection of Personal Information Bill 2010, postponed till 13 May 2010. General business notice of motion no. 738 standing in the name of the Leader of the Family First Party (Senator Fielding) for today, proposing the introduction of the Responsible Takeaway Alcohol Hours Bill 2010, postponed till 13 May 2010. General business notice of motion no. 763 standing in the name of the Leader of the Australian Greens (Senator Bob Brown) for 17 June 2010, proposing the introduction of the National Integrity Commissioner Bill 2010, postponed till 22 June 2010. General business notice of motion no. 772 standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Abetz) for today, proposing an order for the production of documents by the Minister representing the Treasurer, postponed till 13 May 2010. General business notice of motion no. 780 standing in the name of Senator Xenophon for today, relating to the review into the Australian Taxation Office’s Change Program, postponed till 13 May 2010. General business notice of motion no. 781 standing in the name of Senator Xenophon for today, relating to the Armenian genocide of 1915, postponed till 2 September 2010. 2640 2640 15:33:00 Milne, Sen Christine KA5 Tasmania AG 0 0 Senator MILNE — I withdraw general business notice of motion No. 787 standing in my name for today. 2640 Committees 2640 2640 Senator PARRY (Tasmania) 15:34:00 —At the request of Senator Trood, I move: That the time for the presentation of the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on Australia’s administration and management of the Torres Strait be extended to 2 September 2010. Question agreed to. 2640 2640 Senator PARRY (Tasmania) 15:34:00 — At the request of Senator Brandis, I move: That the time for the presentation of the report of the Standing Committee of Privileges on the provisions of the Tax Laws Amendment (Confidentiality of Taxpayer Information) Bill 2009 be extended to 4 June 2010. Question agreed to. 2640 2640 Senator PARRY (Tasmania) 15:34:00 — At the request of Senator Brandis, I move: That the Standing Committee of Privileges be authorised to hold a public meeting during the sitting of the Senate on Thursday, 13 May 2010, from 4 pm to 7 pm, to take evidence for the committee’s inquiry into the provisions of the Tax Laws Amendment (Confidentiality of Taxpayer Information) Bill 2009. Question agreed to. 2641 2641 2641 15:34:00 Ludwig, Sen Joe (Manager of Government Business in the Senate) 84N Queensland ALP Manager of Government Business in the Senate 1 0 Senator LUDWIG —I move: That the order of the Senate agreed to on 13 February 2008, relating to the allocation of departments and agencies to legislative and general purpose standing committees, be amended to read as follows: Environment, Communications and the Arts Finance and Public Administration Question agreed to. 2641 Motions 2641 15:35:00 Ludwig, Sen Joe (Manager of Government Business in the Senate) 84N Queensland ALP Manager of Government Business in the Senate 1 0 Senator LUDWIG — At the request of Senator Stephens, I move: That the Senate notes: that from 10 May to 16 May 2010 is National Volunteer Week, the largest celebration of volunteers and volunteerism in Australia; that one in four, or more than 5 million Australians, volunteer in their communities; that Australian volunteers contribute more than 700 million hours of community service to many areas of society, including community health care, heritage and arts, environment conservation, emergency services, education, social justice and sports and international aid; their service contributes approximately $42 billion to our economy each year, with the community value of their efforts far exceeding dollar measurement; that volunteering promotes active citizenship, builds connections and creates stronger communities, shaping Australia into a country in which we can be proud; and that as a nation we say ‘thank you’ to our volunteers, and volunteering organisations, for their contribution to all facets of Australian life. Question agreed to. 2641 Motions 2641 2641 15:35:00 Cash, Sen Michaelia I0M Western Australia LP 0 0 Senator CASH —I move: That the Senate— notes that: under the agreement reached between the Commonwealth Government and the states, stimulus funding under the Government’s Nation Building and Jobs Plan is to be additional to existing state spending efforts, as part of its inquiry into the Primary Schools for the 21st Century school building program, the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee is seeking to ensure that states and territories have maintained their planned spending on primary schools and have not reduced their spending as a consequence of receiving stimulus funding through the Government’s Nation Building and Jobs Plan, the committee received evidence in November 2009 that maintenance of spending effort is being monitored through quarterly reports by the states and territories to Heads of Treasury, the committee wrote to the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury (Dr Ken Henry) in December 2009 requesting copies of these quarterly reports, the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury wrote back to the committee, also in December 2009, declining to provide the reports on the basis that to do so would not be in the public interest as it would damage relations between the Commonwealth and the states, but noting that a decision on whether to provide the reports was ultimately a matter for the Treasurer (Mr Swan), the committee then wrote to the Treasurer on 8 February 2010, noting its disagreement with the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury’s assessment that provision of the reports would damage relations between the Commonwealth and the states, and requesting provision of the quarterly reports by no later than 26 February 2010, having received no formal response, the committee again wrote to the Treasurer on 15 March 2010, asking that the reports be provided by 26 March 2010, when the Treasurer finally responded to the committee’s correspondence on 20 April 2010, he refused the committee’s request on the basis that to release the quarterly reports (either publicly or in camera) could reasonably be expected to cause damage to relations with the states and would therefore not be in the public interest, and the committee continues to disagree with the grounds advanced by the Treasurer for failing to provide the reports, for the following reasons: if all states and territories have complied with the requirement to maintain their spending effort, the committee does not see how any damage could be caused by providing evidence to confirm this fact, if any state or territory has not complied with the requirement to maintain its funding effort, it is an explicit feature of the National Partnership Agreement on the Nation Building and Jobs Plan that such a failure may be made public, and state and territory capital spending on schools will ultimately be made public through various budget papers and reports and the committee is merely seeking this information in a more timely fashion in order to progress its current inquiry; and orders that there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Treasurer, no later than 4 pm on Thursday, 13 May 2010, the quarterly reports as requested. Question agreed to. 2642 15:36:00 O’Brien, Sen Kerry 8O6 Tasmania ALP 1 0 Senator O’BRIEN —by leave—The government opposes this motion. We recognise that Senator Cash, with the support of the coalition and the Greens in the chamber, has a majority. We will not be calling a division. 2642 Motions 2642 2642 15:36:00 Birmingham, Sen Simon H6X South Australia LP 0 0 Senator BIRMINGHAM —I move: That there be laid on the table by the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, no later than noon on 13 May 2010, a copy of the following reports relating to the Green Loans program, as referred to by the Minister in her 10 March 2010 statement to the Senate (Senate Hansard, p. 1521): the audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers into the assessor accreditation process and adherence to the Protocol for Assessor Accrediting Organisations; and the report of the independent inquiry in relation to contractual agreements and procurement processes entered into during the final design and implementation of the program. Question agreed to. 2642 15:37:00 O’Brien, Sen Kerry 8O6 Tasmania ALP 1 0 Senator O’BRIEN —by leave—The government opposes this motion. We recognise that Senator Birmingham has the support of his coalition colleagues and the Greens in the chamber and therefore has a majority. We will not be calling a division. Our position is the same for motion No. 775 if moved and motion No. 776 if moved. 2643 Motions 2643 2643 15:37:00 Birmingham, Sen Simon H6X South Australia LP 0 0 Senator BIRMINGHAM —I move: That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, no later than noon on 13 May 2010, a copy of correspondence from the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts (Mr Garrett) dated 14 August, 27 August, 28 October and 30 October 2009 addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr Rudd) regarding the Home Insulation Program. Question agreed to. 2643 Motions 2643 2643 15:37:00 Birmingham, Sen Simon H6X South Australia LP 0 0 Senator BIRMINGHAM —I move: That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Prime Minister, no later than noon on 13 May 2010, a copy of correspondence from the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts (Mr Garrett) dated 14 August, 27 August, 28 October and 30 October 2009 addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr Rudd) regarding the Home Insulation Program. Question agreed to. 2643 Motions 2643 15:38:00 Siewert, Sen Rachel E5Z Western Australia AG 0 0 Senator SIEWERT —I move: That the Senate— notes: the growing body of evidence that the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), used in plastics, including food packaging, is harmful to humans even in minute quantities and is unsuitable for use in babies’ products, such as baby bottles and food containers, that research has linked BPA to a range of health problems, including reproductive problems, endometriosis (a chronic gynaecological disease), heart disease, diabetes and abnormalities in liver enzymes, among other conditions, the recent letter by eight toxicologists and cancer specialists from the United States of America (US), Britain and Italy, published in The Independent newspaper in the United Kingdom on 8 April 2010, that calls for the products containing BPA used for baby and children’s food and liquid packaging to be withdrawn and replaced by less hazardous substances, that children’s products containing BPA have been banned in Denmark, Canada and a number of states in the US, that a number of manufacturers have voluntarily stopped using BPA in babies’ products, demonstrating that alternatives are available, and that Food Standards Australia New Zealand permits the continued use of this chemical in babies’ products in Australia; and calls on the Rudd Government to reassess the public health risk of BPA to all Australian consumers. Question agreed to. 2643 Motions 2643 Motions 2643 15:38:00 Pratt, Sen Louise I0T Western Australia ALP 1 0 Senator PRATT —I move: That the Senate— notes: the pledge, first made by Australia in the year 2000, to spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion are currently subjected, that with only five years until the international goals to address extreme poverty are due, there is now an urgent need to recommit ourselves to this task, and that our actions of the past 20 years have already succeeded in halving rates of extreme poverty, and within a generation we can and will make poverty history; and welcomes the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign to ensure that we do our fair share to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals. Question agreed to. 2644 Motions 2644 2644 15:39:00 Ludlam, Sen Scott I07 Western Australia AG 0 0 Senator LUDLAM —I move: That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Trade, no later than 4.00 pm on 15 June 2010, the following: documents containing National Interest Assessments on the Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Project (the project); documents containing assessments of the project authored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AusAID and the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism; documents containing the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation environment and social impact assessment; and any document benchmarking or evaluating compliance of the project with the Equator Principles or the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standards. Question agreed to. 2644 Motions 2644 2644 15:40:00 Siewert, Sen Rachel E5Z Western Australia AG 0 0 Senator SIEWERT —I move: That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, Senator Wong, by 13 May 2010, the following documents relating to the shortfin and longfin mako shark and the porbeagle shark during and since December 2008 when those species were listed on the United Nations Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (the convention): all briefings from the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (the department) to the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts in relation to the listings on the convention and subsequently in relation to listing the species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999; and any briefings and advice received by the department or the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts from scientific experts or bodies or other government departments in relation to those three species. 2644 15:40:00 Ludwig, Sen Joe (Manager of Government Business in the Senate) 84N Queensland ALP Manager of Government Business in the Senate 1 0 Senator LUDWIG —by leave—The briefings being requested by Senator Siewert constitute advice to the minister with respect to his deliberations and the carrying out of his functions under the EPBC Act and, in accordance with the long-standing practice of all Australian governments, this should not be provided before tabling. It is also appropriate to note that Senator Siewert was twice offered, as I understand it, a full departmental briefing on these matters by Minister Garrett’s office—verbally by her adviser on Monday 10 May and by email from Minister Garrett’s chief of staff yesterday. To date, I am advised she has declined to take up these offers. Question agreed to. 2644 Committees 2644 2644 Senator PARRY (Tasmania) 15:41:00 —At the request of Senator Macdonald, I move: That the resolution of the Senate of 25 June 2008, as amended, appointing the Select Committee on the National Broadband Network, be amended to omit “12 May 2010”, and substitute “17 June 2010”. Question agreed to. 2645 15:42:00 O’Brien, Sen Kerry 8O6 Tasmania ALP 1 0 Senator O’BRIEN —by leave—My statement is the usual one, that we recognise the motion has the support both of the coalition and the Greens in the chamber. It therefore has a majority and we will not be calling a division. 2645 15:42:00 Ludlam, Sen Scott I07 Western Australia AG 0 0 Senator LUDLAM —by leave—I apologise to Senator O’Brien. The Greens have consistently proposed that the select committees, which were subject to a certain amount of abuse in the last year or two, be closed down, and we have been voting against the coalition. In this case, however, we made this decision about the implementation study, for which the Senate sought an order for production nearly two months ago now. The minister held that back until the very last minute, arguably to prevent the select committee from having the time to go through the assumptions, the costing and the models that have been produced. This deprived the select committee of the opportunity to test some of those assumptions. As a result, the Australian Greens have consented to the opposition’s request to give the committee a little bit more time to investigate the implementation study. The government could have avoided that by laying that document on the table on the day that the Senate ordered it to be produced. 2645 15:43:00 Parry, Sen Stephen E5V Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator PARRY —by leave—I thank the Greens for their support. I understand their views on this matter and concur with the rationale as to why we have sought the extension for one month. As all senators would know, the winding up of this select committee is sought by us at some stage in the near future, on the date now determined, as we have a select committee commencement that is contingent upon the winding up of the National Broadband Network committee. 2645 Motions 2645 15:45:00 Hanson-Young, Sen Sarah I0U South Australia AG 0 0 Senator HANSON-YOUNG —I move: That the Senate— notes: the recent decision by the Rudd Government to suspend the processing of asylum claims from Sri Lankan and Afghan nationals for 3 and 6 months respectively, and in 2009, Australia received just 1.6 per cent of all asylum claims lodged in the world’s 44 industrialised nations, with less than half of this number arriving by boat; recognises that this new policy is in breach of Australia’s international obligations under the: United Nations Refugee Convention, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; congratulates the joint statement from 45 non-government organisations from 16 countries, in condemning the Australian Government’s decision to suspend the processing of asylum claims for Sri Lankans and Afghans; and calls on the Government to immediately reverse its suspension of asylum applications, restoring the right of people seeking protection from persecution to have their claims assessed in a fair and timely manner. 2645 15:45:00 Ludwig, Sen Joe 84N Queensland ALP Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary 1 0 Senator LUDWIG —by leave—The suspension of processing of asylum by Afghan and Sri Lankan citizens does not breach Australia’s international obligations. Having sought and obtained legal advice, the government is satisfied, in particular, that the suspension does not breach either the Racial Discrimination Act or the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The suspension is being applied to asylum claims by Sri Lankan and Afghan nationals for reasons that have nothing to do with race. The reasons for the suspension relate wholly to the objective country circumstances in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Suspending the making of refugee status assessments for a time is not prohibited by the refugee convention. There is no provision of the convention that requires countries to establish any particular procedure for assessing refugee claims or that requires assessments to be conducted in any particular time frame. Upon lifting of the suspensions, refugee status assessment will be conducted in the usual way, and persons determined to be refugees as a result will be given protection in accordance with the provisions of the convention. The best interests of children are a primary consideration under the Rudd Labor government. It has been a long-held Labor policy that children will not be held in immigration detention centres. Upon coming to government, Labor has acted on this promise. 2646 15:46:00 Hanson-Young, Sen Sarah I0U South Australia AG 0 0 Senator HANSON-YOUNG —by leave—How cowardly! The Rudd Labor government, who came to power on a promise to introduce a more humane, fair and transparent immigration detention system, make changes to their policy and then they are not honest about the condemnation that that policy change has had internationally as well as domestically. They deny that they detain children, despite the fact that we know that they do on Christmas Island. They pretend that they do not breach international obligations that Australia has signed, yet we know that they do. You are living under a total cloud of denial. This is the Rudd government, who promised a more humane approach, who promised to treat vulnerable people with respect and dignity, who condemned the locking up of children, who condemned indefinite detention and who said that detention would be a last resort. All of the seven principles, bar one, which was keeping mandatory detention, that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced last year have gone out the window—because we are in the lead-up to an election. It is totally shameful. If you are going to change your policies, be gutless and spineless, and not stand up for what is right, at least be honest about it and stop pretending you are otherwise. Question put: That the motion (Senator Hanson-Young’s) be agreed to. 15:52:00 The Senate divided.     (The Acting Deputy President—Senator RB Trood) 6 Brown, B.J. Hanson-Young, S.C. Ludlam, S. Milne, C. Siewert, R. * Xenophon, N. 36 Back, C.J. Bilyk, C.L. Bishop, T.M. Bushby, D.C. Cameron, D.N. Carr, K.J. Cash, M.C. Colbeck, R. Collins, J. Cormann, M.H.P. Crossin, P.M. Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D. Fielding, S. Fierravanti-Wells, C. Fisher, M.J. Furner, M.L. Hurley, A. Hutchins, S.P. Kroger, H. Ludwig, J.W. Lundy, K.A. Marshall, G. McEwen, A. McLucas, J.E. Moore, C. Nash, F. O’Brien, K.W.K. * Parry, S. Polley, H. Pratt, L.C. Sterle, G. Troeth, J.M. Trood, R.B. Williams, J.R. Wortley, D. * denotes teller Question negatived. 2647 Miscellaneous 2647 15:56:00 Hanson-Young, Sen Sarah I0U South Australia AG 0 0 Senator HANSON-YOUNG —I move: That the Senate— notes the treacherous, and sometimes fatal journey asylum seekers who arrive by boat take in reaching Australia, including the reports as early as the week beginning 9 May 2010 of the five Australia-bound asylum seekers who perished at sea in an attempt to find assistance for their stricken vessel; and calls on the Government to immediately conduct a public investigation and review into the protocols for monitoring and intercepting boat arrivals, and report back to the Senate by 30 June 2010. 2647 15:56:00 Parry, Sen Stephen E5V Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator PARRY —by leave—The opposition will be opposing this motion. The main rationale behind our opposition to the motion is that we believe any investigation should be more global, more robust and cover the entire situation and not just be on a case-by-case or ad hoc basis. 2647 15:57:00 Hanson-Young, Sen Sarah I0U South Australia AG 0 0 Senator HANSON-YOUNG —by leave—I would like to remind the opposition that this is not just about the incident last week. This is a motion very similar to a motion that was put last year when the government promised to review the interception protocols and to publicly declare what they are, and of course we still have not seen them. I would have thought that the opposition would want to see this information in the public realm as well. I am surprised that they do not want to support this motion. I suggest that the government, unless they want to have an inquiry into the broader, more global aspects of what they are doing wrong in relation to immigration and asylum seeker matters, should simply support the Greens motion because it is much more specific in asking for something that they did promise to give us. Question put: That the motion (Senator Hanson-Young’s) be agreed to. 16:00:00 The Senate divided.     (The Acting Deputy President—Senator RB Trood) 7 Brown, B.J. Fielding, S. Hanson-Young, S.C. Ludlam, S. Milne, C. Siewert, R. * Xenophon, N. 36 Back, C.J. Bilyk, C.L. Bishop, T.M. Bushby, D.C. Cameron, D.N. Carr, K.J. Colbeck, R. Collins, J. Cormann, M.H.P. Crossin, P.M. Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D. Fierravanti-Wells, C. Fisher, M.J. Furner, M.L. Hurley, A. Hutchins, S.P. Kroger, H. Ludwig, J.W. Lundy, K.A. Macdonald, I. Marshall, G. McEwen, A. McLucas, J.E. Moore, C. Nash, F. O’Brien, K.W.K. * Parry, S. Polley, H. Pratt, L.C. Scullion, N.G. Sterle, G. Troeth, J.M. Trood, R.B. Williams, J.R. Wortley, D. * denotes teller Question negatived. 2648 Bills S753 2648 Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) 16:03:00 —I move: That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to establish an independent Office of the Commonwealth Commissioner for Children and Young People, and for related purposes. Question agreed to. Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) 16:03:00 —I present the bill and move: That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time. Question agreed to. Bill read a first time. 2648 2648 16:04:00 Hanson-Young, Sen Sarah I0U South Australia AG 0 0 Senator HANSON-YOUNG —I present the explanatory memorandum and I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows— Advocacy for children and young people should be a national priority.  At present, child protection is a state and territory government responsibility but with increasing community awareness of the importance and broad scope of child protection, it’s time for the establishment of a national system that co-ordinates these varying state-based regulations and programs. The Commonwealth Commissioner for Children and Young People Bill 2010 recognises the need for Australia to catch up with nations around the world, and implement a properly-resourced Federal independent statutory body to oversee the rights of young Australians with the powers to ensure recognition of their needs and views. Last year, nations around the globe celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; a convention that seeks to ensure that every child and young person has the best opportunity in life regardless of their ethnicity or gender. Yet, twenty years on, as we enter a new decade the rights of children and young people continue to flounder on the national agenda.  And while it must be said that children in Australia fair better than their brothers and sisters in many parts of the world, significant steps must be taken before true representation of our commitment to the Convention can be realised. Community support for the establishment of a Commonwealth Commissioner is growing, with the national charity organisation Save the Children reporting that 78% of Australians believe there is a role for a specific national Commissioner for children and young people. It is clear that if we want to effectively tackle serious problems such as child abuse, neglect poor education, poverty, youth homelessness and social disadvantage, we need to recognise the value and key role children and young people bring to the community.  In order to achieve this, Australia needs to follow the lead of countries such as New Zealand, Britain, Norway and Sweden in providing children and young people with a voice at a national level, to ensure that we adequately fulfil our international obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Catherine Branson recently observed that, “the wellbeing of children…aims to empower and engage children, their families and communities, in the creation of solutions for them. A human rights framework recognises not simply a need for, but also an entitlement to, a fair life chance for all Australian children. The rights of children and young people must be taken seriously by their elected representatives, and it is through this legislation that for the first time, their voices and opinions will not only be heard by those that seek to represent them, but will sit higher on the national agenda. According to the 2008 Australia Research Alliance for Children and Young People Report Card, Australia is not performing as well as other OECD countries when it comes to many of the key indicators.  For example, Australia is ranked 20 out of 27 OECD countries for infant mortality; the rate for Indigenous Australians is more than double the non-Indigenous rate, ranking 26 out of 28 OECD countries. The clear disadvantages that our Indigenous Australians, in particular, are faced are of serious concern, and should serve as a wake up call to the community at large, governments, families, businesses, and parents that we need to do more in monitoring and advocating for the wellbeing of all children and young people in Australia. Given Australia’s international tag as the ‘lucky country’, it is concerning that in our national pursuit for wealth and success; we have forgotten the importance of empowering our children and young people to engage in the decisions that affect them. Whether it is children in child care or state care, in the education system, the juvenile justice system, immigration detention or homeless, in big cities, small towns or outback communities, all young people deserve to have someone looking out for their interests. A Commissioner for children and young people would ensure the needs, views and rights of people under the age of eighteen are recognised and promoted.  This role would promote investment in early childhood development as a priority, and outline requirements for quality childcare and early childhood services.  Along with promoting the rights of children and young people, the Commission would monitor and review laws, policies and practices which impact on service provision.  The establishment of a Commonwealth Commissioner for children and young people will also help move the approach beyond a narrow focus only on neglect and abuse to encompass broader concepts of overall safety and wellbeing for children and young people. As a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Australia has a responsibility in upholding the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, which are essentially underpinned by four paramount principles: Non-discrimination in the applicability of children’s rights (Article 2) The primacy of the consideration of the child’s best interests (Article 4) The child’s right to survival and development (Article 6(1)) The child’s right to participation in decision-making (Article 12) These principles should inform our approach to protecting the best interests of our children and young people. Establishing an independent Commonwealth Commissioner for children and young people would ensure Australia’s international and domestic obligations are met and upheld.  These fundamental human rights principles provide a clear framework of minimum standards to ensure the wellbeing of our children and young people. While the Greens welcomed the first ever National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020, endorsed by the COAG in April, and note that the Government is exploring the potential role of a National Children’s Commissioner, we believe that the broad community support and backing from organisations such as Save the Children, UNICEF, Australian Human Rights Commission, and the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Young People, should serve as an indicator on the importance of such a role. Given Australia is lagging behind global developments that aim to protect children, with other western countries such as Britain having had an independent Commissioner for Children for four years, establishing a Commonwealth Commissioner for Children and Young People would help bring the different mandates of state and territory Commissioners that already exist, together within a consistent, well co-ordinated program. Establishing a national Commissioner will help ensure adequate protection for all who are vulnerable and disadvantaged.  Importantly, this mechanism will extend support to young non-citizens who have arrived in Australia without the protection and resources that are afforded to those with requisite visas or other authority for entry into Australia. It is time to change business as usual when it comes to the views and opinions of children and young people. It is time our Federal Parliament showed a real and practical move in supporting and protecting Australian kids, showing leadership for the essential need to invest and value our youngest citizens. We need a system that embraces, invests and encourages the next generation of Australian workers and leaders, and providing a national independent body that will advocate for the needs, views, and rights of those under eighteen is essential in achieving this outcome. For too long the rights children and young people have been swept under the carpet, put in the too hard basket, or stopped at state borders.  With my Bill for the first time, we have an opportunity to create a Commonwealth Commissioner dedicated to this purpose. I commend the Bill to the Senate. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. 2650 Motions 2650 16:05:00 Brown, Sen Bob QD4 Tasmania AG Leader of the Australian Greens 0 0 Senator BOB BROWN —I move: That the Senate calls on the Government to commission a feasibility study into the staged construction of a high speed rail network on the east coast of Australia, which could deliver accessible fast, reliable, ecologically-sustainable long-distance transport. Question put. 16:09:00 The Senate divided.     (The Acting Deputy President—Senator G Barnett) 7 Brown, B.J. Fielding, S. Hanson-Young, S.C. Ludlam, S. Milne, C. Siewert, R. * Xenophon, N. 28 Arbib, M.V. Barnett, G. Bilyk, C.L. Birmingham, S. Bushby, D.C. Colbeck, R. Collins, J. Cormann, M.H.P. Crossin, P.M. Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D. Fierravanti-Wells, C. Hurley, A. Hutchins, S.P. Joyce, B. Kroger, H. Macdonald, I. Marshall, G. McEwen, A. Nash, F. O’Brien, K.W.K. * Parry, S. Polley, H. Scullion, N.G. Sterle, G. Troeth, J.M. Williams, J.R. Wortley, D. * denotes teller Question negatived. 2650 16:12:00 Brown, Sen Bob QD4 Tasmania AG Leader of the Australian Greens 0 0 Senator BOB BROWN —Mr Acting Deputy President, I seek leave to make a short statement. 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Barnett)—Leave is granted for two minutes. QD4 Brown, Sen Bob Senator BOB BROWN —That motion was for the Senate to call on the government to commission a feasibility study into the staged construction of a high-speed rail network on the east coast of Australia which could deliver accessible, fast, reliable and ecologically sustainable long distance transport. The motion which was just voted down by the government and the opposition en bloc prevents a call on the government to have a preliminary or feasibility study into high-speed rail between Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne. I invite any member of the coalition or the government to explain why such a study should not be undertaken. We live in a world in which high-speed rail is now replacing air travel as the most convenient, fast, cheap and environmentally acceptable way of travelling between major cities. The air route between Sydney and Melbourne is the third- or fourth-busiest in the world. High-speed rail offers the opportunity of travelling between those two cities within three hours. That is faster than it takes for a commuter to get to an airport and complete an equivalent journey from centre of city to centre of city but with business amenity and the ability to use electric equipment en route. I find it absolutely flabbergasting that the government and the opposition would want to prevent such a preliminary study coming from the government and I invite any member, particularly from the coalition, to explain why they were opposed to it. 2651 16:14:00 Arbib, Sen Mark HES New South Wales ALP Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery 1 0 Senator ARBIB —I seek leave to make a short statement. 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Leave is granted for two minutes. HES Arbib, Sen Mark Senator ARBIB —The Rudd Labor government considers a competitive, safe and reliable rail network both within and between our major urban communities critical in order to lift national productivity, curb the escalating costs of traffic congestion and tackle climate change. The Rudd Labor government is quadrupling investment in rail to some $9 billion over six years to improve and expand the nation’s passenger and freight rail infrastructure. Last night’s budget was a further demonstration of our commitment to improve the competitiveness and efficiency of rail. Our $1 billion investment in the Australian Rail Track Corporation will result in more freight being transported by rail, taking trucks off the road. The Rudd Labor government is the first federal government to make an investment in the passenger rail infrastructure within the nation’s cities. The Regional Rail Link in Victoria, the Noarlunga to Seaford extension and the Gawler line modernisation in South Australia, and the Gold Coast Rapid Transit project in Queensland are all projects funded by the Rudd Labor government. This is in stark contrast to the Howard government, who for 12 years ignored public transport and made no investments whatsoever. The Rudd Labor government recognises the potential benefits of high-speed rail in Australia and welcomes proposals that put forward a robust case in relation to planning and financing. The Australian government’s advisory body Infrastructure Australia has investigated some high-speed rail proposals. While the proposals put forward to Infrastructure Australia so far have not been fully developed in relation to planning, cost and feasibility, they have presented an interesting proposition around capacity and cost compared with other models of transport between our major cities. Individuals or organisations are encouraged to submit detailed, costed proposals to Infrastructure Australia for rigorous assessment. The Rudd Labor government will continue to review any high-speed rail proposals that are put forward. 2651 14:16:00 Macdonald, Sen Ian YW4 Queensland LP 0 0 Senator IAN MACDONALD —I seek leave to make a short statement in relation to the same matter. 10000 ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT, The The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Leave is granted for two minutes. YW4 Macdonald, Sen Ian Senator IAN MACDONALD —Again the response from the Labor government is typical—a lot of fine words, all talk but never any action. By contrast, the coalition in its first few years of office actually spent, from memory, $25 million on a feasibility study for a high-speed rail link between Canberra and Sydney. The result of that very expensive, very lengthy and detailed assessment was that high-speed rail was simply not economically or otherwise feasible, even between Canberra and Sydney. The coalition does not just talk; we actually took action to look at that very issue. As I said, it did cost, from memory, $25 million. Contrary to what Senator Brown said, his motion did not talk about a preliminary assessment. It just said ‘a feasibility study’. My information is that a proper feasibility study looking at Melbourne to Brisbane or Melbourne to Cairns would cost well in excess of $100 million. In these times, with huge debts run up by the Labor government, we believe that better things could be done with the $100 million. We have always supported investment in rail. There are a number of initiatives—for example, the Darwin to Alice Springs railway was not only an initiative but a completed action of the Howard government and the Australian Rail Track Corporation. We have shown our commitment but we do not believe in wasting money on feasibility studies when we know from the feasibility study we did conduct that it is simply not economically viable. 2652 Miscellaneous 2652 16:18:00 Brown, Sen Bob QD4 Tasmania AG Leader of the Australian Greens 0 0 Senator BOB BROWN —I move: That the Senate— notes the Australian Constitution was drafted at the Windsor Hotel, Melbourne, in 1898 and it housed many of Australia’s ‘founding fathers’ during the formative years of our Parliament, accommodating prime ministers, politicians, actors, performers and celebrities; and as such recognises the national heritage significance of the Windsor Hotel. 2652 16:19:00 Arbib, Sen Mark HES New South Wales ALP Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery 1 0 Senator ARBIB —I seek leave to make a short statement. 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Barnett)—Leave is granted for two minutes. HES Arbib, Sen Mark Senator ARBIB —The government recognises the heritage significance of the Windsor Hotel; however, as Senator Brown would be aware, the Australian Heritage Council assesses the values of nominated places against set criteria and makes recommendations to the minister for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts about national heritage listing. The government supporting this motion would amount to prejudging any advice that the minister may receive from expert advisers. 2652 16:19:00 Brown, Sen Bob QD4 Tasmania AG Leader of the Australian Greens 0 0 Senator BOB BROWN —I seek leave to make a short statement. 10000 ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT, The The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Leave is granted for two minutes. QD4 Brown, Sen Bob Senator BOB BROWN —I have a certain empathy with Senator Arbib, because he read a prepared statement. But it became an absurdity, because he began by saying ‘the government recognises the national heritage significance of the Windsor Hotel’. The active component of the motion is to ‘recognise the national heritage significance of the Windsor Hotel.’ The government recognises the national heritage significance of the Windsor Hotel but is about to vote against a motion recognising the national heritage significance of the Windsor Hotel. How absurd that is. I ask that the government quickly review the nonsense of voting against a motion on a matter which it supports 100 per cent. 2653 16:21:00 O’Brien, Sen Kerry 8O6 Tasmania ALP 1 0 Senator O’BRIEN —I seek leave to make a very brief statement. Leave granted. 8O6 O’Brien, Sen Kerry Senator O’BRIEN —The government opposes this motion. It is clear, despite the confusion, that Senator Brown has the support of the coalition as well as his own party. He therefore has a majority in the chamber and we will not call a division. Question agreed to. 2653 Matters of Public Importance 2653 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Barnett)—The President has received a letter from Senator Parry proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The reckless spending, high taxing Rudd Labor government. I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places— 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly. 2653 16:22:00 Joyce, Sen Barnaby E5D Queensland NATS Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 0 0 Senator JOYCE —It is quite evident that we are now in a twilight zone where we are once more sucked into believing the Labor Party, who told us, merely a couple of years ago, that today we would be experiencing a surplus of about $17 billion. Yet now we have before us a $57.1 billion deficit. That is what they have delivered. In raw terms, that is a record. We have never had a deficit bigger than that. The question that people rightly ask is: how did we get ourselves this problem? We have $140 billion in gross debt. Even the Labor Party admit we are heading towards $222 billion in gross debt. If we put on top of that the state debts, which are predominantly debts that the Labor governments have brought about, we are starting to get into real problems. The Labor government make statements that they are going to hit a target, but when it comes to money they never do. They can never hit the target when it comes to money because they lack the acumen; they lack the capacity for cost control. Of course, one key example that all Australians are aware of is the ceiling insulation program. It was pathos. It was so hopeless, such a stuff-up, that it will go down in the annals of our nation’s his-tory. To think that we could conduct a program that burnt down in excess of 120 houses; that has been responsible for the deaths of at least four people—and we suspect more; and that is going to cost in the vicinity of $1 billion to fix up! They only spent $1.5 billion of the money. It is an example of how the Labor government have no concept of the value of money or the capacity to control costs. Then we had Building the Education Revolution. Where do these terms come from—these ‘revolutions’, these ‘wars’? They are emotive statements, but the government lack the acumen and the diligence to sit down and really control costs. That is not sexy but it is absolutely essential, and it has been missed. We now have discretionary expenditure in excess of $90 billion. This is why Australia is so much in debt. And this massive problem is now forcing up interest rates and causing real problems out there in the general economy. The Labor Party blow-outs just go on and on, even if we go down to the minutiae. Do you remember them talking about computers—the toolboxes of the 21st century—as they earnestly held them in their hands and said they were going to deliver that outcome? What do we have? They were going to provide a million of them. I think 220,000 of the million were delivered and the budget has blown out by a billion dollars. Everywhere you look you find examples where things are coming unstuck. Now they tell us that, as we go forward, we are to be impressed by the fact that they will be borrowing only in excess of $700 million a week. That is supposed to be a good outcome. This cannot go on. As I have said all along, if we go on like this then something has to snap. A rational conversation with any person who has been dealing with money would tell you that things just cannot go on like this. Let’s look at the opportunities we could have had. They have just talked about rail infrastructure. What sort of rail infrastructure do we have? They have announced a billion-dollar upgrade on rail, I acknowledge that, but what happened to inland rail? What happened to the capacity to really drive projects that would make the Australian people proud; that would actually take trucks, such as the 1,600 trucks that go through Moree each day, off the road? What happened to that vision? When it comes to infrastructure, this crowd are about as exciting as a jam sandwich. If it does not fall off the back of a truck, to be bolted together in a schoolyard, they just do not know how to do it. When it does happen like that, they end up paying three times the price. We have had the Labor Party blow-outs on GroceryWatch and on Fuelwatch—those voyeuristic endeavours—but what did those programs deliver? We get the bill but we never get the outcome. Minister Wong is in charge of a department that has in excess of 400 staff, but they do not have a job. What goes on in there? They must have discussions about philosophy or issues for a higher intellect. What is going on in that department? What is its purpose? We have a health department with in excess of 5,000 employees and not one patient. These issues might not be sexy but they are the reason the Labor Party have got us into so much debt and created so many problems. These problems are going to become manifest and, as we go on, the Australian people are going to have to ask themselves a very serious question: can we afford to leave the Labor Party there for another three years? How will we get on top of this debt if we do not deal with the issues they have brought about? What on earth is the process for dealing with it? In the budget papers, the Labor Party have put out the idea of nirvana. They would have it that there is a nirvana out there at a time when, to be honest, Mr Rudd will not even be the Prime Minister. He certainly will not be the leader of the Labor Party. They push their solutions to a point you cannot nail them down to, then they run—and they have been quite successful in getting the media to laud them—at a position that is not even imminent. Australia has to have a retrospective on the promises about delivery that they have made in the past and where we actually are now, and it must judge its client—being the Labor Party—on that basis: what they promised, what they delivered and how much we actually paid for it. If you really want to look at it, let us look at the minutiae of some of these things. The other day, I went to Manilla Public School—$1.807 million for two demountables that were bolted together on the site. For $1.807 million, I imagine most Australians would expect a pretty fancy sort of house—we are talking tiles, we are talking a pool, we are talking a tennis court. What this school in regional New South Wales got was two demountables bolted together. Remember: they did not have to buy the land, the land was already there. They came off the back of a truck. They were constructed in a factory in Newcastle. This goes to show you where Australia is coming unstuck. We have to have this honest discussion with the Australian people about exactly what is happening to them. We know that one in 10 principals say that the projects they got they did not want or did not need or were overpriced. We have P&Cs saying, ‘If you had only given us the opportunity to have a greater say in what we got, then we would have got better value for money.’ After the brouhaha about the apparently miraculous $1 billion surplus three years out, I would put my left one on it that that is not going to happen. I have seen this line and I can assure you that that is just not going to happen. We could all talk about it and it could be a wonderful discussion piece, but can you honestly believe this crowd, which has not delivered a surplus since, I think, 1990—I stand to be corrected on that, but I think that was the last one they did? The coalition, for all the problems people have—we were mean or we were this or we were that—delivered surpluses 10 out of 12 years. An accountant judging their clients would say: ‘This is the sort of client that I want to run the books. That is the client I just do not want anywhere near the chequebook because they have not got a clue.’ The Australian people are coming to terms with that. They are saying, ‘We really are starting to doubt where you are off to.’ The latest one—which just takes the cake—is the nationalisation of the mining industry. So help me! Where did that idea come from? How did that one manage to make it through? You are now going to basically take ownership of 40 per cent of the mining industry—taking up 40 per cent of the revenues and accepting 40 per cent of course of their costs. This is ‘Castro Kevin’ at his best. There is a peculiarity that has come into this. Do you think for one moment that, now you have a 58 per cent tax rate on mining companies, you might have a slight problem with vertically integrated companies that work across nation boundaries? Do you think that a fully state-owned enterprise from overseas is not going to move its profits, even though it might operate here, back to a more sensible and favourable taxing regime? I expect to find in this budget a huge allocation for the Australian tax office, because they are going to be very busy boys and ladies chasing around the money that is going to go hell west and crooked but is never actually going to be nailed down—it is the blow-outs, it is the costs, it is the waste and it is the bill that is left for the Australian people. What we got from you guys is about as exciting as a jam sandwich. 2655 16:33:00 Feeney, Sen David I0O Victoria ALP 1 0 Senator FEENEY —I have to congratulate the opposition today for having the audacity to move this motion. The day after Treasurer Wayne Swan brought down a budget that has been widely praised for its fiscal responsibility and that forecasts a drop in government spending as a proportion of GDP, those opposite want to lecture the Labor government for so-called reckless spending. The day after the budget in which the Treasurer announced cuts to the rate of company taxes for Australian small business and also announced measures to simplify the Australian taxation system for Australian taxpayers, the opposition want to criticise this government for so-called high taxation. To be moving this motion today, takes cheek of a very high order. Far from criticising the government on the issues of spending and taxation, the Senate ought to be congratulating the Prime Minister and the Treasurer for having brought down a budget which manages to be fiscally very prudent while providing increased investment in areas of high priority, particularly health. Such a high level of responsibility in an election year is very rare indeed—and certainly unknown during the Howard-Costello-Abbott government, when election year budgets were notorious for an orgy of pork-barrelling in marginal coalition electorates, for continuing extensions of middle-class welfare and for unaffordable tax cuts for the already well-off. You will recall that Prime Minister Howard very famously in 2004 managed to spend $94 million a minute during his election speech. It was a Prime Minister who never feared to spend taxpayers’ dollars to get himself re-elected. The economic data which the Treasurer tabled last night confirms the basic facts about our economic situation, facts which the opposition is doing its very best to ignore. This data confirm that Australia is recovering from the global economic downturn more rapidly than expected and more rapidly than virtually any other country. The budget forecasts are a return to surplus in 2012-13—three years earlier than anticipated as growth returns to trend. The budget also tells us that unemployment has fallen and will continue to fall—something that those opposite do not seem to be very interested in. At the time of last year’s budget, the unemployment rate was rising and was forecast to peak at 8.5 per cent. Let me remind those opposite that today we have a five per cent unemployment rate. Furthermore, that rate is falling. Meanwhile, France has an unemployment rate of 10 per cent; the United States, 9.7 per cent; the United Kingdom, eight per cent; Germany, 7.5 per cent; and New Zealand, 7.3 per cent. We have a record in this critically important area that we can be very proud of indeed. As we have seen in recent weeks, the economic crisis in Europe is far from over and unemployment will keep rising in most of those European countries as their economies continue to lag. The US economy is still in a very fragile state. We are almost alone in having returned to growth and in having excellent prospects of continuing growth. As the Treasurer rightly said last night, we have an economic and fiscal position which is the envy of the developed world. Let me remind the opposition of some more facts. During 2009, the advanced economies, taken as a group, saw their economies contract by over three per cent, while Australia grew by 1.4 per cent with only a single quarter of negative growth. If the 1991 recession was the recession we had to have, then Wayne Swan can take the credit for this being the recession we did not have. It is also the recession we could have had. According to Treasury, without the government stimulus measures we would have gone backwards by 0.7 per cent during 2009. Also, thanks to the government stimulus measures, our recovery from the downturn has been more rapid than predicted. This time last year the forecasts for the 2009-10 financial year was negative growth of 0.5 per cent. Now we expect the figure to be a positive growth number of two per cent. None of this happened by accident. It happened partly because of continuing high demand for our exports from China and other Asian countries, and no-one will deny that, least of all us. But it also happened because of the bold, rapid and well-targeted response of the Rudd government to the global financial crisis. When the crisis struck in September 2008, the government acted boldly and quickly, on the best economic advice, to stimulate the economy to preserve jobs and save businesses from bankruptcy. The advice from the Secretary of Treasury, Dr Ken Henry, said, ‘Go early, go hard, go households,’ and that is what this government did. D2I Fifield, Sen Mitchell Senator Fifield interjecting— I0O Feeney, Sen David Senator FEENEY —The fact is that the opposition wants Australia to forget that they opposed our stimulus measures. Those opposite voted against our investments in infrastructure and against our schools building program. As we can now see very clearly, it was those projects that have served to preserve over 200,000 jobs and save thousands of small businesses from bankruptcy. If those opposite had had their way, unemployment would now be at eight or even 10 per cent, as was forecast when the crisis first struck and as is now the case in many comparable countries. The opposition criticises our stimulus spending but ignores the fact that 70 per cent of the government’s stimulus spending consisted of investments in infrastructure, projects that the previous government failed to fund because it was too busy wasting money on regional rorts and middle-class welfare for its own supporters. The Rudd government’s stimulus consisted of investment in roads, rail, ports and bridges—investments that will pay for themselves over the coming decades through higher productivity. As we can now see, it was that prompt response which kept this country out of recession, preserved Australian jobs and preserved Australian businesses. Let us look at the allegation by the opposition that this is a high-taxing government. This assertion is just plain wrong. This government cut income tax in its first budget, as we said we would during the 2007 election campaign, and we have not increased income tax in subsequent budgets. At this budget, we are delivering the third instalment of those income tax cuts. This year’s cut is worth $450 a year for someone earning $50,000 a year. As Tim Colebatch pointed out in this morning’s Melbourne Age, income tax on individuals as a share of GDP is at a 40-year low. In this budget we are cutting company tax by two per cent, from 30 per cent to 28 per cent, to help give further assistance to Australian small businesses. When one looks at the facts, when one looks at the history, one can see that those opposite are relying on tired slogans and stereotypes. It might suit them well. It might be comfortable for them to complain about the fact that Labor is the party of big government and big taxation, but the facts tell a very different story. The facts tell a story that when you were in office the rise of big government conservatism was in full flight. We had a Prime Minister who in an election speech spent $94 million a minute desperately paying off every single interest group he could lay his hands on. I am sure Senator Fifield, if he was ever struck with a bout of honesty, would be able to stand up in this place and tell us some hair-curling stories about a Treasurer who desperately tried to prevail on a Liberal Prime Minister to spend less, who desperately tried to prevail on John Howard to protect the Australian taxation base rather than fritter it away in his extravagant promises and in his orgy of pork-barrelling. These are the stories Senator Fifield could give us if he was so inclined and I would encourage him to do so. 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Barnett)—Order! Senator Feeney, I ask you to address your remarks through the chair, and I ask other senators to respect the fact that Senator Feeney has the floor. I0O Feeney, Sen David Senator FEENEY —When one looks at the facts the truth is that the Labor Party has become the party of responsible economic management in this country. It is the Labor Party that has the true claim, here and now, to be the fiscal conservatives of this country. In our very first budget Treasurer Swan produced a $21 billion surplus—a $21 billion surplus that was immediately subjected to the sabotage of coalition senators in this place. It is the Rudd Labor government that has followed the orthodox, proper advice about how to handle the global financial crisis. It is the Labor Party that produced a stimulus package that was consistent with orthodox economic thinking and it was those opposite who opposed the stimulus. It was those opposite who would rather have plunged this country into recession and abandon their own tired slogans and preconditions. Even when considering climate change, it was the Labor Party that looked for market mechanisms to produce that important reform this country needed and it was those opposite who once again went back to the tired old solutions of non-market action, non-market mechanisms and big government. So put the tired slogans aside when looking at the history and the facts. It is easy to see that those opposite in fact are not the party of small government and they are not the party of low taxation. Their record in office tells a very different story. In fact, we can see it in an article that was produced in the spring of 2006 in the journal Policy. The article, titled ‘The Rise of Big Government Conservatism’, finished with this spectacular bit of data: Even in the traditional areas of social democratic spending, emphasis— (Time expired) 2658 16:43:00 Fifield, Sen Mitchell D2I Victoria LP Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate 0 0 Senator FIFIELD —When Senator Feeney called upon me to be honest, I would like to think that I am disarmingly honest. Let me share something with the chamber. That contribution by Senator Feeney must have absolutely killed the good senator because he put in a very spirited defence of the Prime Minister, and it is well known that Senator Feeney and the Prime Minister are not the closest of colleagues. I commend him for the team game that he played there. A couple of weeks ago I was on Sky against my regular sparring partner, Mark Butler. For those colleagues who do not know Mr Butler, he is a very lovely man. I0O Feeney, Sen David Senator Feeney —Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: the senator should refer to the honourable member for Port Adelaide by his proper title. 10000 Barnett, Sen Guy (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Barnett)—I take the point of order and Mr Butler is appropriate. D2I Fifield, Sen Mitchell Senator FIFIELD —Mr Butler was looking forward to the budget. He described the budget in these terms: So this will be a very important budget for the future of Australians. A sort of budget that I think people expect to see from a Labor government and didn’t see under the previous government. Mr Butler was right: this is the sort of budget that people expect to see from a Labor government. It is a high-taxing and high-spending budget characterised by debt and deficit. Mr Butler was also right to say that this is not the sort of budget that you used to see from the coalition. He was absolutely spot-on. The previous government, and I do not want to overstate our case, was not perfect. Out of our 12 budgets, we delivered 10 surpluses. We were not perfect. We had to pay off a little bit of debt, $96-odd billion in our first budget. That was a bit beyond our control. But I have to give credit where credit is due. The current government have a perfect score: three budgets, three deficits. You have to give them that. You cannot take that away from them. When we were in office, the guessing game at each budget used to be: how big will the surplus be? We have a different guessing game under the current government: how big will the budget deficit be? The government say: ‘We ought to be congratulated. Let’s break out the champagne, because in 2010-11 the budget deficit isn’t going to be $56 billion or $57 billion. No, it’s only going to be $40 billion, so let’s break out the champagne.’ Senator Feeney was saying the government ought to be congratulated. That is the new game. This government’s budget narrative essentially has three parts, which I do not agree with. The three parts are: this government steered Australia through the global financial crisis; this government imposed fiscal discipline; this government has charted a course to surplus—and the associated media commentary now is that debt and deficit are no longer serious political and policy issues. Each proposition is wrong. The first one, that the government saved Australia from recession, is not true. What saved Australia were world-class prudential regulation, courtesy of the previous government; a strong asset position, courtesy of the previous government; a better fiscal starting position—that is, no debt—courtesy of the previous government. It was also thanks to a resources boom and the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy. The government wanted to look like they were doing something, so they embarked upon the third biggest fiscal stimulus in the world: three per cent of GDP. The government want us to believe that it is the fiscal stimulus that made the difference. If that were the case, the UK and the US would not have gone into recession, because the fiscal stimulus would have stopped it. We faced a very different circumstance to that faced by the US and Europe. The editorial in today’s Australian says: Ultimately, capitalism has been much kinder to Kevin Rudd than he has been to it. The politician who, in his essayistic period, babbled about the failure of the “great neo-liberal experiment”, did not sufficiently trust the automatic stabilisers of the open Australian economy, and its fundamental strengths, when trouble struck two years ago. Mr Rudd and Mr Swan have generally been poor judges of the economic cycle. So we do not owe thanks to the government for saving us from the recession. I will have the good grace just to focus on the quantum of the stimulus rather than its profile or quality. I will not focus on the junk spending, other than to say that I think every one of those stimulus signs on school fences around Australia will actually be a reminder to voters as they walk past of the government’s recklessness. The second flawed proposition is that of the government’s fiscal discipline. Exhibit 1: in 2009-10 the budget deficit will be a peacetime record of $57 billion—three budgets, three deficits, as we know—not exactly what I would call a fiscal straitjacket. Exhibit 2: claimed savings of $30 billion over four years. This government has invented the new concept that you count new revenue measures as savings, an interesting concept. Of the $30 billion in savings, half is from new revenue: the increase in the tobacco excise and the increase in the mining tax. New taxes do not represent fiscal restraint; they demonstrate weakness and policy sloth. In relation to savings, the most absurd statement I have heard in support of the concept of Labor’s fiscal constraint came from the Treasurer himself, who said, ‘What you are not seeing is the money we are not spending.’ So the government now have to be given credit for spending commitments that they have not made. It is a weird concept that you count, as savings, programs which you have not embarked upon. That is a seriously weird one. I am not quite getting my head around that one. Exhibit 3: spending in this budget will increase by $26 billion over the next three years, relative to last year’s record spending forecast. Exhibit 4: the government are going to be borrowing $700 million a week. Exhibit 5: government debt is going to be $94 billion in 2012-13. Exhibit 6: the interest bill will be $6.5 billion. The third proposition of this government is that it has charted a course to surplus. Wrong. What has led to this forecast surplus are parameter changes, stronger growth, stronger recovery, new taxes on tobacco and mining and heroic assumptions. This government operates on the assumption that, the more you tax and the more you hit an industry like mining, the more revenue you get and the more it grows. This budget also assumes no new spending between now and 2014. It is a con, it is a hoax and it will not happen. 2660 16:51:00 Hurley, Sen Annette E4U South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator HURLEY —It is interesting to see the opposition stripped of the excellent advice and support they had from Treasury and other government departments during the time that they were in government. Now that they are in opposition, we hear the quality of their economic expertise. While not claiming a great deal of economic expertise myself, I think I have the commonsense to understand how illogical the opposition’s position on the economy now is. They continue to say what is obviously untrue—that is, that no stimulus spending was required as a result of the global financial crisis. The opposition voted against the stimulus and have continued to rail against the stimulus spending. The result of that spending is now Australia finds itself in a period where the government’s fiscal position plus the stabilising factors that Senator Fifield quite rightly outlined—good prudential regulation et cetera—helped Australia come through the global financial crisis in a good position. Australia is in a good position to take advantage of what growth there is around the world—in China and other Asian economies and so on. As Budget Paper No. 1 says: A prolonged period of financial sector balance sheet repair and fiscal consolidation will act as a drag on recovery in the advanced economies. But that is not placing a drag on our recovery because we are in a good position to take advantage of that recovery and advance further as an economy. The opposition continually ignore what is happening elsewhere in the world. I think they should look at chart 2 on page 111 of the budget overview that shows government net debt for Australia and the G7 and they will see the minuscule position that Australia occupies in that chart compared with Canada, Germany, the UK, France, the US, Italy and Japan. It would be clear to anyone that what they are saying today is complete nonsense. They are trying to paint Australia’s debt position as being appalling. We are in a very good position compared with other world economies. What the government has done is not sit on its laurels and let the economy recover. The laurels the government sits on are to get through the global financial crisis without ever going into a technical recession. But rather than stop there and allow the recovery to continue to lift Australia’s economic position, the government has sat down and looked at the future, how we might even more consolidate our position and set ourselves up for the future—that is, by doing what the previous government failed to do, to use our economy and the natural advantages we have to ensure that Australia goes into the future with better prospects for every Australian. One of the ways to do that is to reassess the way that our resources are taxed. We had a resources spending boom by the last government which was one of the things that enabled the series of surpluses for the previous government. Did the previous government use those surpluses to provide for other industries in the future, to provide for projections into the future to ensure our future regardless of what happened to those resources? No, they did not think of the future. This government, through the proposed resources rent tax, proposes to use the resources that we have in Australia to fund infrastructure, skills training and a reduction in company tax. Why? Because it is very important that we reduce company tax and some of the drags on growth and productivity so that other industries will build up to take the place of those resources industries if the cycle turns down again. It is very clear in the Henry report that our actual rate of return from the resources sector under the ad valorum type taxes we have was going down. We were also not encouraging those industries that were marginal because the tax rate on the amount of ore or mineral produced discouraged those mines that had high costs. The resources rent tax will readjust that to ensure that those mines that were perhaps a bit too difficult because of the costs of starting up will now have those costs taken away. They will not have a big imposition of costs until they are producing product that enables them to get into the supertax area. This is a just, sensible, fair and reasonable way of approaching resources and the much higher prices for various minerals and ores in recent years. There is no reason our country should not take advantage of the greater profits from that, not just to spend willy-nilly, but also to ensure that the future of Australia is secure by encouraging other industries and the vital infrastructure that we have so badly needed in this country for so long. It is very clear that this government is looking to the future. One of the aspects that reinforce the fact that Labor governments usually look to the future is that part of the budget looks to increase savings through superannuation, so the superannuation guarantee charge will go up from nine per cent to 12 per cent. This is one of the other aspects that have been helpful to Australia, as compared to the countries of Europe and many other countries. We now have in superannuation a huge saving pool that ensures that, as we have an ageing population, we are not as badly off as many other countries around the world. We have this pool of savings that we never used to have because people were not in a position to save privately, except for the few wealthy people. So this is a well-thought pattern of readjustment to this economy that should serve Australia well into the future. But what do we see from the opposition? Plans to oppose it at every step—plans to oppose the resource rent tax. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I think many people around Australia are beginning to see that the resource rent tax might be a very sensible adjustment to the way we tax in this country. I think that, as we go along and people digest exactly what this resource rent tax is about, they will come to see that that is a practical way to go to ensure our future. The opposition’s threat to derail the government’s budget will not serve them well in the forthcoming election, I think. The attitude of the opposition—to simply oppose every measure taken by the government, to nitpick and to pick holes in government policy without proposing any reasonable policies of their own—will not sit well with the Australian public. I think this government has demonstrated why it is Labor governments that have been able to introduce the reforms—financial, fiscal and structural reforms—that the country has needed in the past—the reforms, in fact, that the Howard government used to produce the surpluses that Senator Fifield talked about. 2661 17:01:00 Bushby, Sen David HLL Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator BUSHBY —I also rise today to speak in the matter of public importance debate on the recklessly spending, high-taxing Rudd Labor government. It has been less than 24 hours since their latest budget was handed down, and over that period—we heard it this afternoon, we heard it earlier today during question time and we have heard it from most of the senior members of the Labor government—they have been crowing and pushing the message that they are paying off the debt, or at least getting back into surplus, three years earlier. They certainly make it sound to the Australian public as if they are paying off the debt three years early, but what they are talking about is bringing the budget back into surplus three years early. ‘Three years earlier than what?’ I ask. E68 Sterle, Sen Glenn Senator Sterle —Treasury forecasts, actually. HLL Bushby, Sen David Senator BUSHBY —Treasury forecasts—exactly. Now we have Treasury forecasts saying that there will be a surplus three years earlier, and the government are out there trumpeting that. But why are we in a situation where we have a deficit? The fact remains that this government is tackling a mess of its own making. In the light of the global financial crisis which hit the world a couple of years ago, there is no doubt that this government overreacted by putting together a massive stimulus package, or series of stimulus packages, that with the benefit of hindsight everybody would have to agree were too large, involved poor-quality spend and have gone for too long. How ridiculous it is that we heard last night that the Building the Education Revolution spending will continue into the 2012 year, four years after we had one quarter of negative growth. Can anybody in this place honestly tell me that we need to continue stimulus spending four years after the global financial crisis in order to keep us out of trouble? I think it is a pretty long bow to draw. E68 Sterle, Sen Glenn Senator Sterle interjecting— HLL Bushby, Sen David Senator BUSHBY —We have Senator Sterle over there saying, ‘Are you going to stop the spending in the schools?’ That is not an economic reason for continuing the stimulus package; that is a political reason. The government have gone out and promised all these new buildings for schools, and they have to keep on doing it four years after the threat has passed. They keep on spending not because there is still an economic need to go out and spend money to stimulate the economy but because they have promised it and they cannot afford politically not to deliver it. That comes with consequences, because we have to keep on borrowing money to pay for that. Continuing to spend as the economy recovers also adds inflationary pressure, which ultimately leads to added pressure for interest rates. The fact is that this government inherited the best economy in the world. We so often hear the government comparing our current situation and how well we are doing to the situation in the rest of the world. But you just have to take a step back and look at how we were placed when we went into the global financial crisis. We were the best in the world at that point. We had the lowest unemployment rate. We had more money in the bank. We were consistently delivering surpluses. If we had not been in that situation, the spend that the government did, as large and as poor quality as it was, would not have delivered the results that it did. What is more, they would not have had the flexibility to be able to do massive stimulus spending on the projects that they did. They just would not have had the available funds or the money in the bank. They would not have been able to have the notional $21 billion surplus that they were supposed to deliver in their first budget to be able to spend on it, because they just would not have had that opportunity. If they had not gone into it as well as they did, they would not be coming out as well as they are now. We as a nation are very lucky that this government inherited an economy in the shape that it did. It is the height of hypocrisy to say now that they are somehow doing well because they got us out of the mess more quickly than they thought they could. If this government were really serious about getting us out of the debt situation and putting us back in surplus, it would make the tough decisions. This year we are going to come in over $50 billion in deficit. The government is predicting that in the coming financial year we will be $40.8 billion in deficit. If this government were really serious about getting us out of debt, it would make the tough decisions and they would be in this budget. There would be serious savings. The government would be making tough decisions to cut spending and have us back in surplus in this coming year, not the year after. Get serious: if you really want to do it, do it now, show us and make tough decisions. There is not one tough decision in this budget. Another interesting fact in respect of the $40.8 billion that is due to be the deficit in the coming year and the $1 billion surplus the year after that is that, if you get into the budget and have a look at it a bit, you can see that there is an awful lot of spending that would normally have occurred in the following year—the year when we are going to have the $1 billion surplus, so they claim—but that has been brought forward by a year. Sure, it pushes up your $40.8 billion deficit in the coming year, but what it means is that the government can get their $1 billion surplus the year after. It is a very nice little trick, that one: move $10 billion or $15 billion forward a year. It fattens out the next year, but you are ignoring that, because you can now say, ‘We’ll be in surplus three years early.’ It is a nice little trick. It is important to remember also that this out of debt line, as I mentioned, refers to annual budget. It is not the net debt position. We are not going to be out of debt as a nation for close to another 10 years, even on the heroic and positive assumptions that are built into this budget. Sure, in accordance with this budget, we will be in surplus three years early—if you believe everything we are told. But it is a lot longer than that before we actually get out of debt. There is still going to be close to $100 billion net debt that has to be paid off, and that is still accumulating now. As Senator Fifield said, we are borrowing $700 million a week: $100 million a day is being added to our debt as we stand here and speak. I hate to think how much money we have had to borrow just in the few minutes that I have been standing here speaking. There is no doubt that under the Rudd Labor government Australia is rapidly heading towards new records—new highs and new lows. But the records that they are looking to set are not ones that Kevin Rudd and those sitting opposite should be proud of. On the contrary, this Labor government should be ashamed of the direction in which it has taken the nation. Sitting right at the front of the government’s historic achievements in this regard is the new record that they are setting as the biggest-spending government of all time. They claim they will return us to surplus, but the budget deficit this coming year, with a massive $40.8 billion, is the second-biggest ever—only beaten by the one they are delivering this year. 2663 17:08:00 Sterle, Sen Glenn E68 Western Australia ALP 1 0 Senator STERLE —I think this debate from the other side has been absolutely enlightening. I would like to talk about the budget, but before that: all we used to hear in here from 24 November 2007 onward was how great Peter Costello was—‘the great Peter Costello,’ and, ‘Thank you, Mr Costello’. Isn’t it absolutely amazing that since the sabres were brought out late last year and the Liberal leadership was executed and replaced with Mr Abbott we do not hear about Mr Costello any more. Why do we not hear about Mr Costello? I would be very interested to get Senator Fifield’s feel on this one, because I think they were pretty good mates and good supporters of each other. But, quite clearly, no mention of Peter Costello: why? Let us think what Peter Costello said about Mr Abbott when he gained the leadership of the Liberal Party— D2I Fifield, Sen Mitchell Senator Fifield —Peter is still in our warm embrace! E68 Sterle, Sen Glenn Senator STERLE —Please, Senator Fifield, correct me through the chair if I am wrong: I think it was that he was incompetent in economics and he would not have him as his deputy. Then Mr Abbott went on to say something about condemning the Rudd stimulus package—of which $42 billion went to infrastructure—that we should have the same as New Zealand. Now his deputy, Ms Bishop, said we should just sit back and wait—even the deputy could not have a decent contribution to the debate. But let us go back to New Zealand, shall we? No stimulus package—beauty! No worries: five consecutive quarters in recession. Mr Abbott said, ‘Let’s do what New Zealand did’. D2I Fifield, Sen Mitchell Senator Fifield —But they’ve been recovering from a Labour government! E68 Sterle, Sen Glenn Senator STERLE —Not only would there be five consecutive quarters of recession but unemployment, Senator Fifield, through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, is hovering around 7.3 per cent. But if I am wrong I am sure Senator Fifield will come to the defence of the leader of the Liberal Party, a person who just thinks that economics is boring. It just says it all Anyway, we do not hear a lot. I am not hearing a lot over there now, so I must be on the money. I want to get back to the budget. There have been some wonderful announcements in the budget, there is no mistake about that. I would like to talk about health: an extra $2.2 billion in health investment that will take us to a reform of $7.3 billion over five years, which adds up to about $23 billion over the rest of the decade. Where is the leader of the Liberal Party, Mr Abbott, on this, who is the ex-health minister from the Howard government? What was his main claim to fame? His main claim to fame was that he ripped out $1 billion from the health portfolio. Time does not allow me to go through verse by verse on how good the budget it. It is a responsible budget. But there is one part of the budget that I do want to home in on in the short time that I have left, and that is the big spending on jobs and skills training. Unfortunately, the minister responsible has left the chamber, but I do want to take this time to congratulate him; he is a minister with foresight. The minister had foresight when that fantastic gas site off the coast of Western Australia was announced—the Chevron operated Gorgon project. The Prime Minister, the Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister Ferguson, and Minister Arbib actually thought, ‘Heck, we’ve got some problems.’ This government took over the reigns during a global financial crisis, but even when things were going well—and I come from that fantastic state of Western Australia, where mining is just about everything—what did the Howard government do in their 12 years? They sat there and witnessed the boom. They wasted the boom. I know the word ‘boom’ gives some people problems, particularly people like the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I was in a conference in Karratha a few years ago, and this is their line of thinking: we should not call it the boom, we should call it a ‘once in a lifetime paradigm shift’. This is the sort of nonsense that you have got to put up with—it goes on. But to cut a long story short, they squandered the boom—they cut back in skills training and they cut back in apprenticeships. What did they leave us? A massive hole. Thank goodness for the Prime Minister, for Minister Ferguson and Minister Arbib for having the foresight to say, ‘What are we going to do? Where are we going to get these workers when the Gorgon project gets off and running?’ Through the hard work of the Hon. Gary Gray, the member for Brand, who is chairing the National Resource Sector Employment Taskforce, we have sat down and consulted extensively with industry—mining, construction, gas and the whole resource sector—and asked, ‘Can someone please tell us how we can identify, if all these mining projects go to final investment decision in the next five to 10 years, how many workers we will need?’ We think we know from the good work of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy and APIA and the like around the country that we will need 80,000 workers in construction alone and 30,000 in production in the next five to 10 years. So I want to applaud Minister Arbib for his foresight and the Treasurer, Mr Swan, for the big spending blitz on skills training. I will list a few key points, if I may. There will be $661 million for the Skills for Sustainable Growth strategy. That is fantastic, as this area was very seriously lacking and nonexistent in the Howard years. There will be $300 million to address skill hot spots, with a $200 million critical skills investment fund to support training through partnerships with industry. It is expected to fund no fewer than 39,000 training places. Also, there will be $79 million for small and medium businesses to take on young traditional trade apprentices. This is all fantastic foresight, which was seriously lacking throughout the Howard years. There will be $20 million to encourage competency based apprenticeships. As someone who was fortunate enough to have been awarded the Centenary Medal by the Prime Minister at the time, Mr Howard, for services to training in the transport industry, training is close to my heart. I am happy to have an argument with any senator or member about the need for training and skilling young Australians. There has been a lot of conjecture over the new Resource Super Profits Tax, but I want to bring to the chamber’s attention a full-page article in the West Australian—that fine newspaper in WA—on 27 April 2010 written by Ms Gina Rinehart. Ms Rinehart is very well known in mining circles. She is also Australia’s richest woman, and good luck to her; I wish I could say I was Australia’s richest man. I would be happy to be in the top 20,000 but, unfortunately, I am never going to get there. In her article Ms Rinehart talks about Rio Tinto, one of those mining giants which are all around Australian but particularly in Western Australia, and how it has taken advantage of the African country of Guinea’s: … relatively low labour costs to export iron ore in increasing quantities to Asian markets, markets that we would like to think of as Australia’s forever. These changes will occur in the near future—within four to five years—meaning that Australia has a very short time to prepare. I take it that means to prepare with low labour costs. I am quoting bits and pieces but I am happy to table or supply any senator on the other side with a copy of this article. If they want a copy, I have got many in my office and am very happy to pass it on so that they can read it themselves. Ms Rinehart goes on to say: In West Australia, as the Gorgon project and other resource developments occur, we must address a critical problem that is already becoming obvious again, that is, the shortage of construction workers willing to work in remote Northern areas. That is not news to us; we know that very well. Ms Rinehart continues: Let’s remember Asian markets will not want to buy more expensive minerals from Australia, their priority will turn to countries that can supply minerals competitively. Does that mean that she will take a drop in her profit for the sale of iron ore? We are not sure, but she says that Australia must set up special economic zones, either brownfield or greenfield, and she then goes on to say that we as a nation should not build these massive mining projects in the north of Western Australia using Australian labour—because it is too expensive. She is saying, ‘We must build these projects in a northern economic zone with cheap overseas labour.’ As a proud Western Australian and a senator for Western Australia, I will go to my grave fighting for Australian jobs and Australian conditions. I understand that we need robust migration systems but I will be damned if I will see Australian jobs go offshore. (Time expired) 2666 17:19:00 Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta E4T New South Wales LP 0 0 Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS —Madam Acting Deputy President, perhaps I could say to Senator Sterle: before you come in here parroting K Rudd’s words, you might check your facts. For example, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australian government expenditure on public hospitals increased every year from approximately $5.2 billion in 1995-96 to over $12 billion in 2007-08, and from 1995-96 annual spending on health and aged care by the Australian government more than doubled, from $19.5 billion in 1995-96 to $51.8 billion in 2007-08. So might I suggest, Senator, that you get your facts right before you come in here parroting K Rudd’s lies and misleading statements. 10000 Hurley, Sen Annette (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hurley)—Senator Fierravanti-Wells, I assume you mean— E4T Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS —I withdraw ‘lies’ and refer to misleading statements. 10000 ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT, The The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Could you refer to members of the lower house by their correct title. E4T Fierravanti-Wells, Sen Concetta Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS —Prime Minister K Rudd. It is very clear that this government has now racked up a massive debt of $40.8 billion, the second biggest sum since World War II. The Prime Minister will have to borrow over $700 million a week to fund his reckless and wasteful spending. So what are the government going to do? They are going to go out and con the most frail and vulnerable people of this country. That is how they are going to mislead and that is where they are going to go and raid moneys from to pay for their reckless spending. In 2007, in their own document, Labor promised a new direction for older Australians, improving the transition between hospital and aged care. What is happening? It is the complete opposite—another con, a blatant broken promise. Mr Rudd is doing the opposite to what he promised in 2007. Surprise, surprise! The government are keeping people in hospitals because they are raiding the money for the nursing home beds. What is the Prime Minister going to tell our frail and aged Australians and their families, who are waiting for nursing home beds, now that the money that was put aside in special appropriations for the building of nursing home beds has been raided to prop up failed state and territory hospital systems and to buy them off so that they would support the Prime Minister’s grand health plan? In August 2007 Mr Rudd talked about: … not providing enough aged care beds, and people are becoming bed blockers in acute hospital beds. That is part of the real problem nationwide. So, in short, Mr Rudd’s bed blockers have now become the long-stay older patients, or LSOPs in Mr Ruddspeak. Surprisingly, the minister could not even get his facts right because he referred to the wrong program. But what is happening? They have taken the money that has been set aside for nursing home beds, and we are finding that providers in the aged care sector are calling out that the sector is in crisis. Forty per cent of providers are operating in the red with a very, very minimal return. Nursing home beds are not being built. As I said earlier, according to Aged and Community Services Australia, aged care is ‘in rags’. According to the ACC, Aged and Community Care Victoria, the budget fails frail aged again. According to Anglicare, Australians living at the margins are ‘largely forgotten yet again’. According to COTA, aged care is still in waiting. And according to Alzheimer’s Australia, one million Australians have been ‘forgotten in the federal budget’. So that is the real story. They have overspent, so now they have to go out to rob one area of the budget to buy off the states, in this case, as far as aged care is concerned. So what are they doing? They are redirecting funds; therefore when older Australians and their families cannot get a nursing home bed in this country, the person they are going to blame is Kevin Rudd. In 2007 Labor said that the average cost of acute public hospital beds was around $967, whereas the average cost in an aged care home was about $100. We are now going to pay nine times more to keep people in hospitals instead of moving them to appropriate nursing home beds. Debate interrupted. 2667 Committees 2667 2667 2667 17:24:00 Coonan, Sen Helen 2M6 New South Wales LP 0 0 Senator COONAN —I present the fifth report of 2010 of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. I also lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 5 of 2010, dated 12 May 2010. Ordered that the report be printed. 2M6 Coonan, Sen Helen Senator COONAN —I move: That the Senate take note of the report. I seek leave to incorporate a tabling statement in Hansard. Leave granted. The statement read as follows— SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE FOR THE SCRUTINY OF BILLS TABLING STATEMENT Alert Digest No. 5 and Fifth Report of 2010 12 May 2010 In tabling the Committee’s Alert Digest No. 5 of 2010 and its Fifth Report of 2010 I draw the Senate’s attention to the Committee’s comments on:provisions which seek to incorporate material by reference; and the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. The Committee’s Alert Digest No. 5 contains a number of comments in relation to bills which seek to rely on information contained in another instrument ‘as in force from time-to-time’. The Committee’s concern with provisions which take this approach is that they allow a change in obligations to be imposed without Parliament’s knowledge or without the opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise any variation. These provisions can create uncertainty in the law, and could mean that those obliged to obey the law do not have adequate access to its terms. A further complexity is that incorporating material by reference is often combined with a delegation of power. For example, a proposed section of the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 20101 currently before Parliament empowers the Minister, by legislative instrument, to make a determination relating to ingredients in medicines. The section also provides that a determination may refer to other instruments or documents ‘as in force or existing from time to time’. The Committee recognises that there are circumstances in which it may be appropriate to incorporate material by reference, but considers that a thorough explanation of the need for this approach should be included in the explanatory memorandum. The explanation should any highlight any circumstances which minimise the likelihood of uncertainty for those who are affected by the law – for example, that there is a commitment to undertake appropriate consultation before incorporating material by reference, or that the material being incorporated is a widely‑used and recognised industry standard. It is also useful if the explanatory memorandum identifies whether there will be adequate access to the material being incorporated from ‘time to time’. I also draw to the Senate’s attention the Committee’s comments on the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. This bill includes amendments to the Criminal Code and the Crimes Act in response to several reviews, including the 2008 Inquiry by the Hon John Clarke QC into the case of Dr Mohamed Haneef. The Committee acknowledges the fine considerations that sometimes need to be balanced to maintain both the security of the community and the protection of personal rights. As is its usual practice, without considering the policy merit of the bill the Committee has scrutinised its provisions against the Committee’s terms of reference in Standing Order 24. In relation to some provisions the Committee is seeking further information from the Attorney‑General about their operation and the justification for the proposed approach. In relation to other aspects of the bill, the Committee draws the provisions to the attention of Senators and leaves consideration of them to the Senate as a whole. I commend the Committee’s Alert Digest No. 5 of 2010 and Fifth Report of 2010 to the Senate. ————— 1 Proposed subsection 26BB(1) Question agreed to. 2668 17:24:00 Coonan, Sen Helen 2M6 New South Wales LP 0 0 Senator COONAN —I present an interim report of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills on its inquiry into the future direction and role of the committee. Ordered that the Senate adopt the recommendation of the report. The report read as follows— STANDING COMMITTEE FOR THE SCRUTINY OF BILLS SCRUTINY OF BILLS COMMITTEE INTERIM REPORT The Committee has made progress with its inquiry into the future direction and role of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and has received 35 submissions to date. On 21 April 2010 the Government announced as part of its Australia’s Human Rights Framework policy the establishment of a new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to review legislation against human rights obligations. The Parliamentary Joint Committee is to be established by legislation. The work of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights is likely to have an impact on the remit of the work of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. It will be relevant for the Scrutiny of Bills Committee to consider the content of the enabling legislation before it can develop an informed view of its own future role and direction. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee is seeking to continue the inquiry into its future role and direction once the legislation to establish the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has been introduced. The Committee will also then be able to suggest to the Senate a new tabling date for its final report. Recommendation That the time for the presentation of the committee’s report on this inquiry be extended, with the reporting date to be determined after the introduction of legislation to establish the proposed Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Committee thanks all of the individuals and organisations that have made submissions and been involved in the inquiry so far. Senator the Hon Helen Coonan Chair 12 May 2010 2M6 Coonan, Sen Helen Senator COONAN —The committee looks forward to taking this inquiry forward once the shape of the new Australian Human Rights Framework is clear. Question agreed to. 2669 2669 2669 17:27:00 Lundy, Sen Kate 7G6 Australian Capital Territory ALP 1 0 Senator LUNDY —On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I table a statement on the draft budget estimates for the Australian National Audit Office for 2010-11, and seek leave to incorporate the statement in Hansard. Leave granted. The statement read as follows— REPORT BY THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT ON THE 2010-2011 DRAFT ESTIMATES FOR THE AUDIT OFFICE Mr President, the Public Accounts and Audit Committee Act requires the Committee to consider ‘draft estimates for the Audit Office’, with the Committee ultimately making a statement to the Senate following the budget on whether, in our opinion, the Auditor‑General has been given sufficient funding to carry out his duties.  In support of this process, the Auditor-General is empowered under his Act to disclose his budget proposals to the Committee, which we then consider and use to make representations to Government as necessary.  This process reflects both the Committee’s status as the Parliament’s audit committee, and the Auditor‑General’s status as an independent officer of the Parliament.  The Committee met with the Auditor-General in February to review the Audit Office’s budget proposals for the coming financial year.  The Auditor-General advised that he would be seeking additional funding of $5.6 million over five years in this year’s budget. The additional funding was to be applied in three main areas.  First, the Audit Office sought $5.3 million for audit work required following the establishment, and projected expansion, of the National Broadband Network Company Limited.  This additional audit work is mandatory under section 13 of the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act, which requires the Audit Office to audit the financial statements of Commonwealth companies and their subsidiaries.  The additional expense will be offset in full by audit fee revenue, although in this context it is important to note that such revenue is returned to the budget rather than being available to the Audit Office. As we said in our corresponding statement last year, the Committee believes that the Audit Office should be fully funded for any new obligations that Government places upon it, particularly where new agencies are established.  The Committee is therefore pleased that the Audit Office has received the additional funding it sought in this year’s budget in relation to the NBN Company Limited.  The Committee also notes that the recent transfer of the Office of Indigenous Evaluation and Audit from the Department of Finance to the Audit Office has been properly accompanied by ongoing funding of approximately $4 million per year.     The Auditor-General advised the Committee in February that he would also be seeking an additional $1.5 million over five years in support of his reviews of compliance of proposed government advertising campaigns with guidelines for agencies issued in July 2008.  This funding request was withdrawn late in the budget process when, following a review of the guidelines by Dr Allan Hawke, the Auditor‑General’s role in providing review reports on proposed advertising campaigns was abolished on 31 March.  Finally, the Audit Office sought $5.3 million for the period 2009-10 to 2013-14, partially offset by audit fees of approximately $1.2 million, to meet the workload associated with the full revision to the Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards, which reflect changes to international auditing standards.  As a result of these changes, some 41 revised auditing standards become effective in 2010-11.  The changes result in an increase of about a third in mandatory auditing procedures, with the extent of new requirements exceeding 20 per cent.  The changes therefore increase financial statement audit effort significantly, and require updates to audit methodology and related training.  The Audit Office has not been successful in its bid for funding this year for this additional workload.  While this is disappointing, the Committee acknowledges that in last year’s budget the Audit Office, with the Committee’s strong support, received an additional $20.1 million over four years. This enabled the Audit Office to restore its target number of performance audits to the traditional level of around 50 audits per year, following a reduction to 45 for the 2008-09 financial year.   The Audit Office’s total revenue from Government is estimated at $73 million in 2010-11.  Mr President, the Auditor-General has advised that his appropriation for the year ahead will allow him to meet his obligations, including maintaining his targets for production of performance audit reports and public sector “Better Practice Guides”.  The Committee therefore endorses the budget proposed for the Audit Office for 2010-11.  However, the Committee is concerned by the lack of new funding in support of the revision to the Auditing and Assurance Standards.  While the new standards should enhance public confidence in the quality and relevance of audit services, the Committee is of the view that they will significantly increase the effort required to audit the financial statements of public sector entities.  Based on its internal analysis and external assessments, most notably from the UK, the Audit Office estimates that the new requirements will result in an average increase of five per cent in financial statement audit effort, based on its auditee profile of 275 small entities and 34 material entities.  Given that the financial statement audits, and the associated professional standards, are mandatory obligations for the Audit Office, there is a risk that ongoing budget pressure in this important area of audit activity may in time force the Auditor‑General to again reduce his program of performance audits and Better Practice Guides.  The Committee continues to assert that any such downgrade would be a false economy, and not in the interests of either the Parliament or the people it serves.  The Committee notes that the Auditor-General made a similarly unsuccessful request in last year’s budget for additional funding to meet the costs of the revision to the Auditing and Assurance Standards, and previously received only partial funding for the substantial increase in audit workload arising from the introduction, from 2008-09, of the General Government Sector financial statement. The Committee therefore flags its support for any request by the Auditor-General, in next year’s budget process, for additional funding to meet the costs of the revised auditing standards.  In the longer term, the Committee also notes that the Auditor‑General has previously suggested that it would be desirable to have in place arrangements that allow the Audit Office’s funding to be adjusted in line with changes in the scale of the public sector, and agrees that this matter requires further consideration to ensure that the Audit Office is properly funded into the future and able to discharge its responsibilities to the Parliament. I move: That the Senate take note of the document. Question agreed to. 2670 2670 2670 17:27:00 Bushby, Sen David HLL Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator BUSHBY —On behalf of Senator Nash, the Chair of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, I present correction to the first report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on the possible impacts and consequences for public health, trade and agriculture of the government’s decision to relax restrictions on beef. Ordered that the document be printed. 2671 Miscellaneous 2671 17:28:00 Hurley, Sen Annette (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) 10000 PO N/A 1 0 The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hurley) —The President has received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Abetz, nominating a senator to be a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia. Senator STEPHENS (New South Wales —Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and Parliamentary Secretary for the Voluntary Sector) 17:29:00 —by leave—I move: That, in accordance with the provisions of the National Library Act 1960, the Senate elect Senator Trood to be a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia on and from 13 June 2010, for a period of 3 years. Question agreed to. 2671 Committees 2671 10000 Hurley, Sen Annette (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hurley)—Order! The President has received letters requesting changes in the membership of various committees. 2671 17:29:00 Stephens, Sen Ursula 00AOS New South Wales ALP Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and Parliamentary Secretary for the Voluntary Sector 1 0 Senator STEPHENS —by leave—I move: That senators be discharged from and appointed to committees as follows: Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity—Joint Statutory Committee— Discharged—Senator Johnston Appointed—Senator Fierravanti-Wells Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee— Appointed—Substitute member: Senator McLucas to replace Senator Marshall for the consideration of the 2010-11 Budget estimates from 24 May to 26 May 2010 Privileges—Standing Committee— Discharged—Senators Brandis (from 14 May 2010) and Collins Appointed—Senators Feeney and Johnston (from 14 May 2010) Procedure—Standing Committee— Appointed—Senator Brandis Regulations and Ordinances—Standing Committee— Discharged—Senator Wortley Appointed—Senator Collins. Question agreed to. 2671 2671 10000 Hurley, Sen Annette (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hurley)—The President has received letters from the House of Representatives informing the Senate of the appointment of Mr Danby, Mr Fletcher, Mr Hawke, Mr Perret, Mr Oakeshott, Mr Ripoll and Ms Vamvakinou to the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety. 2671 Bills R4193 2671 Bills R4242 2671 Bills R4266 2671 Bills R4257 2671 Bills R4298 2671 Bills R4258 2671 Bills R4294 2672 Bills R4270 2672 Bills R4269 2672 Bills R4302 2672 Bills R4303 2672 Bills R4189 2672 Bills R4151 2672 Bills R4153 2672 Bills R4152 2672 Bills S712 2672 Bills R4014 2672 Bills R4309 2672 Bills R4268 2672 Bills R4267 2672 Bills R4241 2672 Bills R4256 2672 Bills R4251 2672 Bills R4203 2672 Bills R4074 2672 Bills R4275 2672 Bills R4262 2672 Bills R4154 2672 Bills R4293 2672 Messages from the Governor-General reported informing the Senate of assent to the bills. 2672 Committees 2672 2672 2672 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL —At the request of the Chair of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator Siewert, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Health Practitioner Regulation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2673 2673 2673 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL At the request of the Chair of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator Hurley, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 2) Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2673 2673 2673 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL At the request of the Chair of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, Senator Siewert, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Health Insurance Amendment (Pathology Requests) Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2673 2673 2673 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL At the request of the Chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator Crossin, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Personal Property Securities (Corporations and Other Amendments) Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2673 2673 2673 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL At the request of the Chair of the Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Legislation Committee, Senator McEwen, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2673 2673 2673 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL At the request of the Chair of the Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Legislation Committee, Senator McEwen, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2673 2673 2673 17:31:00 Farrell, Sen Don I0N South Australia ALP 1 0 Senator FARRELL At the request of the Chair of the Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Legislation Committee, Senator McEwen, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Bill 2010, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. Ordered that the report be printed. 2674 Bills R4295 2674 Debate resumed. 2674 17:32:00 McGauran, Sen Julian WH4 Victoria LP 0 0 Senator McGAURAN —In continuation from earlier today, I am debating with my colleagues in this chamber the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. As I said earlier this afternoon, the coalition supports the bill. We are giving our support to the government because in essence the bill tightens and clarifies certain criminal offences regarding people smuggling. We support it because it defines and extends the investigative powers of such critical agencies as ASIO, no less. But, as I said, this bill is too little too late—it does not go to the core of the problem, and the problem is we have a surge of boats coming to our shores virtually unchecked. Certainly, most of them are getting picked up—not all, tragically. As I left the debate earlier I announced in this chamber that the Hon. Brendan O'Connor, Minister for Home Affairs, has said that yet another boat has made it through our border security. I do not think the government has announced it other than by press release—certainly the minister has not come into this chamber and said anything. Mr O’Connor said that yesterday afternoon, 54 nautical miles south-south-west of Scott Reef, a boat with 48 people on board was picked up. It was picked by no less than the Oceanic Viking, still out there working the refugee trade when it should be assigned to more productive areas down south. As I mused earlier, how lucky are those refugees to see the name Oceanic Viking? It brings back all the memories of when the government was blackmailed last year by a group of refugees who got a special deal because they would not remove themselves from the boat. Mr O’Connor said in his press release that while the nationality of these asylum seekers is not known, if they happen to be Sri Lankan or Afghans, the government, under its announcement of 9 April 2010, will not be processing them—at least not for at least six months. That is the new law that the government has introduced—the new dictum. I would have thought that to be the wrong end to introduce it. I would have thought that to be a little inhumane. I thought you built your case—your humane case, your moral case, with the minister trumpeting and yelling and shouting from his podium—on the fact that the processing would be done quickly. You are confused. You are absolutely confused. Now you are not going to process them if they happen to come from Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, the very two countries you said were the push factors. You built your case on the push factors from these two countries; now you will not even process people from there. I think that is inhumane and I think that collapses your whole case in regard to border security. You ought to stop the boats before they leave, not treat the people inhumanely when they get here. They have a right to be processed, seeing as you have now picked them up. So the point is this: your case in regard to push factors has now been turned totally on its head. You are now not processing Sri Lankans and Afghans, because you do not think the problems lie in the countries that you once said they did—they are no longer the push factors, so you have banned processing. What a con; what a bunch of frauds! Even on this issue the Australian people do not know where you stand. And, while you are not processing Afghans and Sri Lankans anymore, you happen to allow three or more—I am not sure—unsavoury characters who ought to be sent home because the weight of evidence that they are not fit characters is compelling. Who can forget back in April of last year the explosion of SIEV36 off Ashmore Reef? That was a very dramatic affair where the government allowed the Navy to swing in the wind when they were accused of not acting properly under those sorts of pressures. Of course, the coroner in the Northern Territory found otherwise. I have never heard the minister come in here and defend the Navy in their actions. Of course, they acted honourably, they acted properly and they acted according to the book. There happened to be some characters there found guilty by the coroner of setting that boat alight, but they are allowed residency in this country, perhaps pending charges or perhaps not. There is an ability under the law for the minister to act without waiting for the DPP and I say he ought to. There are contradictions everywhere now in your policy. You are allowing unsavoury characters who put a light to the ship and cost the lives of five people. You have allowed the Navy to swing in the wind. You now no longer will process Afghans and Sri Lankans. Yet you will not change the core of your policy and the core of your policy is the problem: temporary protection visas, for example—no onshore processing. You would have none of these problems—the onshore processing problem you have now or the bursting at the seams of Christmas Island where people are living in tents—if you had a tough policy. How humane is that policy? You do not have a humane policy at all and you do not have a tough policy at all, as much as you trumpet around that you are getting tough, such as this legislation which has now become your cornerstone. It is not humane and it is not tough and you will not do anything about it. Either you are caught up in the politics of it or you are just plain weak. You are playing with Australia’s border security, you are playing with people’s lives and you are playing with people who are waiting in the queues of the refugee camps. Make no mistake: this is old-fashioned queue jumping. They are not my words; they are the words of the United Nations High Commissioner. He claims that such asylum seekers that make their way to Australia or anywhere are queue jumpers and he used the word ‘queue jumper’, I should add. Where is the morality in your policy? 2675 17:39:00 Bernardi, Sen Cory G0D South Australia LP 0 0 Senator BERNARDI —In rising to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 I would like to repeat and endorse some of the comments that have been made by some of my colleagues. The purpose of this bill is quite simply to make changes to the country’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework. The aim is to create a range of new offences relating to people smuggling, extend the penalties for the most serious forms of people smuggling and make changes to six acts, including the Criminal Code and Migration Act—all worthy changes. The changes that this bill seeks to make to the Criminal Code relate to targeting the people who provide assistance to people smugglers, whether it be through financial, organisational or other means. The penalty for this offence is a fine of $110,000, imprisonment for a maximum of 10 years or both. Changes to the Migration Act include offences for people who provide support to people smugglers, higher penalties for multiple offenders and a maximum 20-year prison term for those involved in aggravated smuggling crimes. This bill aims to extend the emergency authorisation provisions in the Surveillance Devices Act to offences under the Migration Act. It aims to simplify the criteria for the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act that agencies need to satisfy when they apply for telecommunications interception warrants against people smugglers. The bill aims to redefine the term ‘security’ in relation to the ASIO Act so that ASIO can do the job that we ask or expect them to do. In speaking in support of these changes, it cannot but occur to me that these changes are necessary because of the dereliction of duty and responsibility that this government has had towards Australia’s border security. There is nothing so annoying as to have listened to the voluble and many interjections and claims from the other side that their policies have had nothing whatsoever to do with the influx of illegal arrivals. For two years we have been hearing from those on the other side claiming that their change of policies had nothing to do with the increased boat arrivals in this country. We know that is now hogwash because they are attempting to change their own legislation to tighten it up. It is unlikely to work because the changes that they have announced have not stopped the arrivals. They have not stopped the boats. We have not seen Mr Rudd turn the boats back. The government has maintained for two years that it is push factors that are bringing people here. If it is push factors that are bringing people here, why do we need to change these domestic arrangements? The government knows that what it has been saying is codswallop. It knows that it has been trying to spin its way out of this, but it is catching up with the government. It is catching up with the government because the Australian people are sick and tired of a government that has lost control not only of our financial situation but also of its borders. I have said before that a nation that loses control of its borders loses control of its destiny. The Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, says: ... I make the point that push factors are responsible for the increased movement of people ... Wrong. Senator Wortley says: This situation has been driven by the push factors of conflict, persecution and insecurity ... How is changing our domestic legislation going to change that? It is not. It is more spin from the Rudd government and from Senator Wortley. Senator Wong, the minister for failed policies, has now claimed: The reality is that there are a great many factors contributing to the increase of asylum seekers around the world and in Australia. That is why the government has in place a strong border protection regime. Senator Wong will probably pick up the border protection regime because it is another failed policy to put in her suite of ministerial failed policy portfolio. Senator McEwen says: They are the classic factors that see people in many countries attempt to find safe haven and secure future in an alternative country. They are what we call the push factors. I could go on. Senator Pratt—master of the push factor—Senator Bishop, Senator Carol Brown, Senator Carol Brown again, Senator Evans—I could go on and on and on. They have blamed everyone else and they have refused to acknowledge or accept there is a direct correlation from when they changed the border protection policies that worked so effectively under the previous government. There is a red dot on the graph and then it skyrocketed. When they changed the policy the boats started coming. It is interesting to note the Department of Immigration and Citizenship are five weeks behind in updating the graph on their website—five weeks of shame, five weeks of boats—because they clearly cannot keep up. They cannot tally it. Maybe it has gone off the scale. They have to get a new axis. Whilst this government is trying to do something here, it is doing too little, too late. We support these measures. As the shadow minister, Scott Morrison, said: In this bill, we are supporting a policy that we believe will help and will add. We believe it will help and, if it does help, it will make a mockery of what those on the treasury benches, on the government side of this chamber, have been saying for two years. It is too little, too late from a government that has lost complete control. Labor have made a mess of Australia’s border protection policies and they will not be able to make up for the effect of these soft policies that Mr Rudd and his incompetent team of ministers have implemented. These measures alone will not make up for that. They do not offer a comprehensive solution to the border security problem that Mr Rudd and his government have created. These are soft policies that have encouraged people smugglers and they have resulted in the highest rate of arrivals on record. We are getting not three boats a year; we are getting three boats a week. Three boatloads of people are prepared to risk their lives and pay tens of thousands of dollars to people smugglers to come to Australia knowing that the policies of this government are soft. We have heard about the $1.2 million contract to put these illegals up in a resort-style hotel. It is alarming. I am sure the Australian people would be alarmed at the headline today in the Age: ‘Private VIP jets transport asylum seekers’. This government spent $5.6 million to 15 March of this financial year on luxury chartered jets. It spent $3.6 million on 48 chartered flights the year before and $5.6 million this year. What are these chartered jets doing? They are flying these people who have arrived in this country illegally from the overcrowded detention centre on Christmas Island, which the same party in opposition said was going to be a white elephant, to resort-style accommodation in Queensland. I know many Australian families who would love to be put up at taxpayers’ expense in resort-style accommodation in Queensland—many of them—particularly if they are going to get flown there in a private VIP jet that normally flies VIP flights for celebrities. E5D Joyce, Sen Barnaby Senator Joyce —Kevin. G0D Bernardi, Sen Cory Senator BERNARDI —And Kevin. I wonder if they complain about the sandwiches they get or that hair dryers are not available, like our own Prime Minister, who set such a bad example. This government has lost control. It does not know what it is doing anymore and it is putting together a range of interim measures to try and arrest the decline in its public standing. The problem is that they can arrest the decline in their public standing, they can try and do some window-dressing on their soft border protection policies and they can try and patch up or cover up the failures and put them in the basket of the minister for failed policies, Senator Wong. They can try and do all that. The problem is the Australian people no longer believe their rhetoric. They can no longer believe a word that comes out of the mouth of our own Prime Minister, and what a sad day that is for this country. What a sad day it is when the Australian people, who placed so much faith in Mr Rudd, can no longer rely on anything he says because, as I mentioned earlier, the government said for two years their soft border protection policies were not responsible for the influx of illegal arrivals by boat. They said that repeatedly—minister after minister, lacklustre backbencher after lacklustre backbencher. They have dutifully come in here and trotted out the lines given to them by command central and they have told the Australian people, ‘It’s not our fault.’ This bill indicates it is their fault. The coalition has some form in protecting Australia’s borders. In the last six years of the coalition government, after the Pacific solution was implemented, only three boats arrived per year—three boats per year versus three boats per week. I think our record compares rather favourably with the very poor record of this government. Since the Labor government softened Australia’s border protection policies in August 2008, 122 boats—this is as at 11 May, so it could be 127 or something by now—with 5,624 people have arrived here illegally. In the 2009-10 financial year alone, over 4,500 people arrived in 98 boats, and this financial year is not even over yet. There are going to be many more luxury VIP chartered jets and many more resort hotel accommodations provided to the many more people that will risk life and limb to come to Australia, thanks to Kevin Rudd’s policies. But there is still an opportunity for Mr Rudd and his government to try their hardest to solve the problem. There is still an opportunity. But Mr Rudd has not only failed the Australian people by softening our border protection policies; he is failing the Australian people financially. In this most recent budget—a budget that covers up the failings of this government, that covers up the fact that at the rate of $1 billion every three years it is going to take 450 years for them to pay off their $150-something billion debt—they have $202 million for more places in detention. Does that indicate that there is a problem? Common sense would say that it does. There is going to be another $97 million for more Christmas Island infrastructure. It seems like only yesterday they were shipping in the bunk beds to double up in every room. Now they need another $97 million for infrastructure to cope with the influx of illegals. There is going to be $16 million for the lease of an extra ship to patrol our northern waters. It is a good idea but it should not be necessary. It should not be necessary, because we should be having a tight border protection policy that stops people wanting to come here, or they should come here through the appropriate, reasonable and legal channels. They should not be jumping the queue. They should not be coming here knowing that Kevin Rudd is going to put them up in resort-style accommodation and fly them in VIP jets around the country. This is not what the Australian people expect. What I find equally galling in this budget is that there is apparently $6 million for two of Mr Rudd’s officials to work in Kabul to resettle those Afghanis that have been rejected here for asylum. Two officials and $6 million for the people that were sent home and told, ‘No, you are not allowed here, because you are not a refugee.’ It beggars belief. This is a government that is completely out of control. It is spending Australian taxpayers’ money flying people around the country in VIP jets, putting them up in resort hotel accommodation and then giving them counselling when they send them home. There is something severely wrong with these priorities. If people are coming here and they are not found to be genuine refugees and they are being sent home, is it really Australia’s responsibility? These are people who have lied to the Australian public; they are lying to officials. Clearly they are not genuine refugees and they claim to be. We are spending $6 million on two officials, according to press reports. Nice work if you can get it. The coalition has had a commitment to strong border protection right through its time in office. When we realised there was a problem and the problem was getting out of hand, we took tough measures to do it. And we copped a lot of pain for it: the inflamed rhetoric on the other side about cruel and inhumane treatment, about people having to wait for quite significant amounts of time to get temporary protection visas or to have their status assessed. It is far less cruel than having people floating across the ocean in an esky—we had a couple of arrivals by esky. People conveniently forget that. We have those that jump off their leaky boats and try and swim to safety and are never seen again. What sort of a government do we have when they think that is the humane thing and the appropriate thing to do? As Senator McGauran said in his earlier comments, the moral thing to do is to put in place policies that will stop the boats from coming. We do not want more people in peril. This goes a little way towards it. It makes a joke and a mockery of all the government’s arguments about how it is not their fault. It makes a joke of all of that, but it is a start. But if it takes them three years of denial to realise that they have a responsibility to the Australian people to secure Australia’s borders, how long is it going to take them to implement a policy that is actually going to stop the boats from coming? I fear for the future of our nation if this government is re-elected for another term. I fear it on a number of fronts. We see the nationalisation of industry, we see the great sovereign risk attached to their rapid changes in the business and commercial environment with regard to broadband, to mining tax. We have seen them undermine the value of trademarks and branding through their ill-considered plain packaging for cigarettes. We have seen them have smash-and-grab raids on anything that makes a profit. We have seen them squander tens of billions of Australian taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars on ridiculous schemes. And still the ministers are not accountable for it. The failed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—a dud, ditched. We had to lead the world. It was the great moral issue of our time. I would suggest that the great moral issue of our time is stopping people risking their lives coming here in leaky boats. That is the great moral challenge for this government. Have they got the intestinal fortitude to do that? History would suggest they do not. History would suggest that this government takes politically expedient decisions, not decisions that are in the best interests of Australia. It does not take the decisions that are in the best interests of our national security, our balance sheet security, our food security or our environmental security. Those opposite takes the decisions that are in what they perceive to be in the interests of their political security, and that is the wrong approach for any government to take. The people of Australian know it. They know they have a fake, a phoney, a fraud, a toxic bore in charge of the government. They know that the ministers do not even have a decision about what their policies are; they are just puppets. It is all controlled out of Mr Rudd’s central casting office. That is where the decisions are made and they are dutifully given their piece of paper and out they have to come with it. They are stoic in their defence. Senator Wong has got the basket case portfolio now. We know that. That will be rapidly filling up with even more policies as it continues. Because the minister for immigration has clearly failed in securing Australia’s borders and managing Australia’s unauthorised arrivals, that portfolio I am sure will be shifting into the basket of failure that Senator Wong manages. And she is very competent at managing those failures, I have to say. This is a tragedy for Australians. It is an acknowledgement that this government is failing. This government needs to be changed, and this bill indicates that that should be the case. 2679 17:59:00 Ronaldson, Sen Michael XT4 Victoria LP 0 0 Senator RONALDSON —Speaking on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, it is difficult to decide which is the greater concern—the complete collapse of Australia’s border protection system or the Prime Minister’s bald faced attempt to deny the undeniable. The Prime Minister has spent the past 21 months trying to squirm his way out of the corner into which his failed immigration policy has painted him. But while the Prime Minister can run he surely cannot hide. The vain efforts by the Rudd government to duck responsibility for the asylum seeker debacle have long since passed from the realm of the ridiculous into the arena of the absolutely absurd. There are some things that are beyond the media black magic of even the Prime Minister’s battalion of spin merchants. Not even the steamroller tactics of Kevin Rudd’s press office can rewrite objective history. The record is clear beyond all reasonable dispute. With much fanfare, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Evans, on 29 July 2008 announced a series of radical changes to Australia’s migration policy. The minister proudly proclaimed: The Rudd Labor government will reform our immigration detention policies and the treatment of asylum seekers in a way that reflects the compassion and tolerance of the Australian community. So the Rudd government abolished the detention of asylum seekers on Nauru—the so-called Pacific solution. Then Labor passed legislation that erased the debts imposed by the Commonwealth on those whose asylum claims were found to be without merit. The end result of this policy shift was as inevitable as it was predictable. Once again, people began to set sail in leaky, ramshackle boats and, once again, people began to die at sea. The figures speak for themselves. The statistics provided by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship tell a story so clear it is crystal. During the years of coalition government, a strong deterrent border protection regime cut the influx of illegal immigrant vessels from a torrent to a trickle. During the 2007-08 financial year—the last before the Rudd government changed policy—only three boats, carrying 25 illegal migrants, arrived in Australian waters. But from August 2008 to the present date we have seen 122 boats carrying 5,624 people intercepted by our naval and Customs authorities. Just this Monday we saw two more boats arrive, bringing the total number since the beginning of 2010 to 54 vessels. Because of this, the Christmas Island detention centre is overflowing, so the Rudd government is now spending $1.2 million to house 79 asylum seekers in a four-star hotel in Brisbane. I wonder what the 100,000 homeless Australians who are doing it hard on the streets every night think about that. $1.2 million to house 79 asylum seekers in a four-star hotel in Brisbane. On the streets of Australia tonight we will have homeless people, homeless Australians, sitting back and watching a government spend $1.2 million to house 79 illegal immigrants. The priorities of this government are highly questionable and should be questioned by the Australian community. It is a simple fact of nature—one that the Prime Minister seems unable to grasp—that if you water down the deterrent against a particular behaviour you will get more of it. More is precisely what we now face in the form of an upsurge in illegal immigration vessels that began almost immediately after the Prime Minister emasculated Australia’s border protection regime. Labor sent a signal to the people smugglers and their clients that Australia is open for business. News that Australia was once again worth a go began to circulate through the global refugee grapevine and legions of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers responded by placing their lives at risk in rickety rust buckets that I would not take on a crossing of the Yarra much less on a high seas voyage. The people smugglers have become so brazen they now set sail directly for Christmas Island, aware it will be their destination anyway. But equally as brazen has been the Labor government’s refusal to admit the obvious—that this entire debacle is a direct result of its failed immigration policy. Mr Rudd persists in his lame effort to defend the indefensible. He would have us believe that this massive increase in immigration has nothing to do with his gutting of Australian border protection. Sorry, Prime Minister, but, as opposed to the stream of spin spewing forth from your office, dates and numbers do not lie. Again, I will quote the statistics. From only three boats carrying a mere 25 people between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008—the last fiscal year the coalition was in government—the seaborne influx of illegal migrants has exploded over the past 20 months to reach 122 vessels bearing over 5,624 persons. As I said earlier, there have been 54 boats this year alone. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not lie either. Back in March, a representative of the UNHCR provided an interview to the Australian that completely undercut the Rudd government’s ongoing work of fiction on this issue. The UN official commented that the special deal cut by the Rudd government to defuse the Oceanic Viking crisis: … was a form of queue-jumping … it was a bad practice. There are Sri Lankan refugees who have been sitting in Indonesia for some time. When you are faced with an emergency and have people demanding resettlement, the (UNHCR’s) position is you should not give in to that because it does give an incentive for people to try this irregular movement. The UNHCR’s position is that you should not give into that, because it gives an incentive for people to try this irregular movement. There you have it straight from the mouth of the global expert on immigration who is commenting on how the Prime Minister’s special deal for illegal immigrants on the Oceanic Viking allowed them to play the system and win. The triumph of the Oceanic Viking illegals sent a clear message to the legions of aspiring boat people throughout the world. It confirmed once and for all that if you can outlast this wishy-washy Labor government your entry ticket into Australia is assured. When the timing and extent of this radical upsurge are taken into account there can only be one rational explanation. Under the false banner of a fairer and more humane policy Kevin Rudd’s penchant for moral posturing led him to gut the coalition’s strong deterrent policy against illegal migrants. The people smugglers and their clients rightly interpreted ‘fairer and more humane’ to mean ‘weaker and less rigorous’. The announcement of Labor’s changes to the Australian asylum seeker policy in 2008 triggered the onset of an illegal immigration crisis that shows no signs of abating. It was all done in order that the Prime Minister and his ministers can pat each other on the back and tell each other how morally righteous they are. I wonder how many people will have to lose their lives in rickety, unseaworthy boats before the Prime Minister and his immigration minister will admit the obvious. It will be more than a few, I fear, because the Prime Minister is in a state of denial. Like a cat up a tree the Prime Minister has climbed so far out on a limb that he is unwilling to make a backwards move. Rather than lose a little political face the Prime Minister prefers that people continue to jeopardise their lives in ramshackle boats on the high seas. This is crass political cynicism at its worst. This is nothing more than crude political calculation garbed in the empty guise of high-minded moral rhetoric that endangers the lives of people less fortunate than us. The bill we are debating at present is just another fig leaf that the Rudd government is attempting to drape over the tattered rag of their immigration policy. It is just the latest in a series of ill-conceived bills and measures motivated more by election year panic than by rational policy. We have already seen the arbitrary decision by the Rudd government to impose a moratorium on asylum applications from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. While the questionable legality of this policy will be ultimately tested in the courts one thing is certain: it has not worked. The boats have continued to come. And now we see this bill, the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, which is more of an attempt to immunise the Rudd government from political criticism than to come to honest grips with the problems caused by Labor’s botched policy. It is not that the coalition is opposed to harsher penalties for people smugglers, I hasten to add—far from it. A tough criminal justice policy is a central pillar of Liberal faith. People smuggling is a vile trade that exploits the hopes and fears of people who are at their most vulnerable. Longer prison terms alone will not quash the people-smuggling trade any more than they quash the drug-smuggling trade. As long as there is demand for the services of people smugglers there will always be those willing to provide it. As the coalition demonstrated during its time in government, the only way to address this problem effectively is to make Australia an unattractive destination for asylum seekers who have the money and motivation to jump the queue by taking to the seas. Australia is a ‘field of dreams’ for millions of poor and oppressed people throughout the world. Like the movie of the same name, if you build it they will come. The problem is that the policy the Prime Minister has built is ill-conceived and dangerous. We are indeed the lucky country and we have a moral obligation to provide refuge to those who are suffering from oppression and persecution. But the 13,000-plus humanitarian visas that Australia grants each year should be allocated on the basis of need rather than nerve. Our help should go to those who are most deserving, not to those who have the financial means to cut corners and the mindset to cheat the process. The Prime Minister’s botched border protection policy can be added to the growing list of disasters and debacles that Labor has inflicted upon Australia over the past 2½ years such as the home insulation debacle; the rort ridden school construction program; and the massive debt burden Kevin Rudd’s profligate spending has loaded onto the backs of taxpayers. The damage inflicted on Australia by this bevy of Labor incompetence extends beyond squandered millions. The government has also cost lives. I view the behaviour of the government on this policy as probably one of the worst derelictions of responsibility from any government in recent history. This change of policy was premised not on the back of concerns for this country and not on the back of legitimate concerns about what an appropriate border protection policy is. It was on the back of a series of statements and comments by the present government prior to and immediately post the last election. It was designed only for crass political purposes. I suppose you have to acknowledge that, in that regard, it has been spectacularly successful. I again ask the question, as I have asked it time after time in this place and indeed in the other place many years ago: what responsibilities does this government have to those people who do not have the money or, as I said earlier, the nerve to come to this country? What about those people the UNHCR were talking about who have been waiting their turn legitimately in Indonesia and elsewhere? On what basis does this government, if they are running a line that this is a humanitarian response to an issue, justify their actions on the back of a so-called humanitarian response? What is humanitarian about providing a change of policy which allows people to break the law? 008W7 Brandis, Sen George Senator Brandis —And puts lives at risk. XT4 Ronaldson, Sen Michael Senator RONALDSON —And puts lives at risk, as my colleague said. What is humanitarian about that? What is humanitarian about forcing people in refugee camps throughout the world to go to the back of the queue because of a crass political policy that devastated a successful border protection policy? This government has got as big an obligation as the Howard government and governments before that had to make sure that we have a legitimate and achievable border protection policy that can be implemented in this country’s interests. The fact that this government has refused to acknowledge the outcome of this policy is bizarrely, as I said, cloaked in some humanitarian approach to this. What this so-called humanitarian approach has done is put people’s lives at risk. It is now acknowledged, I believe by all parties, that this has cost lives. There are people dying on the back of a crass political response to a serious issue, and the Prime Minister is sitting back and doing nothing—doing no heavy lifting—because he is afraid of another backflip. Prime Minister, let us see you backflip on this—to the cheers of the opposition and the bulk of the Australian community and the people who are sitting in refugee camps waiting their turn to come here on a legitimate basis. We are, on any measure, an incredibly generous country in relation to providing relief for those who seek to come to our shores—a remarkably generous country. What the Prime Minister has done and what the immigration minister has done is to impose another layer of so-called border protection which has put at risk lives and which has put at risk this country’s sovereignty. This is not, I can tell you, a policy that this government should be proud of. There are many that this government should not be proud of, but this is right at the top of the list. We urge the Prime Minister to accept his responsibility as this nation’s leader to put in place a border protection policy that serves this country’s interests and stops putting at risk the lives of innocent people. When the Prime Minister does that, he will get the plaudits; until then, I can assure you that he will get the brickbats. 2683 18:17:00 Brandis, Sen George 008W7 Queensland LP 0 0 Senator BRANDIS —The purpose of this bill, the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, is to deter people smuggling, to expand ASIO’s charter to include border security issues and to make related amendments to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. The bill makes amendments to the Criminal Code and the Migration Act to increase the sanctions applicable to people smuggling; to the ASIO Act to include the protection of Australia’s territorial and border integrity from serious threats within ASIO’s statutory charter; to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act and the Surveillance Devices Act to include people smuggling within the definition of a serious offence and thus permit the use of these tools to investigate allegations of people smuggling; and to align the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act with the definition of that term in the Intelligence Services Act. In relation to criminal sanctions, the amendments will create a new offence of providing material support or resources towards a people-smuggling venture; establish in the Migration Act an aggravated offence of people smuggling which involves exploitation or danger of death or serious harm; and apply mandatory minimum penalties of eight years imprisonment with a non-parole period of five years—the maximum penalty being 20 years or $220,000 or both—to the new aggravated offences and to multiple offences. The offence of providing material support does not apply to a person who pays smugglers to facilitate their own passage or that of a family member to Australia. The fact that the bill recognises people smuggling as a serious threat to Australia’s territorial and border integrity—and therefore a national security threat—demonstrates by the government’s own admission the systemic failure of the Rudd government to confront the problem of people smuggling. These measures, which the opposition will not oppose, are piecemeal measures that have been brought forward by a government which found a solution and created a problem. Let it never be forgotten that, at the time the Rudd government was elected—two and half years ago—the people-smuggling problem had largely been solved. The arrival on Australia’s shores—and particularly on our north-western shores and on Australian offshore islands—of unlawful entrants whose passage is facilitated by people smugglers has been a problem in Australian history from time to time throughout our lifetimes. The problem grew acute in the late 1980s and in the 1990s—so acute that the then Howard government made a decision to take strong measures to stop the problem, to protect Australia’s borders, to secure our territorial integrity and, therefore, to protect our national security. Those strong measures—which my colleagues have described—were introduced by the Howard government in 2001. They followed, I might say, strong measures that had been introduced by a previous Labor government, during the Hawke-Keating period, including the policy of mandatory detention. But it was the Howard government that got the mix right. From a crescendo of unlawful arrivals in 2000, the introduction of tougher-still policies by the Howard government in 2001 fixed the problem because it did the one thing no previous policy had ever done: it denied the people smugglers the capacity to sell a service to their clients. It denied the people smugglers the capacity to say to their clients: ‘We will guarantee you arrival on Australia’s shores. We will guarantee that you will be able to avail yourselves of Australia’s refugee assessment system, from which you are highly likely to receive a favourable outcome’. It took away from the people smugglers the capacity to sell that product. What happened as a result? As a result, the people-smuggling trade died. This evil trade which plays dice with the lives of innocent men, women and children died. The number of unlawful boat arrivals from 2001 when the tough measures were introduced to 2008 when the tough measures were abandoned in a gesture of faux compassion—not real compassion—by the Rudd Labor government fell to approximately three per year. Since the reversal of the Howard government’s policies in September 2008, the number of unlawful arrivals—the number of men, women and children whose lives are put at risk on the high seas between Indonesia and the north-west coast of Australia—has crept steadily and remorselessly upward so that now, in May 2010, an average so far of one unlawful boat every two days has sought to penetrate Australia’s borders. What a reversal from an average of three per year, or fewer than one every 100 days for nearly a decade because the previous policies worked, to a situation today in which we have approximately one unauthorised boat arrival every two days. But it gets worse, because that rate of arrival is itself escalating. We have just been through the monsoon season—the season when, because of the turbulent weather and sea conditions in the Timor Sea, people smugglers are less inclined to seek to make the voyage to Australia. As anybody familiar with this area of policy knows, it is during the winter months that the numbers tend to spike. We are just going into the winter months now. If during what might be called the low season for people smuggling in the early months of the year the number of unauthorised attempted boat arrivals has escalated to one every two days, heaven alone knows what it is likely to be in the months ahead when the waters are calmer. There have been 5,762 illegal arrivals in Australia since the Rudd Labor government weakened Australia’s border protection regime. In this financial year, since 1 July 2009, there have been 4,723 arrivals. That is 13 per cent greater than in any previous financial year in our history and, of course, this financial year still has more than six weeks to go. As my friend Senator Ronaldson has said, the result of the government’s attempt to strike a compassionate pose by weakening the Howard government’s tough but successful border protection policies has been to relegate to the back of the queue thousands of deserving people who do not have the money to pay people smugglers US$10,000 or US$15,000 to secure a passage—people who are not prepared to put their own or their wife’s or their children’s lives in peril on the high seas to secure a passage to Australia, people who are not prepared to break Australian law in order to seek to enter our country unlawfully. Those thousands upon thousands of people waiting in refugee camps for a humanitarian entrance visa into Australia have been pushed to the back of the queue. That is yet another reason why the so-called compassion of the Rudd government is so phoney. It is such a gesture. It is such an exhibition of moral vanity. It is supposed to be compassionate by authoring a policy which puts lives at risk, which encourages people to sell themselves and their families into the hands of people smugglers and to put their own and their family’s lives at risk, and at the same time punishes genuine impoverished refugees who are prepared to wait, obey Australian law and have their claim for humanitarian entry assessed in the proper way. In 2008-09, the most recent financial year, Australia granted 13,507 humanitarian entry visas, of which 11,010 were granted to offshore applicants. In 2009-10, the current financial year, the refugee and humanitarian program has 13,750 places allocated, of which the offshore component is 6,000 people and the onshore component is 7,750 people. That ratio reflects the early and immediate response to the government’s policy change. The onshore component, which includes illegal entrants who made their way to Australia and sought to have their claims assessed within Australian territory, tripled, and the offshore component halved. Those entering the country illegally by boat were directly responsible for squeezing out more than 5,000 offshore applicants. The coalition makes no apology for its belief that one of the elementary obligations of a national government is to keep the nation’s borders secure. Because Australia is a maritime nation and all of our international borders are maritime borders, we make no apology whatsoever for demanding and, when we had the opportunity to do so in government, for implementing tough and strong policies to deter people from embarking on unlawful voyages to Australia and to apprehend them and seek to return them when they did. That is entirely appropriate for a maritime nation which takes the task of protecting its own borders seriously. There is an issue of sovereignty here. A nation without the capacity or the willingness to protect its own borders sends a signal to the world that its borders are permeable, its national security is compromised and, in a profound way, it is incapable of defending itself. So there is an issue of principle and an issue of international law here. There is also, as I have said—and as Senator Ronaldson said and Senator Bernardi said—an issue of real humanitarianism. How could we possibly countenance, as a civilised, liberal democracy, a set of policies which implicitly condone the conduct of people smugglers by giving them a tradeable commodity that they can sell to people with the wherewithal to pay their fee and secure this risky package? How could we as a civilised nation do that, knowing that it puts lives at risk and that it pushes genuine refugees who are prepared to observe Australia’s laws to the back of the queue? During the period of the Howard government, after that government toughened the policies in 2001, this problem was, for all practical purposes, solved. What happened in those years? The number of humanitarian entrants processed offshore in the orthodox fashion rose. Of those people in Australia today who have been in the desperate circumstances of being refugees, more of them have found a new home in this land as a result of the Howard government’s policies than as a result of the Rudd government’s weakened, new, falsely compassionate policies. The year 2002, the first year after the Howard government toughened the policies, was a year of significant international turmoil. It was just after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan. The Sri Lankan civil war was intermittently in full flight or in temporary ceasefire. Yet in 2002-03, not one boat arrived in Australia—not one—despite those so-called ‘push factors’. In 2003-04, there were three boat arrivals; in 2004-05, there were no boat arrivals; in 2005-06, there were eight boat arrivals; in 2006-07 there were four boat arrivals; and in 2007-08—within the time of the Rudd government but before the government weakened the policies—there were just three boat arrivals. In six years there were 18 boat arrivals, notwithstanding the turbulent international circumstances which elevated the push factors from both West Asia and South Asia. Yet look at the pass we have come to now as a result of the Rudd government’s catastrophic policy failure. As I have said, the opposition do realise that this is a very, very serious policy crisis and the Australian national interest does need to be protected. For that reason, we will not oppose these measures but we regret the weakness of will, the cowardice and the policy confusion which necessitated these measures in the first place. Presumably, one of the consequences of this legislation is that ASIO will need to be better resourced. Therefore, it must be asked what effect the expansion of its charter will have on its existing functions. In last night’s budget not only was there no new funding for ASIO but the agency was asked to find another $15 million beyond the efficiency dividend in so-called ‘efficiencies’ over the forward estimates. The Treasurer announced last night that the Rudd government has also slashed funding to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service with a further $146.3 million of cuts over the next four years. Of the $1.2 billion announced in the budget last night to deal with border security, the government is actually denying resources to front-line agencies, including the very agency, ASIO, whose powers are being expanded tonight by this legislation to deal with this problem of the Rudd government’s own creation. The opposition accepts that the amendments in this legislation are necessary. For that reason we will not oppose them. But we lament and regret the fact that they were necessary in the first place, as the direct result of confusion, cowardice and failure by the Rudd Labor government. 2687 18:37:00 Hanson-Young, Sen Sarah I0U South Australia AG 0 0 Senator HANSON-YOUNG —I rise tonight to speak to the government’s Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. This bill, as we have heard, seeks to strengthen the government’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework as well as to ensure that people smuggling is comprehensively criminalised in Australian law. Yet, despite the Attorney-General stating in his second reading speech that the United Nations Global trends report ‘indicates that people seeking asylum in Australia reflects a worldwide trend driven by insecurity, persecution and conflict’, nowhere in this bill are Australia’s obligations to those seeking our protection under international law recognised. I find it very concerning and disappointing that an incredibly complex piece of legislation such as that which we are discussing today has been introduced and is expected to pass with such expediency, with limited scrutiny on the full impact of the proposed measures. All we need to look at is the turnaround time for the inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee and the pathetic report that was put together on behalf of the majority of the committee. It was an appalling report that did not reflect the evidence given to the committee, which of course is why I authored a dissenting report. It did not reflect the views of those who are experts in the field and who made submissions. In fact, there was only one submission that supported this legislation, and that was from the government departments themselves. Every other submission spoke about how poorly drafted this piece of legislation was, how poorly defined the definitions within it were, how poorly the arguments as to why this legislation needed to exist in this form had been put by the government, and the lack of public consultation and review that this piece of legislation had had. While it is clear that the Greens are in no way supportive of people smuggling, that does not mean that this Senate should give up its responsibilities as a house of review; its responsibilities to scrutinise legislation—and this legislation is so, so poorly drafted. While I speak to the legislation itself, I must say that the Greens will not be supporting this legislation going on to the next stage because it is clear that it needs to go back to the drawing board. The government themselves have said that in the absence of bringing forward any human rights act they will introduce a new human rights committee that will scrutinise and review legislation. This should have been the very first piece of legislation that went to that committee. Until this legislation goes to that committee, the Greens believe it should not proceed. The failure of the government to articulate why it is necessary to introduce the measures proposed in this bill highlights that wider public consultation and debate is necessary before these measures can be seriously considered. While it is incredibly important for measures to be implemented to prevent asylum seekers from embarking on treacherous journeys across dangerous waters to get to Australia, I would argue that there are plenty of things the government could have announced in last night’s budget to do that. What is the use of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on facilities in Indonesia and billions of dollars on border protection but not increasing the number of refugees you agree to resettle from these treacherous places? It is ludicrous that we talk about the numbers of people arriving here by boat but do not increase the numbers of people we resettle from places like Malaysia or Indonesia, where these people are warehoused in Australian funded detention centres with no hope of freedom despite already being classified by the UNHCR as genuine refugees. Last year Australia took only 70 people from Indonesian detention centres. Seventy people who had been recognised by the UNHCR were resettled by Australia, yet we cry foul at the idea of people jumping on boats, coming to Australia and seeking refuge. The best way for the Australian government to stamp out the scourge of people smuggling would be to go to the source—that is, to resettle those people who have already been found, in places like Malaysia and Indonesia, to be genuine refugees through processes that Australian taxpayers fund. We should be putting those processes to more effective use and resettling those people, rather than spending the money there, waiting for them to get on a boat to Christmas Island and then spending another billion dollars over the next four years simply because we could not increase our humanitarian intake the way we should have. This bill has nothing to do with the practicalities of tackling people smuggling. This bill is all about Kevin Rudd being able to go out and say: ‘You know what? I’ve stamped strong, loud and hard on refugees and asylum seekers. I’ve done it so well in this election that I’ve given ASIO the powers to tackle people smuggling.’ We know, through the evidence given to the committee, that this legislation will not deal with the actual issue. During the inquiry I asked the departments themselves, both ASIO and the Attorney-General’s Department, how effective this legislation was actually going to be, pointing out that the organisation of people smuggling is not done primarily from Australia; it is done offshore. They agreed. This legislation as it is currently written is badly argued and badly drafted. It is only for show for the Rudd government. It does not deal with the actual issues at hand. There is no mention of our obligations under international law, no mention of the definitions that we have signed up to under anti-people-smuggling protocols and our international obligations. There is an anti-people-smuggling protocol. Australia is a signatory to it. Yet we have not even incorporated the definition of people smuggling that the protocol uses. We have made up our own so that it suits us in this piece of legislation. Like many in the legal profession, the Greens have serious concerns that this bill in its current form not only breaches our obligations under international law but also breaches our obligations under domestic law. We remain very concerned that this bill is a direct attack on refugee communities within Australia and on those who support them. Despite assurances from the Attorney-General’s Department during the course of the Senate inquiry that innocent individuals would not be caught under this poorly drafted legislation, the definition of ‘providing material support’, which nobody seems to be able to define, is such that anyone here in Australia who sends money to a friend or relative in a refugee camp who subsequently—without the awareness of the person who sent that money—uses that money to pay a people smuggler could be charged under this broad definition. This legislation is poorly drafted and too broad, and yet it does nothing to tackle the issue of people smuggling or the issue of our obligations to asylum seekers under international law. The point is: if the intention is to catch those individuals who provide humanitarian support, then why not make it explicitly clear in the legislation? It has been argued that no court would actually convict somebody who is providing humanitarian assistance to someone overseas who may then use a people smuggler to get out of a horrific detention facility in, say, Indonesia. If that is the case then why allow those people to be investigated in the first place—under broadening the roles and responsibilities of ASIO, allowing ASIO to use their current powers of interrogation and surveillance and possibly charge them in the first instance. The government says these are not the people we are targeting. These are good-hearted Australians doing what they have always done—support the most vulnerable people in other parts of the world, particularly in our own Asia-Pacific region. If the government’s intention is not to target them then it should go back and redraft this legislation, because this legislation currently captures them. It is far too broad. Professor Crock from the Sydney Centre for International Law told the Senate committee that: This legislation targets refugee communities in Australia who are sending remittances to their families overseas. Every time they send money across to a relative, if there is a chance that that relative is going to get on a boat at some stage, they are at risk of being put in jail for 10 years. This legislation will only be seen by the very vulnerable emergent communities in this country as a direct assault on them—a frontal attack. Who is the government trying to win over with this legislation? They are not delivering anything that tackles the issue of people smuggling and they are not doing anything to deal with the fact that we have people in places like Indonesia and Malaysia, desperate for freedom, security and a future, who have been found to be genuine refugees. It does not deal with any of those things. What is this about? It is purely so that Kevin Rudd can say: ‘I am as tough as Tony Abbott. I can kick refugees too. Just watch me.’ That is what this legislation is about. It is so that Kevin Rudd can stand up and think that he can be as tough as Tony Abbott. But neither of them are tough, because neither of them are actually dealing with the real issue. Australia has obligations under international law to protect asylum seekers, to process their claims. I know the government does not believe in processing people’s claims any more; they have suspended that. ‘That is all right. We will just put that aside for a little while. Who cares about international law or our obligations?’ It is actually not the tough, strong thing to do to kick those who are most vulnerable in the world. The strongest thing to do is stand up and face the responsibilities we have and find mature, practical, humane and fair ways of managing it—for example, increasing the intake of resettlement of offshore asylum seekers, not warehousing them in desert prisons like Curtin and not setting up a whole new system of laws and regulations that are going to be seen as a direct attack on those within the Australian community who support refugees and asylum seekers. Church groups around Australia collect money on a weekly basis for individuals and families in refugee camps or those waiting for the determination process. Imagine if something happens and those people get so desperate that that money ends up getting spent on people smugglers because they have to get out of that situation. These are the types of cases we are talking about. Yet, those people who— Debate interrupted. 2689 Documents 10000 Troeth, Sen Judith (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Troeth)—Order! It being 6.50 pm, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of government documents. 2689 2689 18:52:00 Barnett, Sen Guy 00AUF Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator BARNETT —I move: That the Senate take note of the document. I take note of this report and, in doing so, I wanted to make a few comments to highlight the shameful display by this government with respect to the Home Insulation Program. This report has been conducted by Dr Allan Hawke and is dated 6 April. It relates to the shameful, disgraceful display demonstrated by the Rudd Labor government in what I have described as the pink batts debacle. And it keeps getting worse. What we saw in the budget brought down last night by Mr Swan and Mr Rudd was that $1 billion of taxpayers’ money—it has been confirmed in the budget papers—has been used to try to fix the bungled pink batts program. The fact is that the Prime Minister should officially and publicly apologise to the Australian nation, particularly to the people affected by this program. He has used $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to rectify a problem which is of his own accord and which has been administered by his government. There have been an estimated 240,000 dodgy installations and up to 1,000 electrified roofs, and 120 house fires—possibly more—that are linked to this program. Tragically, four deaths have been linked to this dodgy, rotten pink batts debacle. It is tragic. This $1 billion that has been confirmed in the budget last night has been used to try to fix the collapsed and catastrophic Home Insulation Program. That cost will be borne by the Australian taxpayer. As I said, not up to 1,000 electrified roofs but, potentially, 1,500 deadly electrified roofs. This government still has not given a commitment to inspect all of the nearly 1.1 million homes around Australia that have been granted or had the pink batts put into their roofs. Some residents still live in fear and trepidation, some with an anxiety, and some simply not knowing whether their house is safe. The government simply has not committed to do that to every one of those 1.1 million homes insulated under the program. That is not good enough. Mr Rudd should come into the parliament and should publicly say, ‘Enough is enough. I apologise’ specifically to those people and specifically to those people detrimentally affected as a result of this program. The Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade has warned that every home must be inspected. In the face of further warnings, there is no excuse for the Rudd government not to commit to inspect every one of those homes under that program. Mr Rudd must come clean with the public and with the Senate, and specifically with the Senate committee of which I have been an active participating member, as have other members of this Senate. He must release the relevant correspondence between him and the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Peter Garrett, in which it appears, based on the evidence, that he was clearly warned. We know he was warned. He received many warnings last year, but we want to see those letters between Mr Garrett and Mr Rudd. He has so far said ‘no’, he will not release that, and he has come up with spurious arguments including cabinet-in-confidence. But only one of those letters apparently could perchance come under that category. This pink batts debacle has gone from bad to worse. It was confirmed in the budget last night that $1 billion of taxpayers’ money will be used. Of course, the program cost in total $2.45 billion, so it has been a total and utter disaster. The Prime Minister should apologise. Question agreed to. 2690 2690 18:57:00 Barnett, Sen Guy 00AUF Tasmania LP 0 0 Senator BARNETT —I move: That the Senate take note of the document. I take note of this report on Australia’s future tax system and the tax policy statement, together with the report to the Treasurer, and in that regard note the government’s perspective on the tax system was clearly demonstrated last night by its views of government spending and taxing. That government document confirms that this is a high-taxing, a high-spending and a high-debt government. The Rudd Labor government in this coming financial year will have a debt of $41 billion—the second highest since World War II. It is a very risky budget indeed. This is a high-taxing, high-spending Labor government and that is typical Labor. The assumptions set out in the budget statements confirm that they are dodgy and in fact they are unbelievable. The figures are very rubbery. For example, they say that the tax on cigarettes will decrease the level of smoking, but that the tax on the mining sector will cause an increase in investment in mining. How can that be? That is absolutely absurd. That is simply not going to happen. One of their assumptions is based on the premise that the terms of trade will be the best in 60 years. This is a government that simply cannot be believed. It has made these promises in the never-never and they are simply not going to come true. From this week, and from the start of this budget, you will see that the government will be borrowing $700 million a week to meet the commitments of their expenditure. The government is on a spendathon like no other government in recent history. Its reckless spending continues on and on. In terms of Tasmania, we have been dudded yet again. Unfortunately, we have been left off the map. There is $1 billion going to the Australian rail authority but no new money for Tasmanian rail, and rail in Tasmania is in need of repair. In northern Tasmania there is no new money for the flood levies or the Bell Bay port development, and that was a failure of last year’s budget as well. There was $22 billion in infrastructure spending around the nation, but nothing went to Tasmania. So we have missed out big time. In terms of agriculture, we have missed out in Tasmania. There have been cuts around the nation. The tremendously successful Landcare program works, and a lot of rural and regional farming communities are very involved and supportive of Landcare. Landcare operations around Australia have been cut by some $10 million. That is very disappointing, because a lot of volunteers are involved in Landcare. I feel for them and, on their behalf, I say we are very disappointed with that decision. To top it off and in conclusion, the government are happily spending around about $126 million on advertising in advance of the federal election. They are spending taxpayers’ money on advertising, including on climate change. Mr Rudd said that climate change was the great moral challenge of our time and he wanted to get his ETS, that great big new tax, through. But he was prepared to give that up and say, ‘No, it’s not the greatest moral challenge of our time,’ and he has deferred it for three years. He is willing to spend taxpayers’ money on advertising on climate change in advance of the election, purely for political purposes. The government say this is not a political budget and was not designed in advance of the next election. As soon as they say that, you know exactly the opposite is true and it is designed to try and gain votes. But I think the people will see through it. In terms of the impact on the Australian people, they will make their decision in due course. I seek leave to continue my remarks. Leave granted; debate adjourned. 2692 The following orders of the day relating to government documents were considered: Foreign Investment Review Board—Report for 2008-09. Motion to take note of document moved by the Leader of the Family First Party (Senator Fielding). Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business, Senator Fielding in continuation. General business orders of the day nos 43 to 58, 60 and 63 relating to government documents were called on but no motion was moved. 2692 Petitions 2692 19:02:00 Fielding, Sen Steve E4R Victoria FFP Leader of the Family First Party 0 0 Senator FIELDING —by leave—I table a petitioning letter which does not conform with the standing orders. Petitioning letter received. 2692 Adjournment 10000 Hurley, Sen Annette (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hurley)—Order! I propose the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. 2692 2692 19:03:00 Troeth, Sen Judith GX5 Victoria LP 0 0 Senator TROETH —Tonight I rise to acknowledge the impending 80th birthday of the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, who was born on 21 May 1930. This is a celebration of an impressive birthday milestone, but it is also the celebration of a man who has been an outstanding figure in Australia’s history as a nation. Of Malcolm Fraser’s eight decades, 28 years were dedicated to parliamentary service, with eight years as Prime Minister. At their core, Malcolm Fraser and the Australian psyche share a common blend of traits: grit, humility, determination and aspiration. Neither one’s genesis predestined greatness; both emerged from adversity stronger and greater nonetheless. Malcolm Fraser’s creed is wrought in perseverance, and it is because of this that history records the restoration of responsible government in 1975. It is because of this that the Australian economy was able to thrive once again. It is because of this that Australia turned to a leader with an intense commitment to integrity in public administration. Today we look back on a government that wrote into the pages of history some of Australia’s greatest environmental pro-tections. The cessation of sand mining on Fraser Island and the prohibition of whaling in Australian waters are among them. We look back to a time when Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister became the first to adopt a migration program that was truly multiracial, when government policies were inspired by an indomitable belief in the Australian fair go. The trajectory of the Fraser government is something to behold in the index of this nation’s history. Malcolm Fraser has not merely lived history; he has made it, changed it and charted us a better course for it. In 1975 Australia was in the throes of a national heart attack. While prepared to inflict short-term pain to avert impending disaster, the spirit of Malcolm Fraser’s intent was that of a healer and a builder. With the balm of confidence and the tonic of optimism, he reached out to all Australians with hope and assurance. He continued to instil reassurance and stability throughout his government, recruiting other healers like Sir Zelman Cowen as Governor-General. On Aboriginal affairs, it was the Fraser government who extended native title rights and appointed three empathetic ministers in Fred Chaney, Ian Viner and Peter Baume. He gave the Northern Territory self-government. For drought stricken farmers, it was Fraser who first provided a system of deferred taxation. Ably assisted by my friend and colleague Petro Georgiou, Prime Minister Fraser conceived, funded and implemented SBS television. Fraser immigration ministers set the course for non-discriminatory migration programs. It was that government that loudly resolved the recently abolished White Australia policy would never again blot any page of legislation passed in our federal parliament. It was their government that organised the calm and orderly arrival of 100,000 Indochinese. They were welcomed to Australia where their future citizenship would never be questioned and their dreams could be boundless. As David Barnett, Malcolm Fraser’s biographer, notes where Whitlam had called them ‘boatpeople’, Malcolm Fraser called them’ refugees’ which is what they were. Imagine a time when there was a bipartisan national discussion on immigration that appealed to our best hopes and not our worst fears. Imagine a time when the immigration minister conducted a national tour to explain multiculturalism and was often joined by his opposition shadow. Ian McPhee and Mick Young could imagine it because Malcolm Fraser believed that we could be as responsible as that. Abroad, the Fraser government supported the Gleneagles agreement to sever sporting links with segregated South Africa, not just because apartheid did not work but also because it was morally reprehensible. Malcolm Fraser’s negotiation of a practical border zone arrangement between Australia and Papua New Guinea may well be one of his government’s most understated achievements. Where Gough Whitlam failed, Malcolm Fraser’s tenacity, reason and patience prevailed. Becoming the first Australian Prime Minister to visit the Torres Strait Islands, Malcolm Fraser held negotiations on Yam Island. Under the Wisdom Tree, the Prime Minister and his foreign affairs minister sat in the sand with representatives of the local coastal Papuans, the Queensland government and the PNG government to see the dawning of this historic agreement. Malcolm Fraser has had a lifelong aversion to communism. Given the times in which he reached adulthood in 1950s Australia, it is easy to understand why. As Prime Minister, he backed the United States in its condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But he also swam against the prevailing international tides of the time which included the more relaxed attitude of President Jimmy Carter’s administration towards the Soviet Union. Fraser argued this stance weakened the position of the West which was critical during the Cold War period, and that was a view later endorsed by Ronald Reagan. Throughout all of this time, the member for Wannon was an outstanding local member of parliament. During Malcolm Fraser’s prime ministership, I served on my children’s local kindergarten committee in his electorate. I once wrote to him about an issue concerning our kindergarten, unsure whether I would receive a reply. Two weeks later the member for Wannon responded with care and concern. I remember being very impressed by his attention to a minor detail while attending to the great challenges of an entire nation. There are those today who would do well to heed such an example. In 1981, Ronald Reagan said that it was Malcolm Fraser who preceded both him and Margaret Thatcher on the path to smaller government. In America, those former presidents are revered statesman. No longer enmeshed in partisan politics, they become feted national elders. In the Australian Labor Party, I will admit, those who have led their comrades to the great enabler of government are indeed eulogised. In the Liberal Party, we are not as generous in this regard and I am not alone in this opinion. My former colleague Alexander Downer has rightly said that the Liberal Party lionised Sir Robert Menzies as the nation’s greatest leader, but he asked how well we revered our other great leaders. How many people give credit to Harold Holt for dismantling the White Australia policy, to John Gorton’s efforts on the environment, and to Sir William McMahon who was a Treasurer and an early champion of liberal markets? Alexander Downer was a former staffer to Malcolm Fraser. In his words, Fraser ‘was one of the most dedicated and patriotic people I have ever met.’ The Fraser government received a majority in both houses, but Australians remained bitterly divided over the events that led to that moment. Alexander Downer’s view is that: Some Liberals say Fraser should have reformed the economy more radically than he did. But all prime ministers operate in a context and the context of post November, 1975, is important to understand. After more than a century of Federation, Australia has five living former prime ministers. They should all be celebrated and respected for the service they gave with all of their might and to the best extent of their abilities that the challenges of their times allowed. Malcolm Fraser was not a perfect prime minister. He is not a flawless human being. Who among us is? But it was the aspiration to better, to develop and to refine his abilities and to progress from a beginning that was not predestined for greatness that also speaks to his qualities of determination and aspiration. Some may say that Malcolm Fraser let the opportunity of radical reform slide, but with the wisdom of hindsight they may now concede that legislating for the sake of opportunity has its drawbacks too. It was a time for calm, reasoned progression, not for legislation that sought to reach beyond what the public was prepared to grasp. Mr Fraser is a person of remarkable consistency, without lacking in adaptability. His established views on the importance of federalism are now more relevant than ever. When Malcolm Fraser left the Liberal leadership, he left our party in capable hands and I want to pay tribute to him tonight. Abraham Lincoln once said that character was like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing. Mr President, Malcolm Fraser is the real thing. 2694 2694 19:13:00 Pratt, Sen Louise I0T Western Australia ALP 1 0 Senator PRATT —This evening I rise to talk about the significance of the federal government’s Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, and in particular its importance to Western Australian communities. In travelling around Western Australia, I have been able to see firsthand the very real benefits that this program has delivered in jobs, improved facilities and, most importantly, in community pride and community activity. This program has seen minor and major infrastructure upgrades for things like reroofing and retiling halls, installing new toilet blocks, lighting, painting, shade for skate parks and so much more across the state. But what the program really delivers is improvements in the quality of life for the people of Western Australia. It is about a renewed lease of life for meetings and community events—weddings, 21st birthday parties, dance classes, children’s out of school care activities, arts activities, competitive sports and so much more. It is about providing quality facilities so that people can get out of their homes and come together as families and as a community. The program has also driven enormous improvements in community sporting facilities. Take, for example, the City of Wanneroo’s Kingsway Regional Sporting Complex in the federal seat of Cowan. The city received $2.8 million in funding to redevelop their netball courts. As we all know, netball has one of the highest participation rates of any sport in Australia, but the courts at Kingsway had become run down and were in much need of repair. Phase 1 of the changes here has meant drainage to the courts and improved resurfacing. There have even been adjustable poles installed, and I know that parents of young players and the netball association very much appreciate this new feature. Phase 2 is going to see more much-needed improvements. The project has improved Kingsway dramatically already. Kingsway is an absolute hive of sporting activity. In fact, more than half a million people use the complex every year. It is these kinds of activities that bind together Perth’s northern suburbs into dynamic and attractive communities and that make them great places to live, particularly as so many people in these suburbs love their team sports. I have also seen firsthand how tired and run down community halls have been enhanced as part of this program. In March I was very pleased to reopen the Alf Faulkner Hall in the town of Bassendean on behalf of the Hon. Anthony Albanese, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. The Alf Faulkner Hall is about 40 years old and is used daily by a diverse range of community groups, but before this funding the building was dilapidated and the roof was leaking. This had a big impact on the groups using the hall, with out of school care groups having to shepherd children around the buckets on the floor collecting water. Thousands of local people use this community hall every year, and the refurbishment has meant that they now have a place they can be comfortable in and proud of. This program recognises how hard it is for local government to come up with sufficient funds to maintain and invest in local community infrastructure on its own. This is one of the reasons why investment in community infrastructure has a particular significance for Western Australia’s north-west mining towns. Such communities have been battling along with ageing community infrastructure that in many cases has received little investment since the towns were constructed at the start of the big expansions in mining in the 1970s. These communities have very narrow rate bases from which to provide the full array of community facilities that people expect. Towns like Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Port Hedland, Karratha, Dampier and many more all need strong investment in their community facilities so they can remain pleasant and viable communities and attract people to live and work there. While there is a strong ‘fly in, fly out’ economy in many of these towns, we must recognise that ultimately the mining industry cannot exist without real and thriving communities on the ground—communities that need investment in health, education, training and community infrastructure. Frankly, many of these communities have struggled to maintain themselves despite the massive profits earned by the big mining companies that underpin them. I would like to thank the Shire of Ashburton for talking to me about these and many other issues when I was in Tom Price last week. I was there to reopen their community hall, which has been upgraded under this program. It has been absolutely wonderful to see the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure fund investing in and giving a big boost to these towns. All of these projects show the true value of the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program: providing valuable infrastructure where it is needed and enhancing quality of life for ordinary Australians. The Rudd government recognises that these projects can only be done in partnership with local communities. On that note, I would like to commend local governments across Western Australia for their vision and for working hard to understand and respond to what their communities want and need. I refer to projects like those undertaken by the Coorow Shire Council. Coorow is a farming town of about 250 people, with more people from surrounding areas using it as a centre for their activities. The shire council has replaced the roof of the town hall, reconditioned waste facilities at Leeman Recreation Centre and upgraded storage at its swimming pool. Community leaders and staff have worked hard across the state to identify their local community needs and to bring many projects to fruition. They responded quickly to the opportunity to improve their ageing infrastructure, which was in desperate need of new investment. They have got the work done over a short period of time when jobs were very much needed. The work got underway just as our unemployment rate was rising, just as the Rudd government’s Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program was designed to do. Thousands of jobs in construction and trades alone were at risk because of the downturn. In fact, in WA the unemployment rate nearly doubled because of the financial crisis. I think that this figure alone makes a mockery of the opposition’s assertion that our stimulus initiatives were unnecessary. Either the opposition are economically illiterate or they simply did not understand or care about the threat posed by the global financial crisis to the livelihoods of ordinary Australians. The Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program and other stimulus measures such as the school Building the Education Revolution fund have been fundamental to the task of keeping Western Australians working, and maintaining momentum in the WA economy. I am very proud of the timely and decisive action taken by the federal government to stimulate the economy and to create jobs by investing in vital community infrastructure. It is one of the reasons that I support the superprofits tax on the resource industry. This reform will get WA back a bigger share of the wealth it generates, wealth that can be invested in the infrastructure it so desperately needs—investment in infrastructure for WA’s communities so they can continue to generate wealth from the mineral resources they own. I look forward to seeing more Regional Local Community Infrastructure projects come to fruition throughout Western Australia. I am also delighted that this year’s budget will inject a further $3.8 billion into rural and regional communities through greater infrastructure investment and targeted industry support. It is abundantly clear to me how important well-maintained community infrastructure is to local communities. It is important to creating and supporting jobs, but most of all it is important to making WA’s communities vibrant and attractive places in which to live. 2696 Miscellaneous 2696 19:23:00 Moore, Sen Claire 00AOQ Queensland ALP 1 0 Senator MOORE —This evening I wish to talk about a trip that a group of my friends did with others to visit Palestine in March 2010. This was a trip organised by the Union Aid Abroad group, APHEDA, of which I am a member and have been for many years. APHEDA is the Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad, and it was started in 1984 as the Overseas Aid Agency of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. APHEDA actually started in the Middle East. In Lebanon in 1982, a young nurse trainer, Helen McCue, was working for the World Health Organisation. She saw the damage which was caused by the war and desolation in that area, and she worked with Norwegian trade unionists and volunteers there. She came back to Australia with the idea that a similar kind of organisation could be formed in our country, and it was. From that time onward, the Australian trade union movement was involved in overseas aid. They have regular trips to encourage people to see what exactly is happening on the ground so that the stories and the things we hear in the press can be humanised. We hear about what is going on, but too often it is somehow sanitised or people take the position that it could not really be true because it was in the media and was obviously biased. That is not always true, but through overseas trips with APHEDA people can really visit and talk to people who are living the experience. Three of my own friends and comrades—Evan Moorhead, who is an MP in the Queensland parliament, Wendy Turner and David Forde—were part of this trip, and they were particularly keen that the kinds of things they saw could be shared with the wider community. Since they have come home they have been doing a range of community talks and visits so that they can share the experiences and the knowledge they have gained. They hope that more people can find out what is going on in Palestine and take an interest in the issues, not necessarily to get into an open debate or conflict but at least to understand a little bit more about what is going on. The trip engaged with a large number of people. It visited Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. It examined APHEDA’s aid projects; assisting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, food security and agricultural projects with Palestinian families in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and medical assistance projects at the El Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital in Gaza. We have heard about these issues before in this place, and I well remember hearing Senator Lyn Allison talk about the experiences she had when she went on a visit as well. Of course, in a short time we cannot talk about all the issues that were raised but I thought I would mention a few of them—things they actually wrote in the report that they have been circulating. This is not new for people, but one of the issues which they talked about with people on the ground was the Israeli settlements, which have been going on for a long time. They are ongoing, and they are being extended in areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This has been the issue of conflict for a long time; exactly where the settlements are placed, the impact on Palestinian families who lose their land and their homes and the process of rehabilitation, as it is called—but it is actually removal of people from their belongings, their family and their homes. It is not just the fact that new houses and new buildings are being established. Around the houses there is the Palestinian dispossession of their land. The settlements are surrounded by no-go zones that vary in size from a couple of hundred metres to, in some cases, around one kilometre. They are connected by settler-only highways, which also have no-go zones for Palestinians. With almost 60 per cent of the West Bank now annexed by settlements, settler-only roads, closed military zones and separation barriers, Palestinian people and families who have long histories in this area are increasingly squeezed into a small number of districts. This creates division and isolation, and also raises a real concern about dispossession. We know that this is an issue which has been taken to and handled by the UN. Discussions continue, and the consistent message is that discussions must continue because silence and open conflict will not be the answer. But the issue which the tour found was that this was happening. It was not something you saw in a documentary, it was not something you heard in the media—they saw the expanding settlements and they saw land that used to belong to one group was being settled by others. We have often heard in this country about the separation barrier, the wall and the structure which has been built since 2002. We have seen pictures, but according to the tour there is nothing quite as confronting as being there and actually seeing the size, the fortification and the electrified fence arrangements that are being constructed through the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There continues to be debate about whether the lines of division are accurate or not, but still the construction is there and the division occurs. The team visited the Palestinian town of Qalqilyah, which has a population of around 45,000. It is almost entirely enclosed by the barrier, with only one entry and exit point for the whole community, which is an Israeli military area. The people who were going through said that at times the access point is closed, so there is no way in or out of the town, which suffers terribly from poverty and unemployment. The only way to get medical help and access to employment is to leave your community and go to that place. If your own town is completely surrounded by a wall or a barrier, this again creates a sense of dispossession and a sense of isolation. There seems to be a process which is quite deliberate to make it hard to get through the area. This was also reflected when the team visited areas where there were checkpoints. One of the more confronting things that came out of the community discussions we had later was looking at a map and seeing the number of checkpoints that people who were just going to their normal workplace on a daily basis had to pass, the number of times they had to prove their credentials and the difficulty with which that occurred. Again, this creates a feeling of disempowerment and a growing sense of rejection and anger. One of the things that I was unaware of before the discussions about it was the important issue of access to water in the West Bank. We know that the whole area is extraordinarily dry and we understand the issues of water restrictions, but it was raised that in the area of West Bank there is a limit to the amount of water that Palestinian settlers are able to use. Amnesty International, who have been reporting on this issue for many years, have said that the average consumption for Palestinians is about 70 litres a day per person, which is below the 100 litres per capita daily recommendation of the World Health Organisation. Of course, it is always difficult to confirm these numbers, but in the discussions that the APHEDA group had with people who had been living and working there, on average the Israeli settler daily per capita consumption is more than four times as much, at about 300 litres. There is a real issue with obtaining and carting water. Over the years of warfare and disruption many Palestinian water wells and pumps in agricultural areas have been destroyed. It has a real impact on community livelihoods and is something that has been reported on at times internationally. Again, the value of the APHEDA trip is that people could actually go into the communities and see what is happening on a daily basis with the things that we take for granted—drinking, washing, bathing and just surviving. Because it was a union trip, there was a focus on the issues of Palestinian workers. The group met with the three Palestinian union federations: the General Union of Palestinian Workers, the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions and the Federation of Independent Unions of Palestine. They also met with the Israel Histadrut Federation, which is a worker advice centre that operates in both Palestine and Israel, and with a number of Palestinian workers who were in the area. There are genuine concerns about conditions and wages for Palestinian workers and about the lack of representation when they work in the Israeli area. A large range of issues about health and safety, access to work and wage conditions were raised. Again, people were open and willing to speak, and there seemed to be from the group that were touring a real desire to talk about what is going on and to offer their insight into what is happening in the area. There is much more in the actual report, and I will be seeking leave to table it. Certainly, in a small trip, no-one is able to understand the complexities and the horror of what is going on in that region. What we can do, though, is to learn more from the people who are living there and to encourage visits, even though it is quite difficult in terms of visas and travel in the area for some people. We can and must learn more, and we must look to what I think we all share, which is a commitment to have a peaceful solution in the area. Mr President, I seek leave to table the report. Leave granted. 2699 21:34:00 Senate adjourned at 7.34 pm 2699 Documents 2699 The following documents were tabled by the Clerk: [Legislative instruments are identified by a Federal Register of Legislative Instruments (FRLI) number] Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 75—Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L00976]*. Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act—Select Legislative Instruments 2010 Nos— 86—Australian Securities and Investments Commission Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01096]*. 87—Australian Securities and Investments Commission Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 2) [F2010L01197]*. Aviation Transport Security Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 80—Aviation Transport Security Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01200]*. Civil Aviation Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 81—Civil Aviation Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01205]*. Commonwealth Electoral Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 79—Electoral and Referendum Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L00975]*. Corporations Act— ASIC Class Order [CO 10/333] [F2010L01204]*. Select Legislative Instruments 2010 Nos— 88—Corporations Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 3) [F2010L01097]*. 89—Corporations Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 4) [F2010L01198]*. Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 77—Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01199]*. Family Law Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 76—Family Law Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01220]*. Migration Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 90—Migration Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 5) [F2010L01203]*. Moomba-Sydney Pipeline System Sale Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 84—Moomba-Sydney Pipeline System Sale Repeal Regulations 2010 [F2010L01194]*. National Rental Affordability Scheme Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 78—National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01193]*. Privacy Act—Temporary Public Interest Determination No. 2010-1—To allow collation of victims of crime statistics involving student visa holders for research purposes [F2010L01206]*. Remuneration Tribunal Act—Determination 2010/05: Remuneration and Allowances for Holders of Public Office [F2010L01196]*. Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 85—Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation (Conversion into Public Company) Repeal Regulations 2010 [F2010L01191]*. Veterans’ Entitlements Act—Statements of Principles concerning— Gout No. 30 of 2010 [F2010L01046]*. Gout No. 31 of 2010 [F2010L01047]*. Iliotibial Band Syndrome No. 34 of 2010 [F2010L01050]*. Iliotibial Band Syndrome No. 35 of 2010 [F2010L01051]*. Joint Instability No. 32 of 2010 [F2010L01048]*. Joint Instability No. 33 of 2010 [F2010L01049]*. Reactive Arthritis No. 26 of 2010 [F2010L01042]*. Reactive Arthritis No. 27 of 2010 [F2010L01043]*. Water Act—Select Legislative Instrument 2010 No. 83—Water Amendment Regulations 2010 (No. 1) [F2010L01207]*. *    Explanatory statement tabled with legislative instrument. 2700 The following government documents were tabled: Migration Act 1958—Section 486O—Assessment of detention arrangements—Personal identifiers 581/10 to 589/10— Commonwealth Ombudsman’s reports. Government response to Ombudsman’s reports. Treaties—Bilateral— Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, done at New York on 4 May 2010—Text, together with national interest analysis and agreed minute. Convention between Australia and the Republic of Chile for the Avoidance of Double Taxation with Respect to Taxes on Income and Fringe Benefits and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion, and Protocol, done at Santiago on 10 March 2010—Text, together with national interest analysis and regulation impact statement. Text, together with national interest analysis— Agreement between Australia and the European Union on the Security of Classified Information, done at Brussels, 13 January 2010. Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Korea on the Protection of Classified Military Information, done at Singapore on 30 May 2009. Amendments to the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam relating to Air Services, done at Canberra 30 April 1992 [1992] ATS 20. Third Protocol amending the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of Malaysia for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income, as amended by the First Protocol of 2 August 1999 and the Second Protocol of 28 July 2002, done at Canberra on 24 February 2010. Text, together with national interest analysis and annexure— Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning Air Services, done at London on 10 July 2008. Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Swiss Federal Council relating to Air Services, done at Canberra on 28 November 2008. Text, together with national interest analysis and annexures— Agreement between Australia and the Kingdom of Spain relating to Air Services, done at Canberra on 24 June 2009. Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America Concerning Acquisition and Cross-Servicing, Done at Canberra on 27 April 2010. 2701 The followingdocument was tabled pursuant to the order of the Senate of 24 June 2008, as amended: Departmental and agency appointments and vacancies—Budget estimates—Letter of advice—Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio agencies. 2701 The following document was tabled pursuant to the order of the Senate of 24 June 2008: Departmental and agency grants—Budget estimates—Letter of advice— Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. 2702 Answers to Questions on Notice The following answers to questions were circulated: 2702 2702 1785 to 1787, 1817 and 1820 2702 Abetz, Sen Eric N26 Tasmania LP 0 Senator Abetz asked the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Social Inclusion, Minister representing the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth, and Minister for Employment Participation, upon notice, on 16 June 2009: Can an itemised list be provided of how much the department has spent on hospitality since 24 November 2007; and of this, how much was spent on alcohol. For each Minister and any associated parliamentary secretary: can an itemised list be provided of how much each office has spent on hospitality since 24 November 2007; and of this, how much was spent on alcohol. 2702 Arbib, Sen Mark HES New South Wales ALP Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery 1 Senator Arbib —The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: The total hospitality expenditure for the department for the period 3 December 2007 to 16 June 2009 was $241,954.61. Please refer to the following tables for a breakdown of events over $1,000 and a summary of general Group and State hospitality for events of less than $1,000. A detailed breakdown of events involving expenditure under $1,000 has not been provided as this would require an unreasonable diversion of resources. Event DATE LOCATION PURPOSE COST ($) (Ex GST) 02.05.2008 Crowne Plaza Spencer St, Melbourne, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,454.54 28.05.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,088.19 03.06.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,148.60 26.06.08 Embassy of Australia Washington DC, USA Graduate Education $1,379.87 07.07.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,313.59 16.07.2008 Woodward Conference Centre University of Melbourne, VIC Social Inclusion $5,100.00 21-26.07.2008 Embassy of Australia Washington DC, USA Schools Issues $1,002.97 28-29.07.2008 Old Parliament House King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT Council of Latin America Relations Education Action Group Reception and Roundtable $4,016.82 04.08.2008 Belconnen Premier Inn Benjamin Way, Belconnen, ACT National Youth Week Conference $4,493.64 06.08.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,241.82 06.08.2008 University of South Australia City West Campus, SA Australian Student Prize Ceremony $1,461.82 11.08.2008 The Boat House by the Lake Grevillia Park, Barton, ACT Australian Council of State School Organisations and Australian Parent Council $2,736.36 03.09.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,411.73 11.09.2008 The Jasper Hotel Elizabeth St, Melbourne, VIC Disability Employment Consultation $2,938.18 19.09.2008 Bendigo Jockey Club Heinz St, Bendigo, VIC Disability Employment Consultation $1,022.73 23.09.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC Development of Quality Reform Agenda and Indigenous Sector support strategies $3,261.68 09.10.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,370.95 17.10.2008 Commerce and Industry Office Taipei, Taiwan Peter Doherty (Nobel Laureate) function to highlight Australia’s research strengths and help promote Australia as a quality destination for education $2,808.61 21.10.2008 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $1,267.73 28.10.2008 Bund Restaurant Shanghai Ministry of Education Workshop on the Management of International Students $2,244.88 31.10.2008 Ainslie Football Club Wakefield Avenue, Ainslie, ACT NAIDOC Week $1,636.36 21.11.2008 Albury Sailors Soldiers and Airmens Club Albury, NSW Staff training in delivery of Child Care Services $1,090.91 01.12.2008 DEEWR 16 Mort Street, Braddon, ACT National Education Systems Group National Assessment Panel meeting $1,104.54 08.12.2008 Pavilion on Northbourne Northbourne Ave, Dickson, ACT State and Territory Assessment Panel Training $1,114.89 10.12.2008 DEEWR 16 Mort Street, Braddon, ACT SES meeting $1,101.00 31.12.2008 Indian Institute of Technology Chennai Campus Hosting of Scholarship function for Shaastra Annual Technical Festival (Madras) $4,770.00 31.12.2008 India Habitat Centre New Delhi Confederation of Indian Industry Partnership Dinner $3,095.00 31.12.2008 Hotel Cosmos Calle No. 21A-41 Bogota Expo Australia08 in Bogota Inaugural reception $3,000.00 31.12.2008 Grand Intercontinental Hotel COEX Seoul Networking event for Australian and Korean education representatives following the annual Australia-Korea Partnerships in Higher Education Workshop $15,948.82 28.01.2009 The Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel Bangkok, Thailand Australian Day 2009 function, (DEEWR contribution) $2,436.02 23.02.2009 Old Parliament House King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT Workforce working party round table $1,145.00 11.03.2009 Ottoman Cuisine Broughton St, Barton International Group Conference Dinner $1,822.73 16.03.2009 Hilton Hotel Arrival Drive, Tullamarine, VIC COAG Productivity Agenda Working Group Skills and Workforce Development $2,034.86 27.05.2009 Ironbark Café Manuka, ACT Launch of DEEWR Reconciliation Action Plan $1,452.00 Subtotal $84,516.84   GENERAL OFFICIAL HOSPITALITY EXPENDITURE (< $1000 in value per event) Line Area Amount Executive Ministers’ Offices OECECC Schooling & COAG Tertiary, Youth & International Employment Employment & Strategy Workplace Relations Corporate & Network $7,320.39 $13,632.30 $14,561.98 $45,512.80 $38,030.52 $594.90 $11,438.85 $4,352.19 $21,993.84 Subtotal < $1000 $157,437.77 Subtotal >$1000 $157,437.77 Total $ 241,954.61 General Official Hospitality includes: Launches attended by the media; Hospitality associated with advisory committee functions; Major events relating to the progress or promotion of the Department’s business; Hospitality which promotes a government policy or objective; Hosting visiting officials and dignitaries from overseas; Hospitality which facilitates the conduct of public business; and Hospitality at functions for staff in recognition of significant events. Expenditure on alcohol is not recorded separately from other hospitality expenses.   (2)   (a)   Total hospitality expenditure met by the department for the Ministerial offices for the period 3 December 2007 to 16 June 2009 was $13,632.30. The breakdown is as follows:   Office Expenditure (24/11/2007 – 16/6/2009) The Hon Julia Gillard MP, as: Minister for Education Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Minister for Social Inclusion Deputy Prime Minister $9,843.89 The Hon Brendan O’Connor MP, as: Minister for Employment Participation $1,821.04 The Hon Kate Ellis MP, as: Minister for Youth $382.41 The Hon Maxine McKew MP, as: Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care $1,465.32 Senator the Hon Ursula Stephens, as: Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector $119.64 Total $13,632.30   Expenditure on alcohol is not recorded separately from other hospitality expenses. 2705 2705 2152 2705 Ronaldson, Sen Michael XT4 Victoria LP 0 Senator Ronaldson asked the Minister representing the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, upon notice, on 10 September 2009: For the 2008-09 financial year: Did the Minister have any ministerial letterhead produced using the funds or resources of his or her home department; if so: how many sheets of letterhead were produced; and what was the cost of the production of the letterhead. What was the total postage cost of mailings conducted by the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary using their departmental-funded franking machine. What was the total cost, including production and distribution, of all direct mail pieces produced by the department, including as part of a government communications campaign, where the Minister or Prime Minister was the nominal author of the piece; and can an itemised list be provided of: production costs, and distribution costs. 2706 Faulkner, Sen John 5K4 New South Wales ALP Minister for Defence 1 Senator Faulkner —The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: No. $1,336.03 (excluding GST) $179,948.18 December 2008 – letter on the Economic Stimulus Payment. $45,750.06 $134,198.12 2706 2706 2189 2706 Ronaldson, Sen Michael XT4 Victoria LP 0 Senator Ronaldson asked the Minister representing the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, upon notice, on 14 September 2009: With reference to resources provided to the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary by their home department that are above and beyond their entitlements as senators and members: For the 2008-09 financial year: can a list be provided of each brand and model of colour printer that was provided for the office of the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary; and what was the total cost of: printer cartridges and/or toner, and servicing these printers. For the 2008-09 financial year, what was the total value of photocopy paper received in the office of the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary. For the 2008-09 financial year, what was the value of other office consumables received in the office of the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary. For the 2008-09 financial year, can a list be provided of all departmental publications, excluding ordinary or mail-merged letters, which contained the name and/or photograph of the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary, including: the cost of producing each of these publications; and how many copies were distributed and to what category of persons they were distributed to. Does the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary have a departmentally-funded and maintained website/webpage; if so: what was the cost of developing the website of the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary; was the site refreshed during the 2008-09 financial year and if so, what was the cost for refreshing the site; and what resources does the department provided to maintain, update and upload the content for the site. Does the department distribute the media releases for the Minister and/or Parliamentary Secretary; if so: how and to whom; and for the 2008-09 financial year, what was the cost for this distribution. 2707 Faulkner, Sen John 5K4 New South Wales ALP Minister for Defence 1 Senator Faulkner —The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: — (a) Printer ID Make/Model Serial No Description C173P Lexmark C762 940HY0X Colour/Mono Stand alone A4   The Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) has a contract with Lexmark to provide Managed Printer Services. DVA pays an all inclusive per page rate covering toner, support, maintenance and servicing. The colour page rate is 0.14 The mono page rate is 0.024   Total cost of the colour printer service from Lexmark for 2008-09 was $2745.64 The colour component of this device is $2221.24 The mono component is $524.40 There were three service visits in the period at no charge. As the photocopy paper expenditure is recorded by DVA under a single nominal code, it would be resource intensive to identify what proportion was attributed to the Office of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. Total value was $2,818.65 excluding GST. DVA produced over 200 publications during 2008-09 financial year, including corporate and statutory reporting, health newsletters and publications, commemorative publications and histories, and orders of service for commemorative ceremonies. It cannot justify the onerous application of departmental resources to review all publications for mention of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and/or his photograph and to collate costs and distribution details to respond to this question. The website was re-branded once details of the incoming Minister were announced in 2007 for a cost of less than $1000. No refresh work was done during 2008-09 apart from adding content. All routine work is performed by the in-house DVA web team at minimal cost; this includes press releases, speeches/transcripts and image placement. Yes Medianet is used to distribute ministerial media releases to individuals and ex-service organisations via the Minister’s electronic subscription service. $43,196.93 2707 2707 2337 2707 Barnett, Sen Guy 00AUF Tasmania LP 0 Senator Barnett asked the Minister representing the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, upon notice, on 17 September 2009: How much has the department and relevant agencies spent on legal advice for the 2008‑09 financial year. How much was spent on: (a) internal; and (b) external, legal advice. What was the nature, duration, cost and method of procurement and the name of the lawyers or law firm that provided the legal advice. 2708 Wong, Sen Penny 00AOU South Australia ALP Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water 1 Senator Wong —The Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA), the Director of National Parks (DNP), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) are required each year, under the Legal Services Directions 2005, to make a report on legal services expenditure publicly available by 30 October 2009. However, there is no requirement to report on expenditure on legal advice as a distinct item within legal services expenditure more generally. To do so would amount to an unreasonable diversion of government resources. The published legal expenditure reports for DEWHA, DNP, GBRMPA and MDBA are included in Attachments A, B, C and D respectively. The remaining portfolio agencies have provided the responses set out in Attachment E in relation to: how much portfolio agencies have spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year; how much was spent on: (a) internal; and (b) external, legal advice; and what was the method of procurement and the name of the lawyers or law firms that provided the legal advice. The DEWHA has established a panel of legal service providers to provide a broad range of legal advice to DEWHA and the portfolio agencies that also choose to access the panel arrangements. This was done following a competitive tender process. The panel consists of twelve law firms – the Australian Government Solicitor, Baker & McKenzie, Blake Dawson, Clayton Utz, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Deacons, DLA Phillips Fox, Maddocks, Mallesons, Minter Ellison, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Sparke Helmore. To require DEWHA and each of its portfolio agencies to isolate expenditure on each legal advice matter would be unreasonable, as would ascertaining the nature, duration and cost of each legal advice.   Attachment A Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts Legal Services Expenditure for 2008 – 2009 Note: All figures should be inclusive of GST Total External Legal Services Expenditure $5,725,411.21 Total number of Counsel briefed 17 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $403,800.17 Total of disbursements (excl Counsel) $256,557.06 Total of professional fees paid $5,056,053.98 Total Internal Legal Services Expenditure $1,454,480.83 Total Costs Recovered $41,339.29 External Legal Services Expenditure (inclusive of GST) Counsel Total number of Counsel briefed 17 * Male counsel briefed 12 * Female counsel briefed 5 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 * Male counsel direct briefed 0 * Female counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $403,800.17 * Male counsel briefs $309,475.08 * Female counsel briefs $94,325.09 Disbursements (excluding Counsel) $256,557.06 Professional Fees Total professional fees paid $5,065,053.98 Australian Government Solicitor $4,850,972.32 Baker & McKenzie $0.00 Blake Dawson $118,256.49 Clayton Utz $14,851.98 Corrs Chambers Westgarth $0.00 Deacons $0.00 DLA Phillips Fox $438,177.57 Maddocks $0.00 Mallesons $0.00 Minter Ellison $303,152.85 Price Waterhouse Coopers $0.00 Sparke Helmore $0.00   Attachment B Director of National Parks Legal Services Expenditure for 2008 – 2009 Note: All figures should be inclusive of GST Total External Legal Services Expenditure $49,416.20 Total number of Counsel briefed 0 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $0.00 Total of disbursements (excl Counsel) $0.00 Total of professional fees paid $49,416.20 Total Internal Legal Services Expenditure $325,738.46 Total Costs Recovered $0.00 External Legal Services Expenditure (inclusive of GST) Counsel Total number of Counsel briefed 0 * Male counsel briefed 0 * Female counsel briefed 0 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 * Male counsel direct briefed 0 * Female counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $0.00 * Male counsel briefs $0.00 * Female counsel briefs $0.00 Disbursements (excluding Counsel) $0.00 Professional Fees Total professional fees paid $49,416.20 Australian Government Solicitor $49,416.20   Attachment C Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Legal Services Expenditure for 2008 – 2009 Note: All figures should be inclusive of GST Total External Legal Services Expenditure $116,451.50 Total number of Counsel briefed 3 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $10,621.00 Total of disbursements (excl Counsel) $16.50 Total of professional fees paid $105,814.00 Total Internal Legal Services Expenditure $527,876.00 Total Costs Recovered $0.00 External Legal Services Expenditure (inclusive of GST) Counsel Total number of Counsel briefed 3 * Male counsel briefed 3 * Female counsel briefed 0 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 * Male counsel direct briefed 1 * Female counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $10,621.00 * Male counsel briefs $10,621.00 * Female counsel briefs $0.00 Disbursements (excluding Counsel) $16.50 Professional Fees Total professional fees paid $105,814.00 Australian Government Solicitor $69,609.59 Roberts Nehmer McKee Lawyers $3,049.75 Other External Services $33,154.66   Attachment D Murray-Darling Basin Authority Legal Services Expenditure for 2008 – 2009 Note: All figures should be inclusive of GST Total External Legal Services Expenditure $666,294.99 Total number of Counsel briefed 2 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $9,973.41 Total of disbursements (excl Counsel) $22,832.81 Total of professional fees paid $633,488.77 Total Internal Legal Services Expenditure $0.00 Total Costs Recovered External Legal Services Expenditure (inclusive of GST) Counsel Total number of Counsel briefed 2 * Male counsel briefed 2 * Female counsel briefed 0 Total number of Counsel direct briefed 0 * Male counsel direct briefed 0 * Female counsel direct briefed 0 Total value of Counsel briefs $9,973.41 * Male counsel briefs $9,972.41 * Female counsel briefs 0 Disbursements (excluding Counsel) $22,832.81 Professional Fees Total professional fees paid $633,488.77 Australian Government Solicitor $176,563.75 Blake Dawson $365,615.12 Minter Ellison $8,318.20 William Love & Nicol $82,991.70   Attachment E Australia Business Arts Foundation How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year Nil How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice Nil What was the method of procurement for the legal advice N/A What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice N/A   Australia Council How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $78,685.00 How much was spent on internal legal advice $13,685.00 How much was spent on external legal advice $65,000.00 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Direct sourcing What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor   Australian Antarctic Division How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $133,558.34 How much was spent on internal legal advice $90,376.62 How much was spent on external legal advice $43,181.72 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Direct sourcing What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($26,294.43) Attorney-General’s Department ($16,887.29)   Australian Film, Television and Radio School How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $113,379.99 How much was spent on internal legal advice $98,600.47 How much was spent on external legal advice $14,779.52 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Direct sourcing What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor   Australian National Maritime Museum How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $195,037.00 How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice $195,037.00 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Direct sourcing What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor   Bundanon Trust How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year Nil How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice Nil What was the method of procurement for the legal advice N/A What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice N/A   Bureau of Meteorology How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $489,203.00 How much was spent on internal legal advice $140,575.00 How much was spent on external legal advice $348,628.00 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Direct sourcing What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($161,544.00) Ladbray Consortium ($180,206.00) Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick ($2,940.00) Michael Chin ($432) Jamiesons ($2,560.00) Arnold Bloch ($946.00)   National Film and Sound Archives How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $228,401.00 How much was spent on internal legal advice $81,071.00 How much was spent on external legal advice $147,330.00 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice The legal advice was procured via a select tender process and a Deed of Standing Offer. What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($73,455.00) Blake Dawson ($43,100.00) DLA Phillips Fox ($19,925.00) Stephen Boyle ($10,850.00)   National Gallery of Australia How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $2,931.69 How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice $2,931.69 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Direct sourcing What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($1,166.19) Bradley Allen Solicitors ($1,765.50)   National Library of Australia How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $227,264.00 How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice $277,264.00 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Deed of Standing Offer for the Legal Panel What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Blake Dawson Clayton Utz DLA Phillips Fox   National Museum of Australia How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $201,658.00 How much was spent on internal legal advice $130,210.00 How much was spent on external legal advice $71,448.00 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice The National Museum of Australia has a Deed of Standing Offer with three law firms to provide legal services. These firms were engaged following a competitive open tender process. What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($36,820.00) Minter Ellison ($17,041.00) Sparke Helmore ($17,587)   National Water Commission How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $126,790.84 How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice $126,790.84 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Legal Panel established by the National Water Commission What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($63,229.32) DLA Phillips Fox ($63,561.52)   Screen Australia How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $3,432,829.67 How much was spent on internal legal advice $3,131,199.75 How much was spent on external legal advice $301,629.92 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Screen Australia’s general practice is that quotes must be obtained before retaining legal advice. Where the work is expected to cost in excess of $10,000, three quotes must be obtained. Where work is expected to cost in excess of $50,000, a process of public tender must be used. However, in certain circumstances (e.g. where timing is critical, where a firm has particular expertise with the issue at hand, or where firms are conflicted) procurement may be more direct. What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Government Solicitor ($23,407.60) Holding Redlich ($57,458.50) Janine Pearce Media Law ($11,673.75) DLA Phillips Fox ($13,689.19) Blake Dawson ($26,226.71) Stevenson Watson ($46,146.03) Shiff & Company ($16,155.04) Goodmans LLP ($32,204.85) Hart & Sitch Lawyers Pty Ltd ($18,000.00) Sanity Law ($42,861.25) Marshalls & Dent ($1,650.00) KPMG ($3,861.00) Hamish Watson Entertainment & Media Law ($8,296.00)   Supervising Scientist How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year Nil How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice Nil What was the method of procurement for the legal advice N/A What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice N/A   Sydney Harbour Federation Trust How much was spent on legal advice for the 2008-09 financial year $231,593.58 How much was spent on internal legal advice Nil How much was spent on external legal advice $231,593.58 What was the method of procurement for the legal advice Legal Panel or direct sourcing from law firm with relevant expertise in specialised area What was the name of the lawyers or the law firms that provided the legal advice Australian Business Lawyers ($22,355.46) Australian Government Solicitor ($61,366.44) Bartier Perry ($30,050.47) Finlayson Lawyers ($4,959.32) Freehills ($25,705.23) Michael Christie ($3,696.00) Robinson Legal ($82,733.66) Ross Ward Lawyers ($727.00) 2716 2716 2464 2716 Cormann, Sen Mathias HDA Western Australia LP 0 Senator Cormann asked the Minister representing the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, upon notice, on 24 November 2009: With reference to the answer to question on notice no. 2107 relating to the ‘Caring for our Country’ program: Of the $268 million ‘Not budgeted by jurisdiction’ for the 2008-09 financial year: (a) what were the specific projects that these payments supported; (b) to which corporate entities were the payments directed; and (c) what is the legal address of those corporate entities. Of the $269 million ‘Not budgeted by jurisdiction’ for the 2009-10 financial year: (a) how much has been expended to 23 November 2009; and (b) what were the specific projects that these payments supported; (c) to which corporate entities were the payments directed; and (d) what is the legal address of those corporate entities. 2716 Wong, Sen Penny 00AOU South Australia ALP Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water 1 Senator Wong —The Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: The projects, corporate entities and legal addresses of the corporate entities that were funded from the $268 million ‘Not budgeted by jurisdiction’ in the 2008-09 financial year is provided at Attachment A. A total of $69,329,063.52 has been expended to 23 November 2009. The projects, corporate entities and legal addresses of the corporate entities that were funded from the $269 million ‘Not budgeted by jurisdiction’ in the 2009-10 financial year up to 23 November 2009 is provided at Attachment B.   Attachment A 2008-09 Caring for Our Country Project Details Project Title Corporate Entity Legal Address Town   State Postcode Total $ (GST excl) ‘Salty Pastures’ Demonstrating grazing options on dairy properties in the Lower Murray experiencing saline groundwater intrusion and drought. Mannum to Wellington Local Action Planning Inc. (MWLAP) PO Box 2056 MURRAY BRIDGE SA 5253 47,927.50 “Back to Basics” workshops and revegetation - Moreton Bay Marine Park catchment Bunya Community Environmental Association Inc PO Box 350 TORQUAY VIC 3228 50,000.00 “MangroveWatch” in the Burnett Mary region The University Of Queensland PO Box 109 TIN CAN BAY QLD 4580 93,076.06 “Strategic Management of Serrated Tussock - Reducing Threats to Sustainable Farming” Snowy River Inter- Landcare PO Box 121 BOMBALA NSW 2632 143,459.55 ‘Cool Coastal Cows’- dairy farmers adapting to climate change in SE NSW Bega Cooperative Society Limited PO Box 123 BEGA NSW 2550 136,690.00 ‘Pats and Spats’ Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 118 BEGA NSW 2550 155,690.00 80 Mile Beach sand dune conservation The Trustee For Lallaw Pastoral Unit Trust 18 Monsoon Terrace MT SHERIDAN QLD 4868 45,454.54 A broadacre approach to Certification of sustainable farm practice Curtin University of Technology GPO Box U1987 PERTH WA 6845 219,000.00 A Collaborative Recruitment Forecasting Programme for the NT Mud Crab Fishery Northern Territory Seafood Council PO Box 618 DARWIN NT 0801 57,400.00 A Community-Based Response to Realising Sustainable Agriculture in Northern Victoria Northern United Forestry Group 724 Forsyth Rd MILLOO VIC 3572 100,000.00 A National Market Based instrument for Feral Camel Control National Rangelands NRM Alliance PO Box 2227 PRIMROSE VALLEY SA 5700 238,636.37 A Responsible Lead - laying the foundations of the Grains Industry Environmental Plan Grains Research and Development Corporation PO Box 5367 KINGSTON ACT 2604 290,909.09 A Strategic Regional Conservation Plan for Australia’s Global Biodiversity Hotspot World Wide Fund For Nature Australia GPO Box 528 SYDNEY NSW 2000 267,003.64 Accelerating Precision Agriculture in the Condamine Catchment Brigalow-Jimbour Floodplains Group 536 Haystack Rd BRIGALOW QLD 4412 178,000.00 Accelerating Sustainable Forest & Woodland Production BMP uptake across Queensland Queensland Murray Darling Committee PO Box 13186 BRISBANE QLD 4003 405,200.00 Accelerating the adoption of Controlled Traffic Farming with Grain Harvest contractors Australian Controlled Traffic Farming Association Inc (ACTFA) PO Box 103 GEELONG VIC 3220 12,480.00 Addressing key threats to the Lower Ringarooma River floodplain Ramsar site Northern Tasmanian Natural Resource Management Association Inc. 205 Greenhill Road EASTWOOD SA 5063 144,480.00 Addressing spartina infestation in Victorian Embayments (Marine) bioregion - the greatest direct threat to the wetland ecosystems of our bays and estuaries Parks Victoria GPO Box U1987 PERTH WA 6845 181,611.16 Administrative Support for Landcare Australia Limited Landcare Australia Limited PO Box 5666 WEST CHATSWOOD NSW 1515 1,400,000.00 Adopting Innovative Practices to Improve the Resilience of Farming Systems in the Northern and Eastern Wheatbelt of Western Australia. Wheatbelt East Regional Organisation of Councils (WEROC) PO Box 145 KELLER-BERRIN WA 6410 273,181.82 Adoption of best management fishing practices within the Moreton Bay region Moreton Bay Seafood Industry Association Inc PO Box 2188 ASCOT QLD 4007 95,652.00 Adoption of nutrient budgeting for sustainable dairy farms and healthy rivers DairyTas Board Inc PO Box 1352 BURNIE TAS 7320 90,000.00 Adoption of sustainable and productive stock water supplies for sustainable farming systems on Eyre Peninsula Eyre Peninsula National Resource Management Board (EPNRM) PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 73,594.60 Adoption of sustainable water management on Tasmanian vegetable farms RDS Partners Pty Ltd 4/29 Elizabeth Street HOBART TAS 7000 123,788.18 AgForce Reef Rescue AgForce Queensland Industrial Union of Employers PO Box 13186 BRISBANE QLD 4003 397,014.00 Alma Bay native vegetation rehabilitation: Native vegetation rehabilitation on a world heritage island Townsville City Council PO Box 1268 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 9,241.82 Anglesea to Apollo Bay coastal dune rehabilitation project (2009) Makcol Pty Ltd PO Box 618 NARACOORTE SA 5271 40,536.36 Anindilyakwa Indigenous Protected Area Anindilyakwa Land Council   PO Box 172 ALYANGULA NT 0885 245,000.00 Apollo Bay hooded plover protection Apollo Bay Kennett River Public Reserves Committee Of Management PO Box 1390 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 7,742.36 Area Wide Integrated Pest Management for Bundaberg regional Production Horticulture. Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers Cooperative Ltd (BFVG) PO Box 45 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 200,450.00 Arid Recovery: developing new partnerships to restore our Arid lands Arid Recovery PO Box 150 ROXBY DOWNS SA 5725 79,944.00 Assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of eastern blue groper protection within Bronte-Coogee Aquatic Reserve utilising habitat mapping and acoustic monitoring techniques NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change 10 Valentine Avenue PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 45,690.91 Assessing unique sponge community and other Ramsar values of southern Wallis Lake Great Lakes Council PO Box 2041 ROSEBUD VIC 3939 44,242.73 Assessment and mapping of foreshore values, condition and pressures: A coastal management tool Aquenal Pty Ltd PO Box 53 TORQUAY VIC 3228 158,327.26 Asset Protection Decision Support Tools for Pastoralists in Semi-arid Landscapes. Barkly Landcare and Conservation Association Inc PO Box 36 TENNANT CREEK NT 0861 109,728.00 Australian Government Facilitator Network Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts GPO BOX 787 CANBERRA ACT 2601 7,750,000.00 Australian Pastoral Property Innovation Manual Rural Directions Trust PO Box 646 CLARE SA 5453 192,181.82 Australian Wine Industry Stewardship environmental assurance program Winemakers’ Federation of Australia Inc. PO Box 2414 KENT TOWN SA 5071 241,981.82 Avalon Golf Course coastal heath and woodland bush regeneration - stage 1 The Trustee For Pittwater Environmental Trust Block C, 80 Meiers Road INDOOR-OOPILLY QLD 4068 36,300.00 Bald Head Walk trail restoration Great Southern Regional College Of Tafe PO BOX 97 COWES VIC 3922 23,473.84 Bar Barrum Strategic Cultural Natural Resource Management Plan Sustainable Solutions Consulting PO Box 73 MALANDA QLD 4885 17,940.00 Bar Island midden restoration with local communities Hornsby Shire Council PO Box 13204 BRISBANE QLD 4003 26,554.54 Bardwell Valley biodiversity project Rockdale City Council 24/15 South Street GOLD COAST QLD 4225 45,454.54 Barron delta rehabilitation and community partnerships project Barron River Integrated Catchment Management Association Inc. PO Box 4342 MELBOURNE VIC 3001 35,763.64 Battling Boneseed in the Upper South East and Murray-Darling Basin of South Australia South East Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 618 NARACOORTE SA 5271 124,952.73 Bawley Point community coastal restoration/education project Shoalhaven City Council PO Box 42 NOWRA NSW 2541 21,427.27 Beach ecology outreach program Griffith University PO Box 2112 LOWER SANDY BAY TAS 7005 36,363.64 Beat the Bitou @ Birubi - stage 2 Port Stephens Council PO Box 42 RAYMOND TERRACE NSW 2324 44,009.09 Bellambi Dune Zone 5 restoration project Wollongong City Council PO Box 8821 WOLLONGONG NSW 2500 22,100.00 Bellarine Ark - Integrated pest management for the Bellarine Peninsula Ramsar site Parks Victoria PO Box 707 GOOLWA SA 5214 104,674.18 Bells Beach Surfing Reserve : Integrated environmental management of a national icon Surf Coast Shire PO Box 148 KIAMA NSW 2533 44,772.73 Best practice management grazing systems for native grass pastures in the low rainfall cereal zone. Upper North Farming Systems Group PO Box 223 JAMESTOWN SA 5491 103,000.00 Best-practice mesquite management in the rangelands of Western Australia Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee Inc. PO Box 867 KARRATHA WA 6714 242,212.00 Beyond today coastal flora and fauna wetland sanctuary Grove One Pty Ltd as The Trustee For Steven Wright Family Trust PO Box 3720 PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 112,863.64 Beyond Today Coastal Flora and Fauna Wetland Sanctuary - interpretive walking trail Grove One Pty Ltd as The Trustee For Steven Wright Family Trust PO Box 13204 BRISBANE QLD 4003 45,397.73 Big Dune Care: Sustaining big dune surfing reserve with community CARE: conservation, activism, research and education Surfrider Foundation Limited PO Box 338 BURNIE TAS 7320 19,954.54 Bilambil Creek and Terranora Broadwater Estuary enhancement Tweed Shire Council PO Box 366 INGHAM QLD 4850 45,454.54 Bilingual coastal tour guides course Parks Victoria Level 10/535 Bourke St MELBOURNE VIC 3000 19,843.64 Biodiversity conservation values and management for Northern Territory islands Northern Territory Department Of Natural Resources Environment And The Arts PO Box 496 PALMERSTON NT 0831 277,314.55 Birds on the beach - Kangaroo Island coastal bird observers network Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 88 MINLATON SA 5575 10,454.54 Birriliburu Natural and Cultural Heritage Management Plan Central Desert Native Title Services Ltd 170 Wellington Street EAST PERTH WA 6004 34,527.27 Blue Rocks - coastal grasslands rehabilitation Barwon Coast Committee of Management Incorporated PO Box 1268 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 14,154.54 Best Management Practice Grazing Strategies for Adapting to Climate Variability in the Maranoa-Balonne Queensland Murray Darling Committee PO Box 1078 ROMA QLD 4455 77,770.00 Boilers Point coastal restoration Elouera (Five Islands) Illawarra Traditional Indigenous Aboriginal Council of Elders Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 3114 WINDANG NSW 2518 37,366.00 Botany Bay watch: Volunteer community based marine monitoring and education program Abyss Scuba Diving Pty Ltd 278 Rocky Point Rd RAMSGATE NSW 2217 28,927.18 Bribie community wallum froglet and wetland protection and monitoring Wetlandcare Australia Pty Ltd 182 Channel Highway KINGSTON TAS 7050 39,025.00 Bringing back bush regeneration to Boat Harbour Port Stephens Council PO Box 338 BURNIE TAS 7320 23,669.09 Building capacity for the management of invasive animal impacts on agriculture Invasive Animals Commonwealth Research Centre Level D, Building 3 - University of Canberra BRUCE ACT 2617 20,000.00 Building Capacity to Establish a Parkinsonia Dieback Biological Control Model Victoria River District Conservation Association Incorporated PO Box 2404   KATHERINE NT 0850 145,272.72 Building coastal structures: sharing experiences and updating the coastal management specifications manual Green Skills Inc PO Box 84 PORT MACQUARIE NSW 2444 12,372.73 Building on improved options for managing changing climatic and economic environments through addressing soil constraints Lower Eyre Agricultural Development Association (LEADA) PO Box 1783 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 121,870.00 Building partnerships to restore native vegetation along the Bowen foreshore Whitsunday Regional Council PO Box 104 PROSERPINE QLD 4800 45,226.53 Building resilient farming systems in South Australia through improved knowledge and innovative management of soil constraints. Advisory Board of Agriculture, (MacKillop Farm Management Group & Southern Mallee Agricultural Bureau Box 1671 GPO ADELAIDE SA 5001 249,750.00 Building resilient farms in times of change Serve-Ag Pty Ltd PO Box 149 GLENORCHY TAS 7010 100,000.00 Building Resilient People, Ecosystems and Agricultural Communities Little Landcare Group Inc. 24 Forbes Street YEOVAL NSW 2868 152,400.00 Building stewardship for our Two Bays Parks Victoria PO Box 645 VICTOR HARBOR SA 5211 80,000.00 Bumborah Point bushland restoration project Randwick City Council PO Box 419 LEONGATHA VIC 3953 37,018.18 Bungawalbin Creek riparian vegetation enhancement: cocks comb coral tree control Environmental Training & Employment Inc. PO Box 2010 GEELONG VIC 3220 45,454.76 Bunya Biolink - Cooyar Creek riparian zone rehabilitation Greening Australia (Queensland) Ltd 333 Bennetts Road NORMAN PARK QLD 4067 315,032.73 Bunya Mountains - Caring for Country Action Plan Burnett Mary Regional Group for National Resource Management Inc. PO Box 501 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 60,000.00 Burdekin Bowen Integrated Farm Management Monitoring and Support Project Burdekin Bowen Integrated Floodplain Management Advisory Committee Inc PO Box 205 AYR QLD 4807 240,634.18 Burdekin Reef Rescue Burdekin Solutions Ltd PO Box 1466 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 3,546,300.00 Burnett Mary Reef Rescue Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management Inc. PO Box 501 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 3,063,000.00 Bush For Life: Coastal bush regeneration on 22 established sites in South Australia Trees For Life Inc 60 Leicester St CARLTON VIC 3053 45,030.00 Byron Shire community dune care restoration plans Environmental Training & Employment Inc. PO Box 1466 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 33,262.91 Canegrowers Reef Rescue Queensland Canegrowers Organisation Ltd. GPO Box 1032 BRISBANE QLD 4001 225,000.00 Canunda and Pick Swamp native grassland revegetation Department For Environment And Heritage PO Box 1046 MOUNT GAMBIER SA 5290 2,183.64 Cape corridor Cape Nelson Landcare Inc PO Box 38 BALNARRING VIC 3926 19,788.18 Cape York Peninsula feral pig satellite tracking Cape York Peninsula Development Association Inc. PO Box 114 BALLINA NSW 2478 17,166.36 Cape York Sustainable Futures Reef Rescue Cape York Peninsula Development Association Inc. PO Box 646N CAIRNS QLD 4870 234,000.00 Cape York west coast turtle rescue and recovery (endangered species) Cape York Peninsula Development Association Inc. PO Box 1124 LISMORE NSW 2480 18,094.54 Capricorn Coast regional coastcare activities - looking after the coastal scrub Fitzroy Basin Association Inc PO Box 3720 PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 43,863.64 Carbon – what does it means for me on my property Agforce Queensland PO Box 13186 BRISBANE QLD 4003 320,000.00 Carbon Neutral Sustainable Energy Farming using Woody Biomass Plantings Farm Forestry North East Hardwood Cooperative Ltd 258 Brimmin Rd RUTHERGLEN VIC 3685 78,000.00 Carbon Pollution Reduction Gutteridge Haskins & Davey Pty Ltd 10 Bond Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 166,363.64 Caring for BBKY (Barada, Barna, Kabalbara, Yetimarla) coastal country Fitzroy Basin Elders Committee Incorporated PO Box 813 ROCKHAMPTON QLD 4700 43,454.54 Caring for Blue Whale country in the Bonney Upwelling, Victoria. Blue Whale Study Inc C/- Post Office NARRAWONG VIC 3285 38,029.09 Caring for country with fire in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands Anangu Pitjantjatjara Inc PMB 227 UMUWA SA 0872 87,272.73 Caring for the Chain of Bays - community awareness raising and knowledge sharing Friends Of Sceale Bay Inc 29 Marlin Drive WONGA QLD 4873 29,915.00 Caring for the coast: A guide to environmental law for coastal communities in NSW Environmental Defenders Office Ltd GPO Box 1222 DARWIN NT 0801 45,207.27 Caring for turtles - Collaborating communities increasing marine turtle breeding success Environmental Protection Agency 49-51 Elizabeth St LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 154,472.73 Carpentaria Ghost Nets Department of Environment and Resource Management PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 397,000.00 Cat management in the George Town coastal area Tamar Region Natural Resource Management Strategy Reference Group Inc PO Box 172 TEWANTIN QLD 4565 35,678.18 Catchment to coast education program Gecko-Gold Coast & Hinterland Environment Council Association Inc. PO Box 21 SOUTH HOBART TAS 7004 45,058.18 Catchment to Reef integrated monitoring framework Department of Environment and Resource Management GPO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 920,000.00 Catering for Kimberley - Cane Toad Ms Sharyn McFarlane Australian National University CANBERRA ACT 2601 143,409.00 Cattana Wetlands - environmental education for sustainability FNQ NRM Ltd PO Box 1756 INNISFAIL QLD 4860 24,820.24 Cellito Beach regeneration and cultural heritage protection project Great Lakes Council PO Box 450 FORSTER NSW 2428 32,582.64 Central coast Reefwatch pilot program Community Environment Network Inc PO Box 149 OURIMBAH NSW 2258 41,402.95 Channel and Huon coastal waters clean up: a seafood industry initiative Tasmanian Seafood Industry Council 120 Wharf Road JOHNS RIVER NSW 2443 16,590.91 Clarence River Estuary saltmarsh sea level rise adaptation and planning Wetlandcare Australia Pty Ltd PO Box 117 CALOUNDRA QLD 4551 44,016.36 Climate Priorities - stocktake and priority setting for broadacre irrigation in the NSW Riverina Ricegrowers Association PO Box 706 LEETON NSW 2705 185,500.00 Coastal Banksia re-generation at Mills Beach, Mornington Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Private Bag 1000 ROSEBUD VIC 3939 6,545.45 Coastal Banksia woodland regeneration Corinella Foreshore Reserve Incorporated PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 6,254.54 Coastal Conservation - Student Leadership Educational Resource Program Australian Marine Environment Protection Association Williamstown High School, Bayview Street WILLIAMS-TOWN VIC 3016 26,090.91 Coastal dune rehabilitation on Groote Eylandt extension Anindilyakwa Land Council 2/61 Swan St TUART HILL WA 6060 45,454.54 Coastal pest plant incursion survey of the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia District Council Of Yorke Peninsula PO Box 1162 WEST PERTH WA 6872 45,454.54 Coastal wattle management study and weed control for the Long Beach foreshore Eurobodalla Shire Council PO Box 99 MORUYA NSW 2537 25,063.64 Coastal weed strategy (2008) - implementation for Cradle Coast region, Tasmania Cradle Coast Authority 49-51 Elizabeth St LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 154,763.64 Coffin Bay - it’s natural environment interpreted and protected Coffin Bay Tourist Assoc 7 Wattle Crt JAN JUC VIC 3228 12,320.00 Coffs Coast State Park coastal community Indigenous Green Team partnership restoration Coffs Harbour City Council GPO Box 528 SYDNEY NSW 2001 23,918.18 Co-management Central QLD Coast Reef Catchments 38 Tennyson Street MACKAY QLD 4740 40,000.00 Co-management Central QLD Coast Indigenous Protected Area Reef Catchments 38 Tennyson Street MACKAY QLD 4740 127,000.00 Commercial application of Polychaete sand filters for wastewater remediation and broodstock feeds South East Queensland Catchments Bribie Island Aquaculture Research Centre - PO Box 2066 WOORIM QLD 4507 56,844.00 Community / Institute partnership researching carbon/biomass/soil relations. Mudgegonga & District Landcare Group PO Box 502 MYRTLEFORD VIC 3737 29,000.00 Community action in rehabilitating dune Systems on the central coast Community Environment Network Inc PO Box 574 MORUYA NSW 2537 37,300.00 Community based coral reef monitoring, education and environmental action in the south east Queensland region. Reef Check Foundation Limited PO Box 7396 HERVEY BAY QLD 4655 170,974.54 Community based integrated Indian Myna bird management in the Sutherland Shire Council area Sutherland Shire Council 92 Gamon St YARRAVILLE VIC 3013 8,181.82 Community based investigation of land use influence on coastal streams and potable water supply - Tamborine Mountain SEQ Catchments Limited PO Box 1005 RUNAWAY BAY QLD 4551 181,133.09 Community based marine scientific monitoring and education in the Northern Territory - Sea turtles as iconic and culturally significant species Northern Territory of Australia PO Box 3163 UMINA BEACH NSW 2257 161,781.82 Community caring for the Bellinger coast Bellinger Landcare Inc PO Box 193                                     QUEENSCLIFF VIC 3225 45,381.82 Community caring for the Hardy Inlet foreshore - stage 1 Shire Of Augusta Margaret River 11 Cootamundra Court DODGES FERRY TAS 7173 20,763.64 Community Coastcare Contribution to Landcare Australia Ltd Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry (DAFF) Locked Bag 34 KINGSTON ACT 2604 300,000.00 Community engagement - the way to improve assets in the Bunurong Coast Catchment 3 Creeks Landcare Group C/- Post Office BARWON HEADS VIC 3227 45,027.27 Community engagement in coral trout monitoring in the Great Barrier Reef Reef Check Foundation Limited PO Box 1124 LISMORE NSW 2480 44,227.27 Community enhancement of biodiversity in the Southern Otway coastal catchments Southern Otway Landcare Network PO Box 114 BALLINA NSW 2478 43,498.32 Community feral pig trapping program - Cape Tribulation to Bloomfield River, Daintree Coast JD & SM Roberts 103-134 Eggins Drive ARRAWARRA NSW 2456 45,454.54 Community Group Support program - Community Action Grants Various Various VARIOUS VARIOUS VARIOUS 2,500,000.00 Community initiated catchment management for the Georges River, Botany Bay The Georges River Combined Councils’ Committee PO Box 26 COOMA NSW 2630 167,966.54 Community monitoring, awareness and education of reef biodiversity in the Central Queensland region (Woppaburra) of the Great Barrier Reef Fitzroy Basin Association Inc PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 44,818.18 Community participation for Normanville dunes stabilisation, access control and rehabilitation District Council Of Yankalilla PO Box 9 YANKALILLA SA 5203 45,104.55 Community protection of significant coastal vegetation - Hat Head National Park Macleay Landcare Network Inc. PO Box W48 WEST KEMPSY NSW 2440 15,412.94 Community support for biodiversity restoration in Georges River catchment Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority PO Box 1151 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 29,955.45 Comparative report for the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Nomination Dr Elery Hamilton-Smith PO Box 36 CARLTON SOUTH VIC 3053 59,600.00 Compost use in sustainable agriculture William (Bill) Grant PO Box 388 CASTLEMAINE VIC 3450 80,989.09 Connecting people to the coast - Coorong and Limestone Coast South East Local Government Association PO Box 77 HASTINGS VIC 3915 180,090.91 Connewarre Complex Ramsar wetland - managing threats and impacts Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 159 COLAC VIC 3250 35,909.09 Conservation and rehabilitation of dune, littoral rainforest and educational resources NRMA Tourist Park No. 2 Pty Ltd RMB Wapengo WAPENGO NSW 2550 45,431.82 Conservation management networks in Gippsland: protection of sustainable farming and biodiverse ecosystem East Gippsland Rainforest Conservation PO Box 483 BALLARAT VIC 3875 363,636.36 Conservation of endangered communities Crown of Newport Reserve Pittwater Council Dept. for Environment and Heritage, Coastal Management Branch - 1 Richmond Road KESWICK SA 5035 45,454.54 Conservation of Remnant Vegetation on Travelling Stock Reserves Lachlan Catchment Management Authority PO Box 726 FORBES NSW 2871 400,000.00 Conserving iconic marine wildlife in the Kimberley World Wide Fund For Nature Australia 14 Investigator Ave KINGSCOTE SA 5223 181,818.16 Conserving the Kimberley coast through enhanced indigenous engagement in sustainable tourism Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation 10 St Andrews Drive WOOLGOOLGA NSW 2456 181,781.81 Conserving turtles in Arnhem Land by managing an exotic species Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation PMB 102 WINNELLIE NT 0822 107,709.95 Construction of controlled beach access and weed control in Hinchinbrook coastal reserves Hinchinbrook Shire Council 31 Beachview Esplanade MACMASTERS BEACH NSW 2251 44,081.82 Continuation of riparian restoration project within Heritage Park Noosa Integrated Catchment Association Inc. PO Box 172 TEWANTIN QLD 4565 19,655.91 Continuation of the community based SEQ sea-grass watch program - Moreton Bay, Gold Coast and Noosa Heads regions SEQ Catchments Limited 446 Manuka Road KETTERING TAS 7155 145,140.00 Continued weed eradication on a section of South Stradbroke Island to restore the natural biodiversity, accompanied by the dissemination of information to local residents and other interested groups about the native flora and best practice in weed control South Stradbroke Island Landcare Group Inc PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 40,000.00 Control of WoNS outliers in Cradle Coast NRM Region, Tasmania Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 122,327.27 Control of feral animals to protect the nesting sites of the Buff Banded Rail on Direction Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Shire Council PO Box 1094, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Indian Ocean COCOS (KEELING) ISLANDS CK 6799 14,250.00 Coogee Beach dune system rehabilitation and enhancement City Of Cockburn PO Box 40 PORT ARLINGTON VIC 3223 15,035.91 Cooke Point coastal rehabilitation and conservation - fencing project Town Of Port Hedland PO Box 175 CEDUNA SA 5690 42,565.00 Coolongolook River fish passage project - Locketts Crossing fishway Great Lakes Council Lot 9 Pamelup MYALUP WA 6220 44,563.64 Coordinated south east Queensland extension service to promote land stewardship SEQ Catchments Limited PO Box 201 FORTITUDE VALLEY QLD 4006 148,069.09 Coorong and Limestone Coast, coastal action plan and conservation priority study South East Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 215 WILLUNGA SA 5172 100,909.09 Coping with Climate Change (CCC) Talgarno & Wises Creek Landcare Group 77 Talgarno Gap Rd BETHANGA VIC 3691 50,000.00 CoralCare: Establishing a bleach-watch monitoring program for the coral reefs of Hervey Bay and identifying ways of improving the reefs’ resilience to climate change Fraser Coast Branch Inc. Of The Wildlife Preservation Society Of Queensland PO Box 3472 MOUNT GAMBIER SA 5290 8,970.00 Corner Inlet coastal aquatic weed control and foreshore rehabilitation West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority Private Bag 1000 ROSEBUD VIC 3939 135,892.36 Corner Inlet Ramsar site community seagrass condition assessment P2: People And Parks Foundation Limited as trustee for P2: People and Parks Foundation PO Box 245 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 22,727.27 Coronet Bay foreshore regeneration project Coronet Bay Ratepayers’ And Residents’ Association 13 St Johns Ave NEW TOWN TAS 7008 43,607.00 Costal Banksia restoration project, Mt Martha - Stage 2 Balcombe Estuary Rehabilitation Group Inc C/o Wadeye Post Office WADEYE NT 0822 17,360.00 Cost-effective bio-monitoring of mobile macro-invertebrates in Geographe Bay, WA Curtin University of Technology GPO Box 2146 Hobart TAS 7001 38,997.00 Cottesloe Beach erosion management and rehabilitation project - phase one Town Of Cottesloe PO Box 396 LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 18,636.36 Cotton Australia Reef Rescue Cotton Australia Ltd. PO Box 12009 BRISBANE QLD 4003 30,000.00 Country and coastal community connections - the C4 group Surf Coast And Inland Plains Network 41 Preston Point Road EAST FREMANTLE WA 6158 32,000.00 CQBEEF - Sustainable grazing businesses for Central Queensland Fitzroy Basin Association PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 148,374.00 Crane and Mooyumbin Creek rehabilitation project Gold Coast Catchment Association PO Box 290 MUDGEERABA QLD 4213 18,045.45 Creating a sustainable Shoalhaven Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority 7 Monash Avenue WARRNAM-BOOL VIC 3280 44,914.91 Creating corridors of life and culture in the Leschenault Estuarine waterways Leschenault Catchment Council Inc PO Box 172 ALYANGULA NT 0885 177,484.36 Cultural harvest and threats in the Thamarrurr Region - building strong people, strong partnerships Thamarrurr Development Corporation PO Box 269 BUSSELTON WA 6280 38,636.36 CWFS-Coordinating the adoption of sustainable practices and regional partnerships Central West Farming Systems PO Box 171 CONDOBOLIN NSW 2877 207,624.00 Darwin Harbour flora protection - community group support project Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers 45 Silver Gull Drive BALLINA NSW 2478 41,000.00 Define, protect and rehabilitate remnant coastal vegetation at Turners Beach Turners Beach Coastcare Inc P0 Box 114 BALLINA NSW 2478 48,871.30 Delivering wildlife habitat management decision support in the Brigalow Belt The University Of Queensland School of Natural and Rural Systems Management - The University of Queenlsand ST LUCIA QLD 4072 64,363.64 Demonstrating Production Benefits from Best Practice on Bass Coast Farms Bass Coast Landcare Network PO Box 453 WONTHAGGI VIC 3995 150,000.00 Demonstrating resilient and sustainable production through disc seeding systems Western Australian No-Till Farmers Association PO Box 1091 NORTHAM WA 6401 165,700.00 Demonstrating the production and sustainability benefits of Precision Agriculture in the Ord River Irrigation Area Ord Irrigation Cooperative PO Box 573 KUNUNURRA WA 6743 128,000.00 Denmark community working together to protect inlet foreshore and coastal biodiversity Denmark Weed Action Group Inc Wallal Downs PORT HEDLAND WA 6721 31,550.00 Determining Best Water Practice to Progress Sustainable Cut-flower Production Throughout Northern Australia Northern Territory Horticultural Association PO Box 2207 PALMERSTON NT 0831 69,070.00 Develop best management practices and a Code of Practice for grazing in the Northern Gulf Northern Gulf Resource Management Group PO Box 63 GEORGRTOWN QLD 4871 234,900.00 Developing a code of practice for 4WD in tidal wetlands and saltmarsh Burnett Mary Regional Group For NRM Inc. PO Box 507 ESPERANCE WA 6450 13,777.27 Developing a priotisation process for WoNS Bureau of Rural Science PO Box 858 CANBERRA ACT 2601 44,500.00 Developing a toolkit to assist in the prioritisation of WoNS Bureau of Rural Science PO Box 858 CANBERRA ACT 2601 60,200.00 Developing effective suppression strategies for myrtle-leaf milkwort - a high priority coastal invader City of Greater Geelong 71 Stirling Highway NEDLANDS WA 6009 44,909.09 Developing Nutrient Management Systems for the Dairy Industry and intensive agriculture in South West Western Australia Western Dairy 6 Ridge Place GELORUP WA 6230 132,550.00 Developing Sustainable Management Practices For Chestnut Orchards Chestnuts Australia Incorporated PO Box 472 MYRTLEFORD VIC 3737 110,000.00 Developing sustainable production systems, resilient to climate change - Baselining AVONGRO Wheatbelt 56 Broadway Road BICKLEY WA 6076 319,745.46 Developing sustainable shrub-based forage systems for profitable mixed farming Coorong District Local Action Plan Committee, a committee of the Coorong District Council C/o Coorong District Council - PO Box 1021 TINTINARA SA 5266 108,017.00 Development of a Strategic Cultural and NRM Plan for Ngadjon Country Biddi Biddi Community Advancement Co-operative Society PO Box 13 ATHERTON QLD 4883 17,840.00 Development of an environmental management plan for the Ellen Brook catchment, Shire of Augusta-Margaret River, Western Australia The National Trust Of Australia (WA) PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 41,363.64 Development of Best Management Practices for No Till Cropping Systems in the High Rainfall Zone of Victoria Vic No Till Farmers Association PO Box 1397 HORSHAM VIC 3402 62,000.00 Development of marine education programs for years 4-8 school students The Trustee For The Eden Whale Discovery Centreresearch Trust PO Box 107 DROMANA VIC 3936 44,089.09 Development of multi-dose ejector for the control of foxes Frank Gigliotti 1087 Belvedere Park LPO SEAFORD VIC 3098 270,454.54 Dhimmuru Indigenous Protected Area Dhimurru Land Managmenet Aboriginal PO Box 1551 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 303,000.00 Diamond Head - Dunbogan habitat corridor rehabilitation project National Parks Association of NSW Inc PO Box A96 SYDNEY SOUTH NSW 1235 44,571.35 Do it with Dung - from the Mountains to the Murray Kiewa Catchment Landcare 8 Barlow Lane BRUARONG VIC 3749 202,418.18 Double Island point of impact Noosa Parks Association Inc. PO Box 836 NOOSA HEADS QLD 4567 44,750.28 Dover Beach Foreshore rehabilitation project Huon Valley Council The Ruins Campground Booti Booti National Park - The Lakes Way PACIFIC PALMS NSW 2428 64,132.05 Dugong and Marine Turtle Management Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre Charles Darwin University DARWIN NT 0909 600,000.00 Dune rehabilitation at Binningup Beach Shire Of Harvey PO Box 1906 SPEERS POINT NSW 2310 12,086.82 East Gippsland Feedbase GippsDairy Board Inc.   PO Box 1059 WARRAGUL VIC 3820 84,000.00 East Gippsland Soil Carbon Project - Pilot Project Agribusiness Gippsland 129 Green Street IVANHOE VIC 3079 158,454.55 East Tallow Creek restoration - strategic link The Owners Corporation Sp 270196 PO Box 1124 LISMORE NSW 2480 27,548.00 Eastern Creek Wetlands and Flood Mitigation Program East Gippsland Shire Council PO Box 1618 BAIRNSDALE VIC 3857 750,000.00 Ecosystem health of Peel-Harvey Estuary - data assemblage and ecosystem monitoring strategy Murdoch University PO Box 43 SYDNEY NSW 2000 45,454.54 Ecosystems = Murray Mouth to Mountains Climate Change Corridors (E+M3C3) Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority PO Box 5224 WA NSW 2650 323,075.46 Educating Producers in accessing and utilising Spatial Information! Agforce Queensland PO Box 13186 BRISBANE QLD 4003 290,909.00 Effective Communication through Electronic Media South Australian No-Till Farmers Association Inc PO Box 923 CLARE SA 5453 46,450.00 Efficient use of water, energy and nutrient resources on dairy farms Mid Coast Dairy Advancement Group PO Box 253 TAREE NSW 2430 147,700.00 Embracing Partnerships to Protect and Enhance Significant Remnant Vegetation Toowoomba Landcare Group Inc. PO Box 1773 TOOWOOMBA QLD 4350 239,545.45 Empowering Aboriginal Women for Strong Communities and towards Healthy Country - Making it our business in NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW PO Box 1967 HURSTVILLE NSW 1481 18,181.82 Empowering the community coastcare movement in the Burdekin Dry Tropics Burdekin Solutions Ltd PO Box 149 OURIMBAH NSW 2258 41,931.82 EMU - Empowering pastoralists to manage for sustainable and productive landscapes Natural Resource Management Board (NT) Incorporated PO Box 1120 ALICE SPRINGS NT 0870 161,200.00 Enabling and supporting landholders to adopt Best Management Practice Grazing on native grasslands in the Northern and Yorke Districts Mid North Grasslands Working Group PO Box 12 BRINKWORTH SA 5464 40,200.00 Enabling Martu to Preserve Biodiversity in the Western Desert Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 504 NEWMAN WA 6753 266,727.27 Enabling Northern Quolls to Survive the Cane Toad Invasion Rick Shine School of Biological Sciences, Heydon-Laurence Building A08 - The University of Sydney SYDNEY NSW 2006 220,286.00 Encouraging sustainable farm practices via adoption of Grains Best Management Practices in Queensland Fitzroy Basin Association PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 155,822.55 Endangered shorebird program Department of Environment & Climate Change 78 Hargreaves St TAREE NSW 2430 6,638.18 Endeavour Fern Gully restoration project National Trust Of Australia (Victoria) Level 9, 535 Bourke St MELBOURNE VIC 3000 41,640.91 Energy and greenhouse savings for Queensland Murray Darling farmers using the Green Gauge tool. Queensland Murray Darling Committee PO Box 6243 TOOWOOMBA QLD 4350 114,000.00 Engaging community: rehabilitate and monitor salt-marsh and mangrove communities through controlling erosion and education, Warneet Western Port Warneet Foreshore Reserve Committee Of Management Incorporated PO Box 501 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 23,850.91 Engaging our local government in the Reef Guardian best management practice program Bundaberg Regional Council PO Box 3130 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 7,104.55 Engaging people to protect and learn about Frogmore Rivulet a tributary of the Orielton Ramsar Wetland Tasmanian Landcare Association Incorporated 127 Timber Ridge Drive NOWRA HILL NSW 2541 22,795.45 Engaging the Tasmanian community - building skills and knowledge for marine protected areas Tasmanian Conservation Trust Inc 191 Liverpool St HOBART TAS 7000 44,615.27 Enhancing adoption of best practice grazing management in northern Australia: Phase 1 integration and scenario testing Meat & Livestock Australia Limited PO Box 2363 FORTITUDE VALLEY QLD 4006 239,835.64 Enhancing and conserving the environmental values of the Inman River Estuary City Of Victor Harbor PO Box 11 VICTOR HARBOR SA 5211 14,345.44 Enhancing Riparian Biodiversity and Habitat for Threatened Species in The Upper Murray Murray Catchment Management Authority PO Box 345 TUMBARUMBA NSW 2653 318,636.36 Enhancing Soil, Plant and Animal Health in the Southern Otways through sustainable, profitable pasture management practices. Southern Otway Landcare Network 69-71 Nelson St APOLLO BAY VIC 3233 26,500.00 Environment and economic gains of changing land management to meet NRM targets Eastern Riverina Landcare Network “Foligen Park” YERONG CREEK NSW 2642 85,750.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_ELLG G M Elliot & SL.T Elliot   INGLEWOOD QLD 4387 70,923.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_JAMS S A & B S Jamieson   STANTHORPE QLD 4380 21,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_MEAW W D Meara   CEMENT HILLS QLD 4352 99,526.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_NEWD Newton Land Compay Pty Ltd   STANTHORPE QLD 4380 17,150.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_PATM M D Paterson & M S Paterson   TEXAS QLD 4385 37,624.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_TEEM K A Parkinson & M J Teese   TEXAS QLD 4385 35,120.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_TESC CRME Holdings Pty Ltd   CEMENT HILLS QLD 4352 50,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program B_WELN R H Welsh & N R Welsh   DALVEEN QLD 4374 12,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program C_HICG Hickson Family Trust   GOOMBURRA QLD 4362 16,700.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-002-08 The Trustee for Archer-Williamson Family Trust   FORBES NSW 2871 11,797.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-004-08 Willawong Pastoral Company Pty Ltd   MURRINGO NSW 2586 10,570.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-007-08 C H Middleton & M S Middleton   BINALONG NSW 2584 7,800.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-007-09 J & R Pinchin   ST PETERS NSW 2044 20,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-008-08 S & B Proudman Partnership   CROOKWELL NSW 2583 33,800.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-008-09 M C & A G Sullivan   ORANGE NSW 2800 24,250.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-009-08 S J Hickman   CANOWINDRA NSW 2804 3,034.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-011-09 A E Sargent, D M Sargent, E U Sargent & M G Sargent   BINALONG NSW 2584 883.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-012-08 Johnson Tulangi Pty Ltd   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 220,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-012-09 N E & H L Oldham   BLAYNEY NSW 2799 32,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-015-08 S E Johnson & W P Johnson   CUDAL NSW 2864 1,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-017-08 The Trustee for Colin Hardinge Fitzhardinge Estate, A M Fitzhardinge, H G Fitzhardinge & J M Fitzhardinge   MANDURAMA NSW 2792 34,685.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-020-08 D L Chambers, M C Chambers & S C Chambers   COWRA NSW 2794 8,820.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-023-08 B K Chown & S Chown   GORDON ACT 2906 84,808.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-024-08 P H Martin   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 72,387.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-031-08 M J Dwyer & M M Dwyer   KANGIARA NSW 2586 36,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-033-08 Siatell Pty Ltd   FORBES NSW 2871 17,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-039-08 J A Lowe & P J Tattersall   CARGO NSW 2800 3,730.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-041-08 J & L Spear   WOODSTOCK NSW 2793 5,470.00 Environmental Stewardship Program l-042-08 R J Gay & M A Gay   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 18,900.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-046-08 Willow Bend Station Pty Limited   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 28,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-048-08 S R & G L Madge   WAROO NSW 2871 5,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-052-08 B G Marsden   BLAYNEY NSW 2799 123,411.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-054-08 G K Ridland   BIGGA NSW 2583 4,300.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-055-08 G J Mason   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 20,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-062-08 A J Dymock, G D Dymock & J O Dymock   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 10,753.60 Environmental Stewardship Program L-073-08 J C Harpley & M M Harpley   YOUNG NSW 2594 2,400.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-077-08 B K Medway & L J Medway   COWRA NSW 2794 45,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-078-08 J F Angus & P M Angus   CANBERRA ACT 2601 800.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-081-08 T C Wood   GRENFELL NSW 2810 6,890.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-082-08 J & V McGrath   EUGOWRA NSW 2806 7,055.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-092-08 D C Williams & V S Williams   COWRA NSW 2794 17,950.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-098-08 J H Hamilton Pty Ltd   DOUBLE BAY NSW 1360 34,046.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-099-08 M J Hindley & N L Hindley   DALTON NSW 2581 7,192.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-100-08 B E Curlewis & I A Curlewis   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-103-08 Checkers Pastoral Co Pty Ltd   CARGO NSW 2800 73,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-105-08 J A McGrath, MM McGrath, P G McGrath & TJ McGrath   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 20,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-108-08 Enviroganic Farm Pty Ltd   MURRINGO NSW 2594 17,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-114-08 S Green   MANDURAMA NSW 2792 11,770.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-115-08 D J Green & S I Green   MANDURAMA NSW 2792 26,445.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-117-08 G W D’Addario   DALTON NSW 2581 16,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-120-08 B E Curlewis & I A Curlewis   BOOROOWA NSW 2586 1,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-125-08 Toompang Pty Ltd   YOUNG NSW 2594 5,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-126-08 A B Bowman & J Bowman   MOLONG NSW 2866 16,655.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-128-08 A J Lees & A L Lees   GUNNING NSW 2581 10,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-132-08 C D Nash   PARKES NSW 2870 5,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-135-08 R A McLean & S F McLean   BREADAL-BANE NSW 2581 9,418.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-137-08 JR & CLE Gay   FROGMORE NSW 2586 12,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-141-08 Catherine Bennett Pty Ltd   COWRA NSW 2794 13,100.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-144-08 Willow Valley Farms Pty Ltd   MANDAGERY NSW 2870 25,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-148-08 D J Green & S I Green   MANDURAMA NSW 2792 8,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-004-08 D A Webb   HUMULA NSW 2652 56,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-005-08 B & R Corrigan   MAWSON ACT 2607 23,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-007-08 C E Cotter & L F Cotter   MICHELAGO NSW 2620 50,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-008-09 J Mears   MICHELAGO NSW 2620 10,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-011-08 V McCollough & H McCoullough   FYSHWICK ACT 2609 120,328.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-011-09 B Turner & K F Turner   BOWNING NSW 2582 6,396.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-012-09 C J Harris & C M Harris   MURRUM-BATEMAN NSW 2582 119,470.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-014-08 H R Howard & M A Howard   ARIAH PARK NSW 2665 7,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-018-08 J W Brassil   YASS NSW 2582 4,913.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-018-09 G E Clark, F J Clark & the Trustee for Clark Family Trust   WALLEN-DBEEN NSW 2388 8,350.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-019-09 N Travica & P J Beckman   DICKSON ACT 2602 5,870.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-021-08 S J Franklin & K A Tooke   HUMULA NSW 2652 28,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-024-08 Te Koote Pastoral Co Pty Ltd   BOOKHAM NSW 2582 10,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-025-08 Narrangullen Pty Limited   YASS NSW 2582 33,497.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-028-08 D J Sykes & R D Sykes   YASS NSW 2582 13,186.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-030-08 G P Orr & L H Conibear   ADELONG NSW 2829 4,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-037-08 J P Pettigrew   HARDEN NSW 2587 14,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-038-08 J & D Rayner   BUNGENDORE NSW 2621 13,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-039-08 K Rattigan   BOOKHAM NSW 2582 1,302.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-049-08 R J Flint & W G Flint   MUTTAMA NSW 2722 40,212.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-050-08 Pattinson 5 Limited   CARWOOLA NSW 2620 10,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-052-08 A G Sykes   BINALONG NSW 2584 6,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-054-08 Roberts   WAGGA WAGGA NSW 2560 1,300.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-060-08 McRae John & Barbara Partnership   YOUNG NSW 2594 40,238.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-062-08 C M & T J White   HENTY NSW 2658 20,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-063-08 GD Newton & SE Newton   HENTY NSW 2658 42,416.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-065-08 D J Watson & J A Turley   BUNGENDORE NSW 2621 5,350.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-068-08 J L Coe, K D Coe, H M Martin, J G Martin, the Coe Family Trust & the Martin Trust   JUNEE NSW 2663 410,279.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-073-08   A S Binning & B R Binning   YASS NSW 2582 3,600.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-075-08 Camcol Pty Ltd   HENTY NSW 2658 5,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-078-08 P F Crowe & P J Crowe   COOLAC NSW 2727 47,850.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-079-08 J S Dobkin   MICHELAGO NSW 2620 9,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-081-08 H J De Jong & M A De Jong   WAGGA WAGGA NSW 2560 5,320.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-082-08 D & K O’Sullivan   CARWOOLA NSW 2620 11,356.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-084-08 J Hunter & J Wayte   COLINTON NSW 2626 8,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-090-08 B J McDonald   WAGGA WAGGA NSW 2560 6,900.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-094-08 A M Dunn   WAGGA WAGGA NSW 2560 2,694.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-095-08 P B McReynolds & R J McReynolds   YASS NSW 2582 23,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-098-08 AN & BJ Read   NANGUS NSW 2722 30,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-101-08 A E Jarrah & C M Smith   QUEANBEYAN NSW 2602 1,240.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-104-08 D R Metzler   COOTA-MUNDRA NSW 2590 30,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-111-08 A Twyford   BRAWLIN NSW 2590 165,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-112-08 The Trustee for Lott Trust   Leeton NSW 2705 8,282.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-113-08 C G Larcombe   QUEANBEYAN NSW 2602 6,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-116-08 D Charters   WAGGA WAGGA NSW 2560 20,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-117-08 D Merrin & R A Merrin   BETHUNGRA NSW 2590 68,900.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-118-08 L E Merrin & S M Merrin   BETHUNGRA NSW 2590 100,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-132-08 K G Baird   PRIMROSE VALLEY NSW 2612 7,806.60 Environmental Stewardship Program M-134-08 A M Matheson & J H Matheson   WALLEND-BEEN NSW 2388 6,160.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-139-08 B M Vejvoda & R J Vejvoda   BREDBO NSW 2626 27,513.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-145-08 R & S Tillack   MICHELAGO NSW 2620 4,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-147-08 R & M Bouma   MICHELAGO NSW 2620 7,600.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-148-08 R L & S L Pollard   BOOK BOOK NSW 2650 3,758.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-150-08 P D Orr   BUNGENDORE NSW 2621 7,800.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-157-08 R J Flint & W G Flint   MUTTAMA NSW 2722 25,841.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_001 D Colantonio & A E Sordon   WINTON NSW 2344 98,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_021 C L Cudmore & S M Cudmore   QUIRINDI NSW 2343 70,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_022 J Simson, J D Simson & R R Simson   QUIRINDI NSW 2343 6,200.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_041 B M Kerin & K M Kerin   YEOVAL NSW 2868 26,393.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_043 S C & P W Job   CUMNOCK NSW 2867 6,222.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_048 P A McIntosh & S L McIntosh   WELLINGTON NSW 2820 35,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_056 B R Watt & K L Schoeffel   O’CONNELL NSW 2795 18,375.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_057 K M Lee & R R Lee   LARRAS LEE NSW 2866 16,080.00 Environmental Stewardship Program NSW_062 A M Mort & A S Mort   MUDGEE NSW 2850 90,000.00 Environmentally friendly mooring trial and development of a strategic moorings replacement program - Moreton Bay, Queensland. SEQ Catchments Limited PO Box 19 BRIGHTON SA 5048 112,893.09 EnviroWool - an environmental accreditation system for the Tasmanian wool industry Roberts Wool Link 15 St John Street LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 80,000.00 Eradicating Rodents from Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island Board PO Box 5 LUCINDALE NSW 2898 120,305.45 Eradication of ecosystem transforming coastal weeds in South West Tasmania Wildcare Incorporated 5 Fitzgerald Road PASADENA SA 5042 22,818.18 Eradication of the pernicious woody weed “victorian tea tree” from the coastal zone of the town of Cambridge Cambridge Coastcare (Inc) PO Box 815 MACKAY QLD 4740 44,672.73 Establishing Sustainable Perennial Pastures Systems in the Upper Wimmera Catchment Project Platypus Association Incorporated PO Box 838 STAWELL VIC 3380 80,727.27 Evaluating alternative nutrient sources to maintain pasture and crop productivity. Woady Yaloak Catchment Project Inc 32 Stevens Street QUEENSCLIFF VIC 3225 50,000.00 Exploring the marine seaweeds of the NSW far south coast The Trustee For The Eden Whale Discovery Centreresearch Trust 21 Ross St YEPPOON QLD 4703 6,971.82 Extending the benefits of farmers motivating farmers in conservation agriculture Central West Conservation Farming Association Inc. PO Box 276 WELLINGTON NSW 2820 208,160.00 Eyre bird observatory, dune restoration Birds Australia Western Australia Inc 167 Perry Lakes Drive FLOREAT WA 6014 14,064.54 Eyre Peninsula coastal action plan and conservation priority study Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board Level 2/24 Sackville St PORT FAIRY VIC 3280 97,781.81 Eyre Peninsula Coastal Catchments stormwater issues audit and management workshops Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board 54 Scenorama Road CORONET BAY VIC 3984 29,545.45 Facilitating community engagement to rehabilitate coastal habitats in southern Tasmania Southern Coastcare Association of Tasmania Inc. PO Box 606 COTTESLOE WA 6911 54,528.00 Far north Queensland marine debris project Douglas Shire Sustainability Group Inc PO Box 404 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 34,671.49 Far South Coast Land Sea Country Initiative Department of Climate Change (NSW) PO Box 118 BEGA NSW 2550 36,363.63 Farm Beach to Gallipoli feral plant control and native vegetation protection Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 10,872.73 Farmer Targets For Climate Change - NSW Mid North Coast Dairy Advancement Group PO Box 253 TAREE NSW 2430 131,700.00 Farming for a Sustainable Future - Demonstrating Best Farm Practices Lake Wellington Landcare 1301 Hazeldean Road ELLINBANK VIC 3821 113,272.73 Farming Sustainably - Future Systems for Intensive Cropping Cradle Coast NRM Region PO Box 338 BURNIE TAS 7320 49,860.00 Feathering the future of Burnett Mary shorebirds Burnett Mary Regional Group For Nrm Inc. PO Box 78 NAROOMA NSW 2546 44,050.18 Feral flora and fauna control at Back Beach, Streaky Bay Back Beach (Sa) Pty Ltd PO Box 3032 BRIBIE ISLAND QLD 4507 22,225.00 Feral or in Peril? Conservation Council of South Australia Inc. Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 166,808.00 Feral rabbit threat abatement 2008-2009 Pittwater Council PO Box 35 COFFIN BAY SA 5607 45,454.54 FishTrack: Fish Movement and Effects of Flows and Barriers Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 262,498.91 Fitzroy Basin Reef Rescue Fitzroy Basin Association Inc. PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 3,379,973.00 Fitzroy Basin Weed Management Strategy Implementation - Weeds of National Significance Capricorn Pest Management Group Inc PO Box 1624 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 276,224.00 Flesh-footed Shearwater coastal habitat recovery - Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island Board Locked Bag 155 COFFS HARBOUR NSW 2450 21,505.45 Fleurieu biodiversity project Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board Locked Bag 17 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 90,077.82 Flying foxes for the future: Preservation of habitat along Cabramatta Creek Fairfield City Council PO Box 21 FAIRFIELD NSW 1860 34,454.54 Follow up and continuation of weed control, revegetation and restoration works in the coast banksia and moonah woodlands along the Capel Sound Foreshores Reserve Capel Sound Foreshores Committee Of Management Inc 5 Davison St MOUNT WAVERLEY VIC 3149 38,009.27 Foreshore restoration of surrendered derelict oyster leases in Hardys Bay Hardys Bay Residents Group Inc. PO Box 210 HUONVILLE TAS 7109 13,075.00 Forestry SA Multi-Region Strategic Area and Habitat Restoration Project South Australian Forestry Corporation PO Box 162   MOUNT GAMBIER SA 5290 108,000.00 Fox control to support the Gnaraloo Community monitoring program of endangered and vulnerable marine turtles Portframe Enterprises Pty Ltd as trustee for Gnaraloo Station Trust PO Box 450 FORSTER NSW 2428 117,554.54 Fox Free Tasmania - Stage 5 Department Of Primary Industri GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 980,000.00 Furneaux boxthorn control and maintenance on Twelve Islands Tasmanian Conservation Trust Inc PO Box 261 HASTINGS VIC 3915 44,489.09 Gamefish handling, tagging and release capacity building north Queensland Queensland Game Fishing Association Inc. 1/2 Alcorn St SUFFOLK PARK NSW 2481 45,392.73 Gerard Aboriginal Council Land Country Initiative SA Aboriginal Lands Trust PO Box 2133 INGLE FARM SA 5098 30,000.00 Getting Muddy - Maintaining the ecological values of Mud Islands. The Friends Of Mud Islands Inc. Level 1, 157 Franklin St ADELAIDE NT 5000 5,454.54 Gidarjil Working on Country Gidarjil Development Corporation Ltd 53 Walker Street BUNDABERG QLD 4670 108,180.00 Gippsland Grows ‘Green’ Grass GippsDairy PO Box 1059 WARRAGUL VIC 3820 150,000.00 Gippsland Lake Enhancement Program 2008/09 component West Gippsland Catchment Management PO Box 1374 TRARALGON VIC 3844 750,000.00 Gippsland Plains drought tolerant pastures demonstration Yarram Yarram Landcare Network Livingston Street YARRUM VIC 3971 110,000.00 Glen Park samphire wetland restoration AJ & MD Lawrie PO Box 3720 PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 7,714.23 Grazing Land Management - Demonstration, Evaluation and Continuation Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association PO Box 1346 KATHERINE NT 0851 150,081.00 Good practice and better environmental outcomes in vegetable production WA Vegetable Growers 103 Outram Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 117,818.18 Gouldian finch conservation through Indigenous fire management in east Kimberley Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 2145 BROOME WA 6725 79,200.00 Granite Flora: Recovery in Action Queensland Murray-Darling Committee Inc. PO Box 6243 TOOWOOMBA QLD 4350 126,472.73 Grazing The Hills - Improved Pasture Management Systems for the Upper Murray Towong Shire Council PO Box 55 TALLAN-GATTA VIC 3700 144,000.00 Great Sandy Strait Seagrass Watch and Monitoring Project Cooloola Coastcare Association Inc. PO Box 109 TIN CAN BAY QLD 4580 28,968.18 Greening Port Phillip Bay - people and places Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 45,454.54 Greenough River Mouth Boxthorn removal project - stage 2 City Of Geraldton-Greenough PO Box 101 GERALDTON WA 6531 7,454.55 Griffiths Island revival - Involving the community in environmental restoration in a time of climate change Rotary Club Of Warrnambool Daybreak 205 Greenhill Road EASTWOOD SA 5063 49,864.39 Grime scene investigation Observatory Hill Environmental Education Centre GPO Box 1751 HOBART TAS 7001 44,909.09 Growcom Reef Rescue Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers Ltd (Growcom Australia) PO Box 202 FORTITUDE VALLEY QLD 4006 101,000.00 Guanaba Indigenous Protected Area Ngarang Wal Gold Coast Aboriginal Association Inc 44 Bulitti Street HOPE ISLAND QLD 4212 133,400.00 Guide for families bookmark to care for the marine environment Ocean Life Education 35 Bauhinia Avenue EARLVILLE QLD 4870 750.00 Gunbower Creek Riparian and Aquatic Habitat Reconnection and Restoration Project North Central Catchment Management Authority PO Box 18 HUNTLY VIC 3551 290,756.36 Habitat consolidation between the Botany Bay catchment and the east coast vegetation corridor Waverley Council PO Box 9 BONDI JUNCTION NSW 1355 33,572.73 Habitat protection and visitor impact management at Davenport Creek, South Australia District Council of Ceduna PO Box 175 CEDUNA SA 5690 7,000.00 Harnessing continent-wide biodiversity datasets for prioritising national conservation investment Commonwealth Science And Industrial Research Organisation GPO Box 1700 CANBERRA ACT 2601 90,954.73 Hat Head sand dunes Macleay Landcare Network Incorporated PO Box W48 WEST KEMPSEY NSW 2440 18,300.00 Healthy Catchment, Healthy Harbour: Control of invasive grasses in coastal wetlands of the Darwin Harbour Catchment Greening Australia (NT) Ltd PO Box 1604 DARWIN NT 0801 177,920.00 Healthy Pastures - Native Grasses and Fodder Trees in Production Systems Greening Australia (NT) Ltd. PO Box 1604 DARWIN NT 0801 134,000.00 Healthy soils, Healthy future – bridging the gaps in soil health for improved sustainable Agriculture Fitzroy Basin Association PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 169,434.00 Healthy Soils, Stock and Pasture Cardinia Environment Coalition PO Box 875 PAKENHAM VIC 3810 113,948.00 Healthy wetlands for healthy catchments in the Southern Rivers region Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 72,409.09 Helping communities help the coast along The Great Ocean Road Great Ocean Road Coast Committee Inc. PO Box 50 INNISFAIL QLD 4860 36,818.18 Heytesbury ‘FOCUS’ project: Boosting production, resilience & environmental gains using best management practices. Heytesbury District Landcare Network PO Box 69 TIMBOON VIC 3268 150,000.00 Holiday Haven Tourist Park’s coastal headland restoration and education project Shoalhaven City Council PO Box 1046 MOUNT GAMBIER SA 5290 45,156.82 Horrocks Beach pathway Shire Of Northampton PO Box 815 MACKAY QLD 4740 23,760.00 Horsley Creek restoration project Council of the City of Shellharbour 1 Lamerton Crescent SHELL-HARBOUR NSW 2533 8,995.45 Horticulture for Tomorrow - Taking Stock of the Environmental Impacts of Horticultural Production in Australia Horticulture Australia Limited Level 7 - 179 Elizabeth Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 74,400.00 Identification and monitoring of fish and invertebrates in the marine parks of East Gippsland Friends Of Beware Reef PO Box 92 YALLINGUP WA 6282 18,534.00 Identifying critical marine habitat and monitoring population health for a major population of nesting flatback turtles Department Of Environment And Conservation Lot 248, Ivanhoe Road KUNUNURRA WA 6743 83,796.35 Identifying cultural heritage sites, protecting values and sustainable management Point Leo Foreshore Reserve Committee Of Management PO Box 104 GEELONG VIC 3220 15,086.36 Implementation of Priority Landcare Works in the Southern Rivers Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 182,500.00 Implementation of stage 1 of the Edwards Island Tombolo coastal management site plan West Midlands Natural Resource Group PO Box 100 DANDARAGAN WA 6507 7,597.73 Implementation of Sustainable Horticultural Practices in Torres Strait Torres Strait Regional Authority PO Box 261 THURSDAY ISLAND QLD 4875 145,500.00 Implementation of the EnviroWine Australia program in the Margaret River wine region Curtin University of Technology PMB 1 MARGARET RIVER WA 6285 137,884.00 Implementing natural resource management practices in the Hodgson Landcare Group area Queensland Murray Darling Committee PO Box 392 CLAYFIELD QLD 4011 191,137.00 Implementing priority recovery actions for the bilby and other key threatened species Central Land Council 33 North Stuart Highway ALICE SPRINGS NT 0871 125,025.45 Implementing sustainable and productive forage systems in the Murray Mallee Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc. PO Box 5093 MILDURA VIC 3502 103,200.00 Implementing Sustainable Environmental Management Systems Initiatives’ for Queensland Fisheries Queensland Seafood Industry Association PO Box 392 CLAYFIELD QLD 4011 152,000.00 Implementing the National Wallum frog recovery plan in the Great Sandy Strait Ramsar wetland Gympie Regional Council PO Box 1124 LISMORE NSW 2480 10,368.18 Implementing the Peel-Yalgorup ramsar management plan: a priority coastal hotspot Peel-Harvey Catchment Council Inc. 49-51 Elizabeth St LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 181,758.54 Implementing Tools for Sustainable Agriculture on the Northern Adelaide Plains Adelaide & Mt Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board 8 Adelaide Road GAWLER SA 5119 100,000.00 Implementing water use efficiency & establishing new varieties of perennial pastures within the Upper Mt Lofty Ranges New Springs Landcare Group PO Box 24 MOUNT TORRENS SA 5244 84,931.00 Improve Irrigation Efficiency, Nutrient and Land Management in Top End Intensive Farming Systems NT Agricultural Association         PO Box 2243 KATHERINE NT 0851 162,174.00 Improved management of coastal reserves within the Cassowary Coast region Cassowary Coast Regional Council PO Box 149 OURIMBAH NSW 2258 45,447.27 Improved Pasture Condition in the Georgina River Catchment NT Barkly Landcare and Conservation Association PO Box 36 TENNANT CREEK NT 0861 35,630.00 Improved uptake of best practice and Farm Management Systems within the agriculture industry in the Wet Tropics. Terrain NRM PO Box 1756 INNISFAIL QLD 4860 299,701.00 Improved wastewater treatment, disposal and monitoring by small wineries in southwest Australia Curtin University of Technology PMB 1 MARGARET RIVER WA 6285 138,315.00 Improving adoption and innovation of agricultural best practice in Far North Queensland Northern Gulf Resource Management Group PO Box 63 GEORGRTOWN QLD 4871 196,939.00 Improving biodiversity and water quality in the Derwent Estuary Department of Environment Parks Heritage And The Arts PO Box 61 NORTHAMP-TON WA 6535 181,757.09 Improving biodiversity in the coastal environment of Point Westall/Smooth Pools as part of the South Australian “East Meets West NatureLinks” and within the proposed “Streaky Bay to Venus Bay CoastLinks” area Joan Leaming PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 5,748.00 Improving Biodiversity Outcomes in Existing Remnant Protection/Revegetation Sites Maffra & Districts Landcare Network 61 Johnson Street MAFFRA VIC 3860 100,090.91 Improving Connectivity and Biodiversity Values in Stanley and Pumicestone Headwaters SEQ Catchments Ltd PO Box 13204 - George Street BRISBANE QLD 4003 157,550.00 Improving efficiency of irrigation water use within the horticultural sector of the Swan Region (Waterwise on the Farm - Swan) Swan Catchment Council PO Box 2206 MIDLAND WA 6936 204,533.00 Improving Farm Productivity through Innovative Planning Systems Central Victorian Farm Plantations Inc PO Box 544 W BALLARAT WEST VIC 3350 80,000.00 Improving Land Condition and Profitability Through Sustainable Grazing Strategies in the Indigenous Pastoral Program Central Land Council PO Box 3321 ALICE SPRINGS NT 0871 111,100.00 Improving landscape resilience to climate change in South East Queensland - the flying-fox roost and forage conservation pilot project SEQ Catchments Limited 10 St Andrews Drive WOOLGOOLGA NSW 2456 181,439.02 Improving Natural Resource Management Outcomes in the Rangelands by Strategically Removing Feral Goats South Australian Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 282,545.45 Improving No-Till farming Systems through Adoption of Innovative Technical Advances (disc seeders and new herbicide options) Birchip Cropping Group PO Box 85 BIRCHIP VIC 3483 38,000.00 Improving SA resource management and production through strategic integration Ag Excellence Alliance PO Box 15 MINLATON SA 5575 158,100.00 Improving sustainable production in Catchment Headwaters Granite Borders Landcare Inc PO Box 400 TENTERFIELD NSW 2372 249,055.00 Improving the efficacy of hydrogen phosphide (PH3) fumigation for rabbit control Frank Gigliotti 1087 Belvedere Park LPO SEAFORD VIC 3098 108,727.27 Improving the resilience of dryland farming in low rainfall areas of the Avon Region Corrigin Farm Improvement Group PO Box 166 CORRIGIN WA 6375 93,500.00 Improving water quality in the Vasse Wonnerup wetlands and Geographe Bay - Clean green suburbs Geographe Catchment Council Incorporated PO Box 269 BUSSELTON WA 6280 181,336.00 Inaugural nearshore marine survey - Chain of Bays, Eyre Peninsula SA Friends Of Sceale Bay Inc Suite 2-05, 60 Leicester St CARLTON VIC 3053 16,020.00 Income & Envi Kowanyama Aboriginal Lands Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council 30 Chapman Road KOWANYAMA QLD 4871 270,850.00 Increased adoption of sustainable brushwood production. Moore Catchment Council Inc PO Box 337 MOORA WA 6510 224,090.91 Increased community capacity for the removal of Large Feral Herbivores South Australian Arid Lands NRM Board PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 116,250.00 Increasing Adoption of Sustainable Farming and Risk Management in the SA Mallee Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc. PO Box 5093 MILDURA VIC 3502 129,800.00 Increasing capacity managing acid sulphate soils in the Hawkesbury Estuary Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Authority PO Box 882 MONA VALE NSW 1660 4,000.00 Increasing Precision Ag Awareness and Adoption in South East South Australia MacKillop Farm Managment PO Box 249 MENINGIE SA 5264 69,467.64 Increasing profitability and reducing erosion with No-tillage on Eyre Peninsula Eyre Peninsula Agricultural Research Foundation (EPARF) Minnipa Agricultural Centre - PO Box 31 MINNIPA SA 5654 35,589.00 Increasing Soil Health and Water Retention on Macquarie Floodplain Macquarie 2100 Inc. “Weemabah” TRANGIE NSW 2823 117,700.00 Increasing the adoption of alternative perennials for soil conservation and forage University of Tasmania/ Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research PO Box 46 KINGS MEADOWS TAS 7249 53,426.00 Increasing the adoption of stubble retention and direct drilling practices by Tasmanian farmers through the use of revolutionary new technology Southern Farming Systems PO Box 46 KINGS MEADOWS TAS 7249 39,910.00 Increasing the Productivity of Improved Pastures by the Sustainable Management of Native Vegetation Regrowth Northern Territory Agricultural Association PO Box 2243 KATHERINE NT 0851 166,470.00 Increasing the sustainability of intensive agricultural production on the NSW Central Coast Plateau Hawkesbury Nepean CMA PO Box 556 WINDSOR NSW 2756 155,200.00 Indigenous Fire Management project Charles Darwin University (on behalf of North Australian Indigenous Land Sea Management Alliance) Ellengowan Drive - Casuarina DARWIN NT 0909 1,240,000.00 Industry Leaders, Sustainable Dairying – Dairying for Tomorrow in the South East Dairy SA PO Box 235 LUCINDALE SA 5272 66,646.00 Injidup dune stabilisation Yallingup Land Conservation District Committee PO Box 13204 BRISBANE QLD 4003 23,081.82 Innovative Land Managers, Kangaroo Island Agriculture Kangaroo Island (AgKI) RSD 7 - Flinders Chase Service KINGSCOTE SA 5223 45,680.00 Integrated catchment protection of coastal moonah woodland communities on the Bellarine Peninsula Barwon Coast Committee of Management Inc. PO Box 216 MACLEAN NSW 2463 31,350.00 Integrated delivery of support & training for sustainable agriculture practices in Northern Rivers Richmond Landcare Services PO Box 410 KYOGLE NSW 2474 243,920.00 Integrated Management Practices for Alternating Crops - Burdekin Region Queensland Fruit & Veg PO Box 202 FORTITUDE VALLEY QLD 4006 168,247.27 Integrated Weed Management of Riparian Areas of the Kimberley Ord Land And Water Inc PO Box 1804 KUNUNURRA WA 6743 117,818.18 Integration of Fire, Feral and Weed Management to Enhance Grazing Productivity, Top End Floodplains Northern Territory Cattleman’s Association GPO Box 4845 DARWIN NT 0801 75,431.82 Invasive weed species removal along the Kalgan River, Western Australia Oyster Harbour Catchment Group Inc. PO Box 118 MT BARKER WA 6324 17,144.54 Involving Community in Conserving Threatened Species in the Angas River Catchment Angas River Catchment Group PO Box 625 STRATHALBYN SA 5255 83,192.00 Island communities taskforce Reef Catchments Mackay Whitsunday Inc PO Box 433 MT MARTHA VIC 3934 151,636.36 Jawbone Wetland - protecting a sensitive marine habitat Williamstown High School 139 Duringan St CURRUMBIN QLD 4223 41,142.18 Jervis Bay/Vincentia coastal foreshore education and restoration project Shoalhaven City Council PO Box 42 NOWRA NSW 2541 19,700.00 Jointly Managing and Promoting the Bohle River, Louisa Creek, Town Common Catchment Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers Suite 1 65 Palmer St SOUTH TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 157,604.35 Kaanju Ngaachi Indigenous Protected Area Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation Chuulangun Aboriginal Corp. c/o Coen Post Office COEN  QLD 4871 150,000.00 Kaanju Ngaachi Wenlock (WoC) Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation PMB 30 CAIRNS QLD 4871 110,918.18 Kalare (Lachlan) River Willow Eradication and Management Project Lachlan Aboriginal Natural Resource Management Corporation PO Box 82 FORBES NSW 2871 290,106.19 Kalinga Park restoration and revegetation project Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Kedron Brook Catchment Branch GPO Box 828 HOBART TAS 7001 24,107.25 Keep Australia beautiful Queensland clean beach challenge 2008-2009 Keep Australia Beautiful Council Queensland Inc Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 65,454.55 Kemp Beach rehabilitation and community education project Rockhampton Regional Council PO Box 1860 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 35,345.45 Kiewa Catchment - Productive Persistent Pastures Kiewa Catchment Landcare Group 8 Barlow Lane BUARONG VIC 3749 46,000.00 Kimberley Amphipod Data Australian Museum 6 College Steet SYDNEY NSW 2010 30,000.00 Kimberley Rangers Working on Country Kimberley Land Council Pembroke Road BROOME WA 6725 748,553.25 Knockrow Wetland protection and restoration Wetlandcare Australia Pty Ltd PO Box 114 BALLINA NSW 2478 24,175.76 Koala Coast restoration project Balnarring Foreshore And Parks Reserve Committee Of Management 73 Valley Road WENTWORTH FALLS NSW 2782 20,363.64 Kumbuwal Natural and Cultural Heritage Project Queensland Murray Darling Committee Inc PO Box 6243 TOOWOOMBA QLD 4350 47,454.55 Kurnell 2020 vision: Engaging community in integrated ecological restoration - stage 1 Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority 6302 Kennedy Hwy WALKAMIN QLD 4872 45,454.55 Lake Macquarie foreshore erosion and siltation control Lake Macquarie City Council PO Box 1906 HUNTER REGION MAIL CENTRE NSW 2310 20,831.42 Lakeside Preston dunes fencing and planting Lakeside Preston Holdings Pty Ltd 68 Tenth Avenue INGLEWOOD WA 6052 32,577.50 Land & Sea Mgnt Mabuiag Torres Strait Torres Strait Regional Authority PO Box 261 THURSDAY ISLAND QLD 4875 206,162.50 Land type specific sustainable practice guidelines for NT pastoral lands Northern Territory of Australia PO Box 1346 KATHERINE NT 0861 65,036.36 Landscape Connectivity in Queensland’s Northern Brigalow Belt - A Biodiversity Hotspot Burdekin Solutions Ltd PO Box 1466 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 398,454.55 Landscape scale change - Preparing for accelerated adoption of the mallee farming system by improving information flows and quality management systems Oil Mallee Association of WA PO Box 1050 FREMANTLE WA 6959 174,000.00 Lanky’s Well Reserve and Scenic Drive biodiversity protection Beachport District Development Association Inc “Pipshy” - 169 Cremorne Ave CREMORNE TAS 7024 6,036.36 Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area Laynhapuy Homelands Association Inc   PO Box 1546 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 397,000.00 Leschenault estuarine water quality recovery through improved urban water management Leschenault Catchment Council Inc PO Box 21 ROCKDALE NSW 2216 179,703.27 Light River to Middle Spit threat abatement project Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 5 LORD HOWE ISLAND NSW 2898 82,503.27 Littoral rainforest and Themeda Headlands - planning and rehabilitating critical habitats in the Hastings and Camden Haven catchments Port Macquarie Hastings Council PO Box 61 MARGARET RIVER WA 6285 45,372.73 Local government coastal reserve planning and management in far north Queensland FNQ NRM Ltd PO Box 4282 HAWKER ACT 2614 180,727.27 Local Landcare groups engaging the community to regenerate Kiama’s coastal environment Landcare Illawarra Incorporated PO Box 349 ALBION PARK NSW 2527 45,245.45 Long Reef Beach dune restoration Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers 748 Old Coast Rd WANNANUP WA 6210 38,800.00 Longitudinal study of bird communities of coastal wetlands and beaches in East Gippsland Bird Observation & Conservation Australia PO Box 185 NUNAWADING VIC 3131 5,017.27 Long-nosed potoroo and threatened shorebird recovery at Tanja Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority Locked Bag 8821 WOLLONGONG NSW 2500 25,127.27 Looking after our Hoodies and waterways: community action and education around weeds, foxes, unleashed dogs, and revegetation. The Harmers Haven Residents & Ratepayers Group: the Friends of Harmers Haven Inc 4 Warwick Crt GLEN WAVERLY VIC 3150 45,000.00 Lower Burdekin on-farm water quality monitoring support project Burdekin Bowen Integrated Flood Plain Management Advisory Committee Inc PO Box 1608 MONA VALE NSW 2106 175,584.00 Lowland floodplain subtropical rainforest and mangrove regeneration project Department of Environment & Climate Change 78 Hargreaves Drive TAREE NSW 2430 25,790.91 Lucerne for Profit Upper Mount Emu Creek Network PO Box 21 LEXTON VIC 3352 49,000.00 Macintyre Brook Sustainability Initiative Macintyre Brook Irrigators PO Box 213 INGLEWOOD QLD 4387 115,392.00 Macmasters Beach rehabilitation and dune protection project Macmasters Beach Bushcare Group Inc. PO Box 146 APOLLO BAY VIC 3233 44,700.00 Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Department of Primary Industries and Water GPO BOX 771 HOBART TAS 7001 1,770,000.00 Mahomets Beach dune preservation and rehabilitation project City Of Geraldton-Greenough PO Box 431 TORQUAY VIC 3228 25,366.86 Main Beach dune rehabilitation program Richmond Valley Council Locked Bag 10 CASINO NSW 2480 20,827.27 Maintaining Ma:Mu sea country cultural heritage through a network of cultural heritage activities Ma:Mu Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 30 MOUNT GAMBIER SA 5290 45,181.82 Maintenance of natural values in priority vegetation communities - Marks Point, Bruny Island, Tasmania Wildcare Inc. PO Box 20 ANGLESEA VIC 3230 9,273.32 Managing and controlling high-risk pest plants on Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Management Board 35 Dauncey Street KINSCOTE SA 5223 72,727.27 Managing Horse Grazing Pressures in Peri-Urban Environments The Horse Federation of SA Inc (Horse SA) PO Box 483 PLYMPTON SA 5043 53,900.00 Managing Land Condition for a Profitable and Productive Pastoral Industry – Central Australia, NT Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association PO Box 8760 ALICE SPRINGS NT 0871 119,217.00 Managing Mangarrayi Land for a Sustainable Future Roper River Landcare Group Inc. PO Box 2133 KATHERINE NT 0851 35,818.19 Managing soil moisture in glacial soils within the Southern Fleurieu Peninsula Adelaide Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 781 WILLUNGA SA 5172 90,000.00 Managing soil type to soil capability for economic and environmental benefits Liebe PO Box 90 WUBIN WA 6612 103,000.00 Managing Steep Hills with Wisdom, Wire and Water Upper Goulburn Landcare Network PO Box 74 YEA VIC 3717 80,000.00 Managing the Cane Toad Menace In Tropical Savannas Riyala Assn Inc 19 Tasman Circuit WAGAMAN NT 0810 94,909.09 Mandingalbay Yidinji Indigenous Protected Area Mandingalbay Yidinji Aboriginal 35A Norman Street GORDONVALE QLD 4865 66,500.00 Mangrove monitoring in Western Port Bay, Victoria P2: People And Parks Foundation Limited as trustee for P2: People and Parks Foundation PO Box 1511 TOOWONG QLD 4066 32,363.64 Maramanup and Folly Pools restoration Waterbird Conservation Group Inc 21 Karloo Parade NEWPORT NSW 2106 39,943.82 Maria coastal wilderness project Macleay Landcare Network Inc. PO Box W48 West KEMPSEY NSW 2440 81,112.74 Marine debris threat abatement in Gulf St Vincent Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board 39 Hillsdale Street STRATHPINE QLD 4500 120,999.27 Marine discovery rangers Friends Of The Marine Discovery Centre PO Box 149 OURIMBAH NSW 2258 2,840.00 Marine Magic coach tour for World Oceans Day 2009 Ocean And Coastal Care Initiatives Inc PO Box 90 NEWCOMB VIC 3219 2,040.00 Marine monitoring and community education in the Great Lakes area Great Lakes Council PO Box 450 FORSTER NSW 2428 38,049.09 Maximising Nutrient Use Efficiency and Improving Soil Health in the Processing Tomato Industry Australian Processing Tomato Research Council Inc. PO Box 2293 SHEPPARTON VIC 3632 141,279.09 McCarrs Creek foreshore restoration project: stage 1 - Bothams Beach South The Trustee For Pittwater Environmental Trust PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 16,000.00 Mercy Creek rehabilitation The Corporation Of The Sisters Of Mercy Diocese Of Cairns Locked Bag 1-2 Southern Drive BUSSELTON WA 6280 30,454.54 Milham Pond saltmarsh and shorebird habitat protection Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority Private Bag 2010 PATERSON NSW 2421 10,920.00 Millingtons Beach conservation area rehabilitation Wildcare Inc. 7 Yoomba Crescent ALEXANDRA HEADLAND QLD 4572 23,872.73 Minda Dunes weed eradication and sand dune restoration project City Of Holdfast Bay PO Box 261 BUNBURY WA 6230 11,636.36 Molonglo River Rescue Territory And Municipal Services PO Box 158 CANBERRA ACT 2601 268,309.09 Mona Vale dunes biodiversity protection project Pittwater Council 1 Boondah Road WARRIEWOOD NSW 2102 43,272.73 Money’s Creek Estuarine Lagoon hydrologic assessment and community action plan to address major water quality and stormwater management issues and identify technically feasible management options in the rapidly developing coastal community of Bargara Bargara Golf Club PO Box 301 NORTH BEACH WA 6920 38,636.36 Monitoring and reducing visitors impact in Dhimurru Indigenous Protected Area Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 41 PORT HEDLAND WA 6721 29,894.18 Monitoring and remediation of blue green algae outbreaks within coastal aquatic ecosystems Sarina Landcare Catchment Management Association Inc. Level 10, 535 Bourke St MELBOURNE VIC 3000 42,926.82 Monitoring coastal habitat change Port MacDonnell Landcare Group Inc PO Box 404 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 40,350.00 Moolapio (Windmill Rd EcoLink) Greening Australia (Vic) Ltd Locked Bag 8821 WOLLONGONG NSW 2500 33,136.36 Moonah conservation and rehabilitation in Breamlea flora and fauna wetland reserve Surf Coast And Inland Plains Network PO Box 431 TORQUAY VIC 3228 12,920.00 Mount Lofty Ranges Watershed Water Quality Improvement Plan Community Engagement Environment Protection Authority 2/85 Mount Barker Road STIRLING SA 5152 136,363.64 Mount Willoughby Indigenous Protected Area Tjirilya Aboriginal Corporation Tjirilya Aboriginal Corporation: Mt Willoughby Station - PMB 9 COOBER PEDY  SA 5723 162,000.00 Mt Chappell/ Badger Is Indigenous Protected Area Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc GPO Box 569F HOBART  TAS 7001 140,000.00 Mullens wader walk Cooloola Coastcare Association Inc. PO Box 43 NOWRA NSW 2541 30,353.64 Multi-purpose crops Rainbow & District Landcare group PO Box 28 HOPETOUN VIC 3396 36,000.00 Multi-purpose agroforestry for farm diversity, profit and sustainability. Otway Agroforestry Network 295 Wymbooliel Rd PENNYROYAL VIC 3242 150,000.00 Mungarra reserve link rehabilitation project Koala Action Pine Rivers Incorporated (KAPR). 33 Barker St FLINDERS VIC 3929 11,412.00 Murray mouth estuary restoration project Hindmarsh Island Land Care Group Inc PO Box 3720 PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 64,658.74 Myall Lakes National Park Ramsar site indigenous regeneration project Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers 191 Liverpool St (2nd Floor) HOBART TAS 7000 34,454.54 Nantawarrina Indigenous Protected Area Nepabunna Community Inc Nepabunna COPLEY SA 5732 150,000.00 National acid sulphate soil management training project Southern Cross University Military Road EAST LISMORE NSW 2480 123,720.73 National Cane Toad Plan Prof. Tony Peacock Level D, Building 3, University of Canberra - Kirinari Street BRUCE ACT 2617 66,000.00 National Electric Ant Eradication Program 2008/09 Ms Sarah Corcoran GPO Box 46 BRISBANE QLD 4001 701,500.00 National Guidelines for Minimising Waterway Infestations of Chilean Needle Grass - Filling A Major Gap in Knowledge and Advice Victoria University Institute for Sustainability & Innovation, Blg 6 - St Albans Campus ST ALBANS VIC 8001 68,000.00 National online database for Weed Risk Assessment Department Of Primary Industries, Victoria PO Box 48 FRANKSTON VIC 3199 138,218.44 National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program 2008/09 Contribution Ms Sarah Corcoran GPO Box 47 BRISBANE QLD 4001 2,181,000.00 National Reserve System Angepena Station mediation Mulong Pty Ltd 32 Grafton Street CAIRNS QLD 4870 46,412.05 National Reserve System Aquisition of Cranebrook NSW Department of Environment & Climate Change 10 Valentine Avenue PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 14,753,333.00 National Reserve System Directions Statement (Professional Services) Brian Gilligan PO Box 100 RAYMOND NSW 2324 141,123.10 National Reserve System N049 Protected Areas on Private Lands - Tas PAPL 2 Department of Primary Industries and Water GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 292,805.60 National Reserve System N278 Toorale Station (Water Project) Department of Environment and Climate Change PO Box 1967 HURSTVILLE NSW 2220 3,500,000.00 National Reserve System N280 Wyninebah - Acquisition and establishment of a national park in the Cuddy Springs area. Department of Environment and Climate Change, NSW 43 Bridge Street (PO Box 1967 Hurstville 1481) HURSTVILLE NSW 2220 1,400,000.00 National Reserve System N281 Bonnie Doon/Ivanhoe - acquisition & establishment of a new reserve for the Upper Barwon Department of Environment and Climate Change, NSW 43 Bridge Street (PO Box 1967 Hurstville 1481) HURSTVILLE NSW 2220 1,375,000.00 National Reserve System N281 Protection Local Government land in NSW Southern rivers Catchment Authority PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 22,824.00 National Reserve System N283 Review and focus covenants in NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW PO Box A290 SYDNEY SOUTH NSW 1232 150,000.00 National Reserve System N284 Covenanting on Clarence Lowlands Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 22,000.00 National Reserve System N285 Covenanting in New England Tableland Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 20,000.00 National Reserve System N286 Covenanting on Montane Wetlands in Monaro Southern rivers Catchment Authority PO Box 9 BRAIDWOOD NSW 2622 40,000.00 National Reserve System N287 Protected Areas on Private Lands - Western NSW PAPL 2 Western Catchment Management Authority PO Box 307 COBAR NSW 2835 13,200.00 National Reserve System N363 Bowra - acquisition and establishment of Bowra Wildlife Sanctuary Australian Wildlife Conservancy PO Box 1897 WEST PERTH WA 6005 1,072,000.00 National Reserve System N365 Helidon Hills land purchase Adelaide Hills Council PO Box 82 GATTON QLD 4343 213,344.00 National Reserve System N366 Marcussen acquisition site - west Mt Cotton road, Cornlubia. Logan escarpment conservation park (proposed) Logan City Council PO Box 3226 LOGAN CITY QLD 4114 1,500,000.00 National Reserve System N366 SQ Local Government Strategy 2 Brisbane City Council Level 7, Brisbane Square - 266 George St BRISBANE QLD 4000 80,000.00 National Reserve System N472 Hildebrand, Northern Plains Grasslands Department Of Sustainability And Environment Level 2, 8 Nicholson St EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002 153,000.00 National Reserve System N473 Adams Property, Northern Plains Grasslands Department Of Sustainability And Environment Level 2, 8 Nicholson St EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002 113,000.00 National Reserve System N475 Covenanting grasslands in Victoria Trust for Nature Level 2, 358 Lonsdale St MELBOURNE VIC 3000 154,320.00 National Reserve System N557 Worlds End - Acquisitions and establishment of Worlds End Conservation Park South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 133,300.00 National Reserve System N558 Deep Creek - acquisition and addition to Deep Creek Conservation Park South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 135,600.00 National Reserve System N559 Protected Areas on Private Lands - SA PAPL 2 Department of Environment and Heritage GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 130,000.00 National Reserve System N618 Protected Areas on Private Lands - NT PAPL 2 The Department of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport PO Box 496 PALMERSTON NT 0831 96,000.00 National Reserve System Protected Areas on Private Lands - QLD Agforce Queensland PO Box 13186 - George St BRISBANE QLD 4003 120,000.00 National Reserve System Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve - Indigenous Consultation costs Cape York Land Council PO Box 2496 CAIRNS QLD 4870 97,000.00 New Brighton coastal restoration and bushland friendly neighbourhood guide Environmental Training & Employment Inc. PO Box 1076 MACKAY QLD 4740 45,202.73 Ngaanyatjarra Indigenous Protected Area Ngaanyatjarra Council PMB 71 ALICE SPRINGS  NT 0871 365,000.00 Ninghan Indigenous Protected Area Pindiddy Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 19 WUBIN WA 6612 180,000.00 North head sanctuary foundation nursery North Head Sanctuary Foundation Inc. PO Box 646N CAIRNS QLD 4870 13,653.00 North Peregian coastal dune restoration project Noosa Integrated Catchment Association Inc. PO Box 172 TEWANTIN QLD 4565 32,238.18 Northern Poultry Bio-Waste: Testing and Trialling Soil Enhancement Co-Products Loddon Shire Council PO Box 842 GISBORNE VIC 3437 90,000.00 Northern Seven Mile Beach restoration project BHCF Unit Trust PO Box 407 LENNOX HEAD NSW 2478 27,218.18 Northern Territory Off Reserve Sustainable Country Initiative - building on the NRS Northern Territory Of Australia PO Box 496 PALMERSTON NT 0831 235,459.09 NRM capacity building for peri-urban landholders in the Goulburn region Hawkesbury Nepean CMA Locked Bag 2048 GOULBURN NSW 2580 181,400.00 NSW far south coastal weed control - Phase 2 Bega Valley Shire Council PO Box 646N NORTH CAIRNS QLD 4870 45,299.31 Oakey Creek restoration project Council of the City of Shellharbour 1 Lamerton Crescent SHELL-HARBOUR NSW 2533 12,127.27 Observatory Beach - A project of environmental stewardship and sustainability Shire of Esperance 145 Point Leo Road RED HILL SOUTH VIC 3937 40,245.45 Oil Spill SE QLD - Recovery & Restoration Qld Department of Natural Resources and Water PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 1,500,000.00 Oyster Growers Fight Green Shore Crab Menace Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre (Eden Whale Discovery Centre Research Trust) PO Box 239 EDEN NSW 2551 33,156.00 Pamelup Coastcare Owners Of Pamelup Strata Plan 25140 PO Box 882 MONA VALE NSW 1660 10,316.00 Partnering Murran in Cultural and Native Resource Management and Value Adding Enterprises Wandi Gurrinygarr Business 8 Beacon Court WOODROFFE NT 0830 103,636.37 Paruku Indigenous Protected Area Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation Kimberley Land Council HALLS CREEK WA 6770 349,280.00 Port Curtis Coral Coast cultural heritage planning Fitzroy Basin Elders Committee Inc. PO Box 813 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 42,818.18 Penguin Foreshore Restoration and Protection of Remnant Vegetation and Penguin Habitat Central Coast Council PO Box 220 ULVERSTONE TAS 7315 14,583.64 Penguin Point and Willyama Beach project Marion Bay Township Inc. 1a Oak Street BELLINGEN NSW 2454 14,975.00 Perennial Pasture Companions Evergreen Farming Inc PO Box 645 BELMONT   WA 6984 643,000.00 PHARLAP (Productive Horse and Rural Land Action Program) WACMAC (Whittlesea Agricultural Society, Arthur’s Creek District, Merriang District, Strathewen and Cottlesbridge Landcare groups) PO Box 214 HEALESVILLE VIC 3777 70,000.00 Phase 2 of the Watson Creek integrated catchment management project Mornington Peninsula And Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation Ltd 5 Acacia Avenue COOLUM BEACH QLD 4573 45,217.34 Phase II – Implementation of an integrated catchment management plan to improve agricultural sustainability and protect State priority biodiversity assets in the Buntine-Marchagee Catchment Coorow Land Conservation District Committee PO Box 24 COOROW WA 6515 67,000.00 Phillip Island fox eradication project Phillip Island Nature Park Board Of Management Inc 34 Dickens St ELWOOD VIC 3184 29,250.00 Piloting Adoption of Grazing Best Management Practices for Improving Water Quality in the Burdekin Rangelands Dalrymple Landcare Committee PO Box 976 CHARTERS TOWERS QLD 4820 83,146.00 Pineapple Sustainable Practices Project - Industry Roll Out to all Australian Pineapple Production Areas South East Queensland Catchments PO Box 13204 - George Street BRISBANE QLD 4003 115,000.00 Platypus disease assessment and conservation in Tasmania Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 183,680.00 Pod Watch Whyalla - a dolphin monitoring program involving local school children Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (Australasia) Incorporated PO Box 720 PORT ADELAIDE SA 5015 44,045.45 Point Pearce Aboriginal Council Land and Sea Country Initiative The Aboriginal Lands Trust PO Box 2133 INGLE FARM SA 5098 27,272.73 Port Davey Marine Reserve - prevention of marine pests/preservation of values Tasmanian Conservation Trust Inc PO Box 4123 WAGSTAFFE NSW 2257 24,672.73 Port Lincoln Northshore - weed eradication and revegetation City Of Port Lincoln PO Box 1787 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 45,454.54 Port Phillip and Western Port Ramsar site “I sea, I care” research and community engagement challenge Dolphin Research Institute Ltd PO Box 66 REDCLIFFE QLD 4020 15,909.09 Preminghana Indigenous Protected Areas Tasmanian Aboriginal Land 4 Lefroy Street NORTH HOBART TAS 7002 20,000.00 Preservation, protection, rehabilitation, revegetation of remnant riparian vegetation Sunshine Reserve Sunshine Reserve Conservation & Fireguard Group Inc.    855 Diddillibah Rd DIDDILLIBAH QLD 4559 22,150.00 Preventing African Boxthorn re-infestation to protect shearwater nest/burrow habitat on Althorpe Island Friends Of Parks Inc. GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 3,636.36 Preventing soil losses by establishing deep rooted perennial pasture species in Honeysuckle & Spring Creek. Honey Suckle & Spring Creek Landcare Group 631 Spring Creek Rd TALLAN-GATTA SOUTH VIC 3700 45,000.00 Prevention and remediation of fish kills in Reliance and Fursden Creeks Pioneer Catchment And Landcare Group Inc. PO Box 2333 RICHMOND SOUTH VIC 3121 44,210.29 Prickly Acacia Outlier Control in Northwest Queensland and South Australia Southern Gulf Catchments Limited PO Box 2211 MOUNT ISA QLD 4825 120,750.00 Priority Onground Works to Protect The Endangered Mount Lofty Ranges Southern Emu-Wren (MLRSEW) and the Critically Endangered Fleurieu Peninsula Swamps Conservation Council of South Australia Inc. Level 1, 157 Franklin Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 209,545.46 Productive and sustainable grazing systems for the South East of South Australia South East Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 618 NARACOORTE SA 5271 8,000.00 Profitable and sustainability in high rainfall catchments integrating the natural resource environment Mid North High Rainfall Zone Group PO Box 118 WATERVALE SA 5452 79,600.00 Profitable, sustainable cropping and grazing systems using Pasture Cropping principles Mid Goulburn Broken Landcare Network Inc, trading as Goanna Collective PO Box 124 BENALLA VIC 3672 71,000.00 Progressing Nationally Strategic Control of Boneseed and Asparagus Weeds (WONS) in Southern Tasmania Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 95,779.09 Sustainable and profitable farming on the Red Gum Plains Southern Farming Systems- Gippsland Branch 3/318 Paking Street NEWTOWN VIC 3220 115,000.00 Project AWARE on the coast - Lake Macquarie Lake Macquarie City Council PO Box 284 LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 30,703.64 Increasing farmer knowledge and skills in stubble management systems in South West Victoria Southern Farming Systems- Hamilton Branch 3/318 Paking Street NEWTOWN VIC 3220 85,000.00 Creating a cropping adoption legacy from a decade of R&D in the high rainfall zone of southern Victoria Southern Farming Systems- Head office 3/318 Paking Street NEWTOWN VIC 3220 110,000.00 Promoting coexistence between recreationists and beach-nesting birds - phase 2 Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union PO Box 20 PAYNESVILLE VIC 3880 181,232.00 Promoting integrated pest management and improved pollination processes Yorke Peninsular Alkaline Soils Group PO Box 15 MINLATON SA 5575 100,000.00 Promoting minimal impact sea kayaking in Tasmania Tasmanian Sea Canoeing Club Inc. PO Box 878, or, 117 Sandy Bay Rd SANDY BAY TAS 7006 3,438.00 Promoting sustainable boating practices to protect the Bellinger/Kalang River coastal systems Bellingen Shire Council PO Box 117 BELLINGEN NSW 2454 34,024.00 Protect and preserve Burdekin beaches Burdekin Shire Council PO Box 42 RAYMOND TERRACE NSW 2324 45,409.09 Protecting and enhancing Perce White Reserve, Port Melbourne foreshore Friends Of Port Melbourne’s Foreshoreinc PO Box 404 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 17,253.00 Protecting and preserving biodiversity in Flinders Chase National Park and the Ravine Des Casoars wilderness protection area by facilitating goat eradication using Judas goats Friends Of Parks Inc. Locked Bag 1 NELSON BAY NSW 2315 20,377.73 Protecting and preserving Sandon Point Aboriginal Place “Kuradji” lands and sites Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 41,363.64 Protecting and rehabilitating critical aquatic habitats, priority wetlands and riparian vegetation adjacent to the Corner Inlet Ramsar area. West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority PO Box 1215 BIBRA LAKE WA 6969 121,090.91 Protecting and rehabilitating the Waniora Point headland, Bulli Wollongong City Council 35 Dauncey St KINGSCOTE SA 5223 27,454.54 Protecting and Restoring Arid Rivers from Invasive Athel Pine (Tamarix spp) Department Of Primary Industries And Resources GPO Box 1671 ADELAIDE SA 5000 288,187.64 Protecting coastal habitats (Hays Inlet and Burpengary Creek) from trail bike and 4WD impacts through fencing Moreton Bay Regional Council PO Box 12204 BRISBANE QLD 4003 110,942.73 Protecting critical habitat for the endangered Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo Birds Australia Western Australia Inc. Peregrine House - 167 Perry Lakes Drive Floreat WA 6014 129,548.36 Protecting Our Migratory Shorebirds and Seabirds Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 1350 BATEMANS BAY NSW 2536 248,140.00 Protecting Quolls in Queensland Landscapes Wildlife Preservation Society Of Queensland 95 William St BRISBANE QLD 4000 81,325.09 Protecting Tas sustainable farming and biodiversity assets from serrated tussock Tasmanian Land & Water Professionals Pty Ltd Level 1 - 148 Elizabeth St HOBART TAS 7000 156,529.46 Protecting the Northern Territory from Rubber vine incursion Roper River Landcare Group Inc PO Box 2133 KATHERINE NT 0852 126,800.00 Protecting the primary dunes of Mindil Beach - a collaborative approach by council, community and the Larrakia. Darwin City Council 1243 Bruxner Highway WOLLONGBAR NSW 2477 45,436.36 Protecting values associated with the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority PO Box 556 WINDSOR NSW 2756 331,181.82 Protecting Wardaman Land through a Partnership Approach Victoria River District PO Box 2404 KATHERINE NT 0851 51,818.19 Protection and enhancement of a fragile coastal ecosystem in the Bay of Fires Conservation Area Northern Tasmanian Natural Resource Management Association Inc. PO Box 29 PORTLAND VIC 3305 149,890.91 Protection and enhancement of biodiversity on Nanya Station University Of Ballarat PO Box 663 BANGALOW VIC 3353 103,274.91 Protection and preservation of North Beach coastal zone Stirling Natural Environment Coastcare (Inc) PO Box 293 CURRIE KING ISLAND TAS 7256 10,082.00 Protection and rehabilitation of Broadwater beach front Symtang Pty Ltd 2 Norman Rd BROADWATER WA 6280 44,200.00 Protection and rehabilitation of coastal dune systems at Portarlington Bellarine Bayside Foreshore Committee of Management Inc. PO Box 450 FORSTER NSW 2428 40,829.09 Protection and rehabilitation of North Head Reserve and One Track For All indigenous education trail Jamanee Gunya PO Box 1124 LISMORE NSW 2480 28,641.55 Protection and restoration of Swanbourne Beach dunes City Of Nedlands 16 Beach Road BEACHPORT SA 5280 13,460.86 Protection and restoration of Vasse Wonnerup Wetlands and Geographe Bay coastal habitats Geographe Catchment Council Inc. PO Box 412 BALNARRING VIC 3926 181,578.18 Protection and revegetation of dunes at Sandon Point (Bulli) Wollongong City Council Locked Bag 8821 WOLLONGONG NSW 2500 13,000.00 Protection of Coastal Moonah Woodland Community in the Narrows, Point Lonsdale Borough Of Queenscliffe PO Box 498 DROMANA VIC 3936 26,045.45 Protection of natural values at Eggs Islands Reserve, Tasmania Tasmanian Land Conservancy Inc. PO Box 674 STRATHALBYN SA 5255 3,200.00 Protection of natural values at Long Point Reserve, Tasmania Tasmanian Land Conservancy Inc. 30 Francis St RANDWICK NSW 2031 8,363.64 Protection of Ramsar listed foreshore on Raymond Island Raymond Island Community Association Inc. Centre for Marine Studies, Gehrmann Building UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND QLD 4072 33,650.00 Protection of significant environmental and cultural values on Maatsuyker Island - restoration of seabird colony habitats Wildcare Inc. C/O PO Box 142 DENMARK WA 6333 11,791.82 Providing the opportunity for growers to successfully adopt zero tillage Western Australian No-Tillage Farmers Association (WANTFA) PO Box 1091 NORTHAM WA 6401 99,800.00 Provision of Fish Data Museum Victoria GPO BOX 666 MELBOURNE VIC 3001 60,000.00 Puckeys Estate dunes restoration project Wollongong City Council Locked Bag 8821 WOLLONGONG NSW 2500 19,403.64 Pulling rock-wallabies from an extinction vortex World Wide Fund For Nature Australia GPO Box 528 SYDNEY NSW 2000 273,619.09 Putalina and Risdon Cove Indigenous Protected Area Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc GPO Box 569 HOBART TAS 7001 150,000.00 Quantifying human disturbances to vulnerable and threatened shorebird species on south east Queensland beaches Mary River Catchment Coordination Association Inc PO Box 1027 GYMPIE QLD 4570 45,450.67 Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation Reef Rescue Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation Ltd. PO Box 13061 BRISBANE QLD 4003 150,000.00 Queensland Farmers’ Federation Reef Rescue Queensland Farmers’ Federation Ltd. PO Box 12009 BRISBANE QLD 4003 60,000.00 Queensland Grow Me Instead Project Nursery & Garden Industry PO Box 345 SALISBURY QLD 4107 138,400.00 Rabbit control at Flinders Ocean Beach Reserve The Flinders Golf Club. PO Box 272 COWES VIC 3922 41,886.36 Raising awareness of South Stradbroke Island’s unique ecology and restoring plant biodiversity South Stradbroke Island Landcare Group Inc GPO Box 518 SYDNEY NSW 2001 199,710.00 Randwick City marine biodiversity identification signs project Randwick City Council 30 Francis St RANDWICK NSW 2031 35,888.18 Rangelands Restoration - Restoring native mammal diversity and vegetation condition in the arid zone rangelands. Department Of Environment And Conservation PO Box 51 WANNEROO WA 6946 220,909.09 Realising a National Rangeland Monitoring Network “Vegmachine” Department Of Primary Industries And Fisheries PO Box 6014 PARKHURST QLD 4702 86,234.09 Reclaiming Lemon Tree Passage Hill from advancing pine army Port Stephens Council PO Box 42 RAYMOND TERRACE NSW 2324 45,454.54 Recording and protecting the Yawuru coastal area Goolarri Media Enterprises Pty Ltd PO Box 2708 BROOME WA 6725 45,454.54 Reducing emissions and improving carbon levels in southern Queensland soils NorthEast Downs Landcare PO Box 199 OAKEY QLD 4401 80,000.00 Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Grain and Sheep Industries in the Upper Wimmera Catchment Project Platypus PO Box 838 STAWELL VIC 3380 53,000.00 Reducing nutrients and sediment load into the Aldinga Washpool Willunga Hills Face Landcare Group Inc. Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 39,340.45 Reducing wild dog impacts on agriculture through enhanced community participation Wild Dog Management 1 McKoy Street WODONGA VIC 3690 157,272.73 Reedy Creek rehabilitation project Eurobodalla Shire Council PO Box 99 MORUYA NSW 2537 17,280.91 Reef Catchments (Mackay Whitsunday) Reef Rescue Reef Catchments Mackay Whitsunday Inc. PO Box 815 MACKAY QLD 4740 5,808,124.00 Reef IQ: Introducing coral reef monitoring and encouraging sustainable practices amongst young people Reef Check Foundation Limited 85 McCulloch Road TOORADIN VIC 3980 44,359.09 Reef Rescue GBRMPA Marine Monitoring Program Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority John Gorton Building PARKES ACT 2601 2,425,000.00 Reef Rescue Indigenous Land & Sea Country Partnerships Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority John Gorton Building PARKES ACT 2601 1,000,000.00 Reef Rescue land management baseline survey Australian Bureau of Statistics Locked Bag 10 BELCONNEN ACT 2616 600,000.00 Reef Rescue multi-criteria analysis - MoU with BRS and CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Reseach Organisation 306 Carmody Road ST LUCIA QLD 4067 233,945.98 Reef Rescue Queensland Wetlands Program - QLD EPA and DPI&F Environmental Protection Agency PO Box 15155 CITY EAST QLD 4002 500,000.00 Reef Watch: Community-based coast and marine monitoring Conservation Council of South Australia Inc. PO Box 1749 MARGARET RIVER WA 6285 61,647.26 Regenerating the endangered Kurnell Dune Forest –supporting the Kurnell 2020 project Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers PO Box 689            MT MARTHA VIC 3934 45,454.54 Regional Groups’ Collective Reef Rescue Queensland Regional Natural Resource Management Groups Collective Ltd. PO Box 4608 TOOWOOMBA EAST QLD 4350 60,000.00 Rehabilitating Burdekin’s billabongs and Bowling Green Bay catchments Burdekin Solutions Ltd PO Box 1466 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 189,727.28 Rehabilitating wallum and wetlands in the Arthur Harrold Nature Refuge Noosa Integrated Catchment Association Inc. GPO Box 84 DARWIN NT 0800 20,914.18 Rehabilitation of coastal forest and woodland ecosystems in Coningham, Tasmania Wildcare Inc. PO Box 37 HORNSBY NSW 1630 32,063.64 Rehabilitation of coastal native bush land at York Town historic site West Tamar Historical Society Inc Level 1, 157 Franklin Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 22,110.00 Rehabilitation of coastal vegetation at North Beach and Belmore Basin, Wollongong Wollongong City Council PO Box 21 GOSFORD NSW 2250 15,000.00 Rehabilitation of endangered and threatened headland and coastal communities atMoonee Beach Coffs Harbour Regional Landcare Inc. PO Box 1730 COFFS HARBOUR NSW 2450 33,801.82 Rehabilitation of foreshore and coastal reserve, Killiecrankie, Flinders Island Northern Tasmanian Natural Resource Management Association Inc. 49-51 Elizabeth St LAUNCESTON TAS 7255 4,140.00 Rehabilitation of Terrigal Lagoon Reserve wetlands Community Environment Network Inc Private Bag 3 ST KILDA VIC 3182 30,850.07 Rehabilitation of the remnant coastal vegetation surrounding the nationally significant Coffin Bay wetlands system Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 7,143.18 Remediation of Hawthorne street natural area Rockdale City Council PO Box 486 NOOSA HEADS QLD 4562 23,090.91 Remote sensing data acquisition for Cape York Griffith University Australian Rivers Institute - Griffith University NATHAN QLD 4111 250,000.00 Remote weighing technologies to increase sustainability of sheep meat enterprises. North West Sheep Meat Production Group PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 37,107.60 Repair cyclone damage to freshwater billabong Dundee Progress Association Inc. PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 28,050.00 Rescuing a Gondwanaland Survivor: The Eastern Bristlebird Habitat Restoration Project Condamine Catchment Natural Resource Management Corporation Limited PO Box 3477 - Village Fair TOOWOOMBA QLD 4350 174,909.09 Resilient Riverine Landscapes below World Heritage Areas Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority PO Box 556 WINDSOR NSW 2756 90,909.09 Responding to climate variability at a local level Advisory Board of Agriculture GPO Box 1671 ADELAIDE SA 5001 100,000.00 Responding to current and future major fish kills in the Richmond River, NSW NSW Department Of Primary Industries PO Box 2145 BROOME WA 6725 45,454.55 Restoration and Rehabilitation (Dune erosion control) of an Aboriginal midden and coastal cabins littoral rainforest habitats in Royal National Park Department of Environment & Climate Change PO Box 44 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 9,181.82 Restoration guidelines for building weed resistant and biodiversity rich coastal communities Eurobodalla Shire Council PO Box 99 MORUYA NSW 2546 65,634.54 Restoration of a threatened vegetation community at Peggys Beach - Stage 1 Kingborough Council PO Box 127 QUEENSCLIFF VIC 3225 37,980.00 Restoration of Albert Delardes Reserve, Illawong Sutherland Shire Council Locked Bag 17 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 9,090.91 Restoration of Allawah scout campsite riverbank The Scout Association of Australia Queensland Branch Inc PO Box 520 TOOWONG QLD 4066 44,818.18 Restoration of banks of Noel Burns Park on Currimundi Lake with coir logs and planting Currimundi Catchment Care Group 8 Piringa Street CALOUNDRA QLD 4575 6,723.00 Restoration of Bungan Reserve littoral rainforest and hind dune - Stage 3 The Friends Of Bungan Inc. PO Box 577 DENMARK WA 6333 47,650.00 Restoration of Clifford Road Reserve Sutherland Shire Council Locked Bag 17 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 8,454.73 Restoration of coastal biodiversity and penguin habitat north west Tasmania Cradle Coast Authority PO Box 177 BERRIMAH NT 0828 36,209.32 Restoration of coastal endangered ecological community - Shoalhaven Heads Shoalhaven City Council PO Box 42 NOWRA NSW 2541 7,500.00 Restoration of estuarine habitat and introduction of sustainable natural resource management of Sydney rock oysters in Comerong Bay Gary Collison PO Box 674 STRATHALBYN SA 5255 9,345.45 Restoration of fire-affected threatened ecological communities and species around Hat Head National Park South West Rocks Community Dune Care Group Inc. 37 Waterfront Circle GERALDTON WA 6530 40,959.09 Restoration of habitat corridor at Arthurs Seat State Park Habitat Restoration Fund PO Box 450 FORSTER NSW 2428 17,000.00 Restoration of key coastal vegetation communities across the Goolwa area Goolwa To Wellington Local Action Planning Board Inc. PO Box 49 JERRAM-UNGUP WA 6336 44,827.27 Restoration of orange-bellied parrot habitat and Raukkan community bat monitoring project Goolwa To Wellington Local Action Planning Board Inc. PO Box 1350 BATEMANS BAY NSW 2536 45,236.36 Restoration of Pittwater Spotted Gum Forest at Stella James House property, Avalon National Trust of Australia (NSW) 69-71 Nelson St APOLLO BAY VIC 3233 14,776.00 Restoration of sensitive coastal habitat on Spectacle Island’s nature reserve Southern Beaches Landcare Coastcare PO Box 1374 TRARALGON VIC 3844 25,420.00 Restoration of the coastal reserves of Bundeena Sutherland Shire Council Locked Bag 17 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 15,454.54 Restoration of the foreshores of the Port Hacking River Sutherland Shire Council Locked Bag 17 SUTHERLAND NSW 1499 23,636.36 Restoration of Tuggerah Lakes estuarine system through improved water quality management Wyong Shire Council PO Box 20 WYONG NSW 2259 3,660,000.00 Restoration, education and protection Cape Byron Marine Park sub-tidal reefs Byron Underwater Research Group (BURG) Inc. PO Box 332 MANDURAH WA 6210 36,149.00 Restoring connectivity between Fishery Beach and Lands End Greening Australia (SA) Ltd 16 Francis Dimond St ARAKOON NSW 2431 20,424.89 Restoring Lowland Rainforest in the NSW North Coast Bioregion Big Scrub Rainforest Landcare Group Inc. (BSRLG) PO Box 106 BANGALOW NSW 2479 294,647.27 Restoring natural biodiversity along the coastal buffer of Saltwater Creek and Hays Inlet Moreton Bay Regional Council PO Box 500 HARVEY WA 6220 20,818.18 Restoring the coastal corridor at Hallidays Point Manning Coastcare Group Inc. Level 9, 535 Bourke St MELBOURNE VIC 3000 82,820.12 Restoring the natural integrity - Orchid Beach, Fraser Island Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers Private Bag 1000 ROSEBUD VIC 3939 45,454.54 Restoring the OBP coast: Community focused education, protection and habitat restoration Department Of Sustainability And Environment 2 Bryant Street ROCKDALE NSW 2216 171,785.73 Restoring Wetland Function and Health of the Mungalla Wetland. Commonwealth Science And Industrial Research Organisation PMB Aitkenvale TOWNSVILLE QLD 4814 267,400.91 Revegetation along the lower Yarra to protect the river’s biodiversity Friends Of Westgate Park Inc. 92 Gamon St YARRAVILLE VIC 3013 11,348.18 Revegetation and fencing of riparian zones in Diddillibah, Sunshine Coast Leslie Levin PO Box 14 BALNARRING VIC 3926 10,950.00 Revegetation of McKinnon Creek Wildlife Corridor , Edmonton Trinity Inlet Catchment Management Assoc. Inc. PO Box 3125 CAIRNS QLD 4870 41,851.82 Revegetation of section of Saltwater Creek Catchment, Mossman Golf Club Cairns Regional Council PO Box 357 MOSSMAN QLD 4873 45,281.82 Riparian Management in the Yanco Creek System The Yanco Creek And Tributaries Advisory Council “Bowen Station”   DENILIQUIN NSW 2710 290,909.09 Riparian Management incentives project, Bellinger, Nambucca, Macleay & Hastings Catchments NSW Macleay Landcare Network Inc PO Box W48 WEST KEMPSEY NSW 2440 165,455.00 Rocky Headlands protection and education project Wetlandcare Australia Pty Ltd 103-141 Walker Street - PO Box 1268 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 45,369.09 Rolling-out supply chain driven environmental performance in the dairy industry Murray Goulburn 18 Yarragon Road LEONGATHA VIC 3953 97,000.00 Ross Creek revegetation project Coastal Dry Tropics Landcare Inc. PO Box 1390 EDEN NSW 2551 28,309.09 Rowes Bay local government coastal wetlands interpretive project Townsville City Council PO Box 201 EXMOUTH WA 6707 42,781.82 Rubbish removal and monitoring of threatened species in the Solitary Islands Marine Park Solitary Islands Underwater Research Group Inc PO Box 762 MOSSMAN QLD 4873 16,181.82 Rural and urban partnerships to restore Sisters Beach and Creek Waratah Wynyard Council PO Box 168 WYNYARD TAS 7325 44,301.82 Rural communities creating sustainable farming and water quality improvement in the Myall and Wallis Catchments Great Lakes Council PO Box 196 TUMBY BAY SA 5605 101,378.18 Russell Island coastal wetlands project - Moreton Bay, Queensland Bay Islands Community Services Inc. Level 10, 535 Bourke Street MELBOURNE VIC 3000 28,909.09 Saltmarsh protection and education project Community Environment Network Inc 32 Melbourne St TRIABUNNA TAS 7190 28,712.73 Sandy Point/Waratah Bay/Shallow Inlet weed control Sandy Point Foreshore Committee of Management 6 Tilikum Ct SANDY POINT VIC 3959 36,800.00 Saving critically endangered grassland on the Victorian Volcanic Plain Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 137, Brown St HEIDELBERG SA 3084 159,589.09 Saving Island Ecology - Eradication of Weeds from Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island Board PO Box 5 LORD HOWE ISLAND NSW 2898 290,909.09 Saving our Swamps: National Restoration Program for Temperate Peat Swamps Blue Mountains City Council Locked Bag 1005 KATOOMBA NSW 2780 291,614.55 Sawpit gully restoration by Trinity Anglican School Trinity Anglican School Parents And Friends Assoc Iation Inc 95 Fairway Drive BARGARA QLD 4670 45,000.00 Schools caring for our coast: north west Tasmania Cradle Coast Authority 31 Ann St MULLUM-BIMBY NSW 2483 30,075.45 Scoping future scenarios and building Innovative Partnerships for Northern Territory pastoral lands Northern Territory Cattleman’s Association GPO Box 4845 DARWIN NT 0801 262,081.93 Scoping the shoreline: The impact of coastal activities on Eyre Peninsula’s resident shorebirds Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 19,460.00 Sea Spurge and Geraldton Carnation weed Action Group - SCIPN Region Surf Coast And Inland Plains Network PO Box 1608 MONA VALE NSW 2106 12,763.64 Sea spurge eradication in the Hunter Island group North-West Environment Centre Inc. Cnr Mitchell and Imlay Streets - PO Box 239 EDEN NSW 2551 39,327.00 Sea turtle habitat protection - Darwin Harbour and surrounds Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers PO Box 89 MARION BAY SA 5575 32,730.00 Seabird Habitat Restoration Project - Montague Island Nature Reserve Department of Environment and Climate Change PO Box 282 NAROOMA NSW 2546 58,254.54 Seacliff to Brighton sand dunes restoration project City Of Holdfast Bay PO Box 19 BRIGHTON SA 5048 4,454.54 SeaNet East- The Environmental Fisheries Extension Program for Qld, NSW and Vic OceanWatch Australia Ltd Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 318,836.36 SeaNet West - The Environmental Fisheries Extension Program for NT, WA, SA and Tas OceanWatch Australia Ltd Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 318,836.36 Seven Mile Beach Reserve restoration project - protection of endangered ecological communities New South Wales Department Of Lands PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 45,454.55 Sheepwash Creek and wetland habitat protection project Shoalhaven City Council PO Box 42 NOWRA NSW 2541 34,163.64 Shelley Beach and Decres Bay access management and natural resource protection project District Council of Ceduna PO Box 11 FLINDERS VIC 3929 13,939.54 Shoalhaven / Illawarra Dairy Industry NRM Partnership South Coast and Southern Highlands Dairy Industry Group PO Box 63 BERRY NSW 2535 218,500.00 Shorebirds 2020: Community-based monitoring and conservation of migratory shorebirds in Australia Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union Level 1, 89 York St SYDNEY NSW 2000 181,811.64 Shoreline erosion protection of the Westernport Ramsar area at Grantville Western Port Seagrass Partnership Limited PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 41,313.64 Shoreline planform movement Shire Of Busselton PO Box 107 DROMANA VIC 3936 34,545.45 Shores Drive coastal bushland rehabilitation project Department of Environment & Climate Change PO Box 361 GRAFTON NSW 2460 1,358.68 Shrub-based grazing systems on Eyre Peninsula for climatic risk management Eyre Peninsula National Resource Management Board (EPNRM) PO Box 1783 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 71,380.00 Signage for recreational fishing locations promoting seabird and environmental care Kiama Municipal Council PO Box 148 KIAMA NSW 2533 35,036.36 Small Farm Producer Networks – Supporting Sustainable Productive Land Management Southern Councils Group (operating under Kiama Municipal Council) PO Box 148 KIAMA NSW 2534 332,820.00 Smart Choice, Sustainable Land Use Tobacco and Associated Farmers Co-Cooperative Ltd Trading as TAFCO Rural Supplies PO Box 277 MYRTLEFORD VIC 3737 118,000.00 Smarter Planning Smarter Action - Continuing adoption of beneficial practices Gippslandcare PO Box 1374 TRARALAGON VIC 3844 90,000.00 Soil biology - the missing link for regenerative production in our farming systems L.R Young & R.J Young PO Box 46 BOTHWELL TAS 7030 94,820.91 Soil Carbon sequestration and rehabilitation: Landholders develop, implement & assess biochar Richmond Landcare Inc. PO Box 525 ALSTONVILLE NSW 2477 99,172.00 Soil Ecosystem Health Measures: An Interpretive Guide for Land Managers Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 88,898.19 Soil Stamina. The backbone of productive, profitable and sustainable agriculture Peter Francis Points Arboretum Eucalyptus Discovery Centre - PO Box 29 COLERAINE VIC 3315 85,000.00 Solutions at the source - slowing the flow into Western Port Bass Valley Land Care Group Inc 25 Turners Avenue TURNERS BEACH TAS 7315 133,378.63 South Burnett Regional Integrated Natural Resource Management Project South Burnett Regional Council PO Box 336 KINGAROY QLD 4610 192,109.09 South coast communities sea spurge control (SCCSSC) Kiama Municipal Council PO Box 632 HOBART TAS 7001 199,463.42 South East Queensland Sustainable Trees on Farms Program Seq Catchments Ltd PO Box 13204 BRISBANE QLD 4003 106,500.00 Southern Budgewoi Beach coastal stabilisation project Wycare Incorporated PO Box 314 WYONG NSW 2259 25,713.45 Southern Gulf Fire Weed Wellesley (WoC) Carpentaria Land Council PO Box 6662 CAIRNS QLD 4870 38,545.45 St Joseph’s biodiversity enhancement and educational project Community Environment Network Inc PO Box 149 OURIMBAH NSW 2258 20,607.27 Stabilising dunes and protecting shorebirds at Lavinia State Reserve Parks and Wildlife Service - Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts PO Box 431 TORQUAY VIC 3228 18,200.09 Stage 2 of Dairy NRM works for healthy soils, rivers and catchments Northern Rivers CMA PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 383,004.00 State Wide Indigenous Network Co-ordinator Department of Environment and Resource Management PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 150,000.00 Stop the Invasion Lin Schwarzkop School of Tropical Biology, James Cook University - 101 Angus Smith Drive TOWNSVILLE QLD 4811 115,597.00 Storing and disseminating Reef Check community monitoring data on trends in coral reef health to stakeholders and the public Reef Check Foundation Limited Level 10, 535 Bourke St MELBOURNE VIC 3000 41,878.18 Stormwater quality controls to improve water quality in Stumers Creek Coolum Area Parks Society Inc. PO Box 338 BURNIE TAS 7320 18,550.00 Strategic bitou bush control to protect biodiversity in NSW Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (NRCMA) PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 320,000.00 Strategic Vegetation Linkages on the East Gippsland Red Gum Plains Department Of Sustainability And Environment 574 Main Street BAIRNSDALE VIC 3875 270,620.91 Strengthening Bioregional Landscape Connectivity in the Mid-Loddon Sub-Catchment Mid-Loddon Sub-Catchment Group 225 Boswell Road LOCKWOOD VIC 3551 241,479.09 Strengthening Northern Melbourne’s Merri Corridor for flora, fauna and people. Merri Creek Management Committee Inc 2 Lee Street EAST BRUNSWICK VIC 3057 81,236.36 Strzelecki Warm Temperate Rainforest Restoration - Macks Creek Catchment Grand Ridge Plantations Pty Ltd PO Box 385 CHURCHILL VIC 3842 211,359.09 Suffolk Park dune care - Zone 5 and 6. Littoral rain forest and fore dune restoration Byron Shire Council PO Box 219 MULLUM-BIMBY NSW 2482 9,282.73 Summer Active Perennials for Production and Sustainability Central Highlands Agribusiness Forum RMB A480 BALLARAT VIC 3352 150,000.00 Sunderland Bay and Surf Beach coastal rehabilitation Phillip Island Nature Park Board Of Management Inc PO BOX 97 COWES VIC 3922 14,654.54 Sunset Dune rehabilitation: Beach Swan Drive to Bosely St. City Of Geraldton-Greenough PO Box 101 GERALDTON WA 6531 24,863.64 Sunshine Coast turtle conservation through community partnerships project Sunshine Coast Regional Council PO Box 261 BUNBURY WA 6230 174,070.54 Super Graze – maximising adoption of sustainable grazing practices in Southern Queensland Burnett Mary Regional Group for NRM   PO Box 501 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 975,850.00 Superior NRM through soil-cover over productive lands and farmer helping farmers. South Australian No-Till Farmers Association Inc. (SANTFA) PO Box 923 CLARE SA 5453 52,000.00 Supporting climate conscious milk production in southern Queensland through adaptation and mitigation Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation Ltd   PO Box 13061 George St BRISBANE QLD 4003 153,700.00 Supporting coastal pest animal management along the Cape Liptrap coast South Gippsland Landcare Network 6 Drapers Road EATONS HILL QLD 4037 45,454.54 Supporting Local Government in Natural Resource Management Delivery Across the Northern and Yorke Region Central Local Government Region Of South Australia Inc PO Box 168 CRYSTAL BROOK SA 5523 229,090.91 Surfleet Cove landscape reconstruction Friends Of Parks Inc. PO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 6,591.69 Survey of coastal regions in South Australia to determine the population status of the white-bellied sea-eagle and osprey and to identify habitat threats South Australian Ornithological Association PO Box 401 TULLY QLD 4854 39,975.00 Survey of predetermined target fish species in the Solitary Islands Marine Park Solitary Islands Underwater Research Group Inc GPO Box 1751 HOBART TAS 7001 18,136.36 Sustainability: Street by street Council of the Municipality of Marrickville PO Box 14 PETERSHAM NSW 2049 41,989.73 Sustainable farming practices to address climate change West of Ranges Landcare Inc (WORLI) PO Box 36 BONALBO NSW 2469 10,800.00 Sustainable Fire Management for Landholders using the Hotspots Program Richmond Landcare Services PO Box 410 KYOGLE NSW 2474 57,000.00 Sustainable floodplain management in the Nambucca and Bellinger Catchments Ducks Unlimited Pty Ltd t/a Wetlandcare Australia PO Box 1782 COFFS HARBOUR NSW 2450 49,450.00 Sustainable Milk Production Model for the Northern Dairy Industry Queensland Dairyfarmers PO Box 13061 - George Street BRISBANE QLD 4003 121,818.18 Sustainable Piggery Effluent Utilisation in Australian Farming Systems Australian Pork Limited PO Box 148 DEAKIN WEST ACT 2600 102,363.64 Sustainable Practice - Development of the Horticulture Recognition Framework Horticulture Australia Limited Level 7 - 179 Elizabeth Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 191,461.09 Sustainable Practices for the Equine Industry (North-East Victoria) North East Thoroughbreds Industry Alliance Inc. PO Box 85 SEYMOUR VIC 3660 80,000.00 Sustainable Practices Implementation in NT Agriculture Northern Territory Horticultural Association PO Box 2207 PALMERSTON NT 0831 141,810.00 Sustainable production and landscape repair in salinity-affected, water supply catchments Treenomics Locked Bag 888 PERTH BUSINESS CENTRE WA 9849 149,718.18 Sustainable Soil Management in the mid-Loddon Mid-Loddon Sub-Catchment Management Group   c/o Post Office LOCKWOOD SOUTH VIC 3551 120,000.00 Sustainable solutions for integrated disease and waste management Microbial Activity Pty Ltd PO Box 2073 HOWRAH TAS 7021 80,000.00 Sustainable upgrade of oyster farming practices Audrey Ann Thors PO Box 559 BATEMANS BAY NSW 2536 22,701.82 Sweeping the broom’ - Continuing the control of canary broom (Genista monspessulana) on Maria Island, Tasmania Wildcare Inc. Maria Island National Park, c/- Post Office TRIABUNNA TAS 7190 33,441.82 Sweeter Banana best NRM practice to achieve a long term environmentally sustainable industry Sweeter Banana Co-Op PO Box 567 CARNARVON WA 6701 130,060.00 Taking action on soil acidity in South Australia Advisory Board of Agriculture (ABA) GPO Box 1671 ADELAIDE SA 5001 99,400.00 Taking ‘Active Awareness’ to the Regions Blackwood Basin Group Inc. PO Box 231 BOYUP BROOK WA 6244 192,136.36 Tamar estuary stormwater pollution improvement project Department of Environment Parks Heritage And The Arts GPO Box 1751 HOBART TAS 7001 48,176.36 Tanami North Indigenous Protected Area Central Land Council GPO Box 3321 ALICE SPRINGS  NT 0870 200,000.00 Tasmanian coastal works manual – a good practice guide in an era of climate change Coastal And Marine Branch, Environment Division, Department Of Environment, Parks, Heritage And The Arts 55 Jackson Road RUSSELL ISLAND QLD 4184 48,823.27 Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 2,000,000.00 Tea-trees eco-mulching and coastal corridor replanting at Angels Beach, Ballina East Ballina Landcare Inc. Biological Sciences, Murdoch University, South Street MURDOCH WA 6150 8,390.00 Terrain (Wet Tropics) Reef Rescue FNQ NRM Ltd. PO Box 1756 INNISFAIL QLD 4860 6,502,000.00 Terrain (Wet Tropics) Reef Rescue R&D FNQ NRM Ltd. PO Box 1756 INNISFAIL QLD 4860 302,650.00 Terrigal Haven coastal walk Gosford City Council PO Box 2112 LOWER SANDY BAY TAS 7005 45,454.54 The coastal Flinders vegetation restoration project Friends Of Flinders Coastline Inc. Ewing Blyth Drive BARWON HEADS VIC 3227 31,370.00 The Great Toad Muster and National Cane Toad Eradication Week Stop The Toad Foundation Inc. City West Lotteries House, 2 Delhi Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 120,218.17 The high conservation value Clyde River Estuary: addressing the threats to its natural and cultural values Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 646N CAIRNS QLD 4870 66,201.74 The Humane control of Cane Toads Prof. Tony Peacock Level D, Building 3, University of Canberra Campus - Kirinari Street BRUCE ACT 2617 34,201.00 The Keys to Healthy Savannah Lands Northern Gulf Resource Management Group Ltd PO Box 63 GEORGRTOWN QLD 4871 168,000.00 The Marine Discovery Centre sand dune rehabilitation project (2009) Friends Of The Marine Discovery Centre 3 Ellen St WOLLONGONG NSW 2500 49,500.00 The Middleback Alliance - a Regional Conservation Initiative Ecological Horizons Pty Ltd 2 Quandong St ROXBY DOWNS QLD 5725 65,294.54 The Pelican Lagoon biodiversity survey monitoring project Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers 191 Liverpool St (2nd Floor) HOBART TAS 7000 44,545.45 The protection and restoration of coastal habitat and improvement of water quality in the Pound Creek catchment Andersons Inlet Landcare Group PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 49,710.00 The Rosebud coast banksia woodland and swamp skink conservation project Mornington Peninsula Shire Council 8-12 Julia St PORTLAND VIC 3305 32,636.69 The south east Australian reef biodiversity assessment project P2: People And Parks Foundation Limited as trustee for P2: People and Parks Foundation PO Box 492 BEGA NSW 2550 154,618.20 The squirrel gliders of the Moreton Bay Islands - conservation and community education The University Of Queensland PO Box 404 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810 12,252.06 The Threatened Bird Network Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union 60 Leicester St CARLTON VIC 3053 135,000.00 The Waterhouse Conservation Area project - protecting a natural and cultural icon of Northern Tasmania Northern Tasmanian Natural Resource Management Association Inc. 3 Tivoli Place SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141 163,243.64 Thompsons Creek reed bed filtration project Virginia Horticulture Centre PO Box 894 ALBANY WA 6330 44,000.00 Threat abatement for key habitat of migratory and threatened shorebirds in south east of South Australia South East Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 645 VICTOR HARBOR SA 5211 90,804.55 Threatened flora recovery on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands Department For Environment And Heritage GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 142,997.09 Threatened Plant Action Group - Community Action to Recover South Australia’s Threatened Flora Nature Conservation Society Of South Australia (NCSSA) 260 Franklin Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 58,181.82 Threatened Species Network World Wide Fund for Nature Australia GPO Box 408 CANBERRA CITY ACT 2601 1,500,000.00 Threatened Species Protection through Implementation of Coordinated Riverine Management Activities Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 242,727.27 Tide to Table - Burdekin Dry Tropics OceanWatch Australia Limited PO Box 155 GYMPIE QLD 4570 136,530.91 Tide to Table - Burnett Mary: Fish habitat for the future OceanWatch Australia Limited 205 Greenhill Road EASTWOOD SA 5063 150,400.00 Tide to Table Botany Bay - Estuarine aquatic habitat awareness, monitoring and action on the lower Georges River OceanWatch Australia Limited 74 Hotham St TRARALGON VIC 3844 176,221.81 Tilligerry habitat-building paths and revegetating along edges after power lines removal Tilligerry Habitat Association Inc PO Box 66 REDCLIFFE QLD 4020 9,743.64 TKRP - Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways Mulong Pty.Ltd 29 William Hickey Street CAIRNS QLD 4870 237,454.54 Toogimbie Indigenous Protected Area Nari Nari tribal council PO Box 75 HAY NSW 2711 103,000.00 Toomulla Beach foreshore restoration and revegetation 2009/10 Toomulla Beach Community Association Inc. 6 Denison Court TOOMULLA QLD 4816 37,894.09 Tooradin weed eradication and revegetation Tooradin Foreshore Committee of Management Inc. PO Box 21 CLEVELAND QLD 4163 43,090.91 Tower Hill to Tarerer caring for country grant Tarerer Gunditj Project Association PO Box 999 BURNIE TAS 7320 11,000.00 Townsville coastal access management Townsville City Council C/o Bass Coast Landcare - PO Box 453 WONTHAGGI VIC 3995 49,636.99 Track creation and provision of interpretive educational signage along revegetated creek line - fauna survey of entire wetlands/woodland site Balnarring Primary School 71 Hotham Street TRARALGON VIC 3844 8,856.91 Training and capacity building tools for community based monitoring of water quality entering Moreton Bay Department of Natural Resources And Water C/o Post Office NARRAWONG VIC 3285 154,472.73 Transforming Sunshine Coast Caneland into Sustainable Biodiesel & Integrated Farming Enterprises Maroochy Land Care 306 Ninderry Rd YANDINA QLD 4561 156,140.50 Transgenerational, educational approach to ensure long-term conservation to marine biodiversity Nature Coast Marine Group PO Box 847 VIRGINIA SA 5120 8,137.20 TreeLine - Creative schools engagement in the coastal environment Sunshine Coast Regional Council 4 Nellie St CLAYFIELD QLD 4011 24,727.27 Two Bays - Caring for sea country Pelican Charters Pty. Ltd. PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 19,518.91 Tyrendarra Indigenous Protected Area Winda-Mara Aboriginal Organisation   21 Scott Street HEYWOOD  VIC 3304 134,000.00 Understanding near shore coastal ecosystems of the Geographe Bay Capes region and proposed Capes Marine Park to improve management of impacts, for biodiversity conservation and ongoing protection of SW coastal community assets in a changing climate University of WA PO Box 5066 BUNBURY WA 6230 179,736.73 Understanding Tasmanian Aboriginal coastal values Southern Regional Natural Resource Management Association Inc   PO Box 1339 BATHURST NSW 2795 27,590.91 Upgrade the existing rehabilitation project between Nicholson Point and Channel Boolbardie Country Club Inc. 63 Brockman Street DENHAM WA 6537 2,018.00 Upper Murrumbidgee Demonstration Reach Territory And Municipal Services PO Box 158 CANBERRA ACT 2601 219,709.09 Using landscape ecology to prioritise property management actions in Tasmania Natural Resource Planning Pty Ltd PO Box 4530 HOBART TAS 7000 237,010.91 Using modern tools to increase sustainability and profitability of farming Parkes and District Landcare Group PO Box 333 PARKES NSW 2870 22,900.00 Victorian Bushfires Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 500 EAST MELBOURNE VIC 8001 606,733.48 Victorian Bushfires Biod & Natural Icons Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 500 EAST MELBOURNE VIC 8001 2,533,333.00 Victorian Bushfires Coastal & Aquatic Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 500 EAST MELBOURNE VIC 8001 2,533,333.00 Victorian Bushfires Sustainable Farm Practices Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 500 EAST MELBOURNE VIC 8001 2,533,334.00 Victory Park dune revegetation project - stage 10 South Peregian Beach Community Association Inc 14 Burton Road MARGARET RIVER WA 6285 13,637.00 Vines Creek rehabilitation project Mackay Church Of Christ C/o TSCC, GPO Box 599 HOBART TAS 7001 13,545.45 Wadjigan/Kiuk Sea Country Plan Northern Land Council 2E King Albert Ave TANILBA BAY NSW 2319 90,072.72 Wagonga Rangers enhancing cultural and environmental values Wagonga Local Aboriginal Land Council PO Box 496 PALMERSTON NT 0830 42,187.27 Wapengo Chain-of-Ponds restoration project Wapengo Watershed Association Inc. PO Box 453 WONTHAGGI VIC 3995 40,294.00 Waratah bush block restoration Waratah Christian Community Inc. PO Box 312 PEREGIAN BEACH QLD 4573 2,745.45 Warlu Jilajaa Jumu Indigenous Protected Area Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 110 KALACC FITZROY CROSSING WA 6765 210,700.00 Warriewood beach coastal biodiversity protection Pittwater Council 1 Boondah Road WARRIEWOOD NSW 2102 45,090.91 Warringah dune bush regeneration Warringah Council PO Box 4018 BURRILL LAKE NSW 2539 31,818.18 Watarru Indigenous Protected Area Anangu Pitjantjatjara PMB Umuwa ALICE SPRINGS  NT 0872 155,000.00 Water quality enhancement of the Eprapah Creek Catchment Redland City Council PO Box 816 MURWILLUM-BAH NSW 2484 31,762.73 Waterwise Berries Australian Blueberry Growers Association Private Bag 15 FERNTREE GULLY VIC 3156 44,000.00 Wattleridge Indigenous Protected Area Banbai Business Enterprises Inc PO Box 12 GUYRA NSW 2365 178,000.00 Wedderburn Restoration for Malleefowl and Woodland Birds Wedderburn Conservation Management Network PO Box 65 WEDDERBURN VIC 3518 64,305.46 Weed control, revegetation and protection, Parnkalla walking trail, Port Lincoln. City Of Port Lincoln PO Box 1787 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 15,231.82 Weed management lower Mitchell River flood plains and estuary - stakeholders forum at Kowanyama, reporting system, rapid response program, GIS compilation, storage and mapping of weed data Mitchell River Watershed Management Group Inc. (MRWMG) PO Box 682 SARINA QLD 4737 22,272.73 Wellesley Island Region Indigenous Protected Area Carpentaria Land Council PO Box 6662 CAIRNS  QLD 4870 131,200.00 Wellstead Estuary Walk Trail - Part 1 of the Bremer Bay sustainable access project Fitzgerald Biosphere Group Inc 5 May Tce BROOKLYN PARK SA 5032 19,000.00 West Kimberley - Shore Marine Environment Western Australian Marine Science 35 Stirling Highway, Botany and Biology Building M095 CRAWLEY WA 6009 137,156.00 Western NLP - Positive People for Sustainable Systems Western CMA PO Box 342 BOURKE NSW 2840 150,000.00 Western Port welcomes waterbirds: Identifying and managing critical habitat for waterbirds in the Western Port Ramsar site Department Of Sustainability And Environment PO Box 137 HEIDELBERG VIC 3084 181,745.46 Western portals - Connecting communities to Western Port Mornington Peninsula Shire Council 160 Ann Street BRISBANE QLD 4000 18,200.00 Wetland Watch (Peel Harvey) - a private landholder focused wetland conservation project World Wide Fund For Nature Australia 74 Rutherford Parade WARNEET VIC 3980 150,474.18 What a waste - tackling holiday sewage overloading in the Bellinger/Kalang coastal systems Bellingen Shire Council PO Box 117 BELLINGEN NSW 2454 45,053.98 Wildeyre - Collaborative, Landscape-Scale, Biodiversity Conservation on the Eyre Peninsula Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 115,486.54 Wildlife corridor extension from Pipe Clay Lagoon to Rushy Lagoon to link with threatened species E.Morrisbyi Presnell, Jodie Gai PO Box 127 QUEENSCLIFF VIC 3225 2,220.00 WoC Round 2 Skills Guide and Workshops Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts GPO Box 787 CANBERRA ACT 2601 110,541.16 Wollomai Point dry rainforest restoration Berkeley Development Association Inc PO Box 103 BERKELEY NSW 2506 15,574.54 Wonnerup Beach revegetation and rehabilitation Wonnerup Residents Association Inc. PO Box 731 IPSWICH QLD 4305 50,000.00 WoNS AWC Working Group Meeting Brassey Hotel Canberra Belmore Gardens BARTON ACT 2600 23,122.72 WoNS AWC Working Group Meeting Advisor Christopher M. Auricht PO Box 4000 BRIGHTON SA 5048 160,000.00 WoNS Management Coordination - Aquatic Weeds (Alligator weed, Cabomba and Salvinia) NSW Dept of Primary Industries Locked Bag 21 ORANGE NSW 2800 90,300.00 WoNS Management Coordination - Bitou Bush and Boneseed NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change PO Box 1967 HURSTVILLE NSW 1481 68,450.00 WoNS Management Coordination - Blackberry Victoria Department of Primary Industries 402-406 Mair St BALLARAT VIC 3350 126,000.00 WoNS Management Coordination - Chilean Needle Grass Victoria Department of Primary Industries 402-406 Mair St BALLARAT VIC 3350 135,118.18 WoNS Management Coordination - Gorse Tasmania Department of Primary Industries and Water GPO Box 44A HOBART TAS 7001 48,025.45 WoNS Management Coordination - Lantana Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Locked Mail Bag 4 MOOROOKA QLD 4105 162,000.00 WoNS Management Coordination - Parthenium Weed and Rubber Vine Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Locked Mail Bag 4 MOOROOKA QLD 4105 118,200.00 WoNS Management Coordination - Serrated Tussock NSW Dept of Primary Industries Locked Bag 21 ORANGE NSW 2800 64,920.91 WoNS Management Coordination - Willows Victoria Department of Primary Industries 402-406 Mair St BALLARAT VIC 3350 25,460.00 WoNS National Bridal Creeper and Asparagus Weeds Management Coordinator South Australia Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation GPO Box 2834 ADELAIDE SA 5001 55,120.00 WoNS National Weeds Management Facilitator John Thorp Australia PO Box 96 LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 139,336.36 Woodland Bird Conservation Project Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union 60 Leicester St CARLTON VIC 3053 301,909.09 Woodside Beach dune restoration project Gippslandcare PO Box 1374 TRARALGON VIC 3844 35,180.84 Working on and caring for Yaegl country Yaegl Local Aboriginal Land Council GPO Box 528 SYDNEY NSW 2001 15,850.00 Working on Country APY Ranger Programme Anangu Pitjantjatjara Inc PMB 227 Umuwa ALICE SPRINGS NT 0872 273,465.91 Working on Country Biodiversity & traditional knowledge Nimbin Rock Ngulingah Local Aboriginal Land Council PO BOX 981 LISMORE NSW 2480 378,835.71 Working on Country Caring for Waru in the APY Lands Anangu Pitjantjatjara Inc PMB 227 Umuwa ALICE SPRINGS NT 0872 761,405.93 Working on Country Gidarjil Gidarjil Development Corporation Ltd Unit 14, 36 Quay Street BUNDABERG QLD 4670 30,211.68 Working on Country Kaanju Ngaachi Wenlock and Pascoe Rivers Project Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation PMB 30 CAIRNS MAIL CENTRE QLD 4871 145,714.82 Working on Country KRI - Karajarri Rangers Kimberley Land Council 36 Pembroke Road BROOME WA 6275 512,186.80 Working on Country Martu Rangers Program, Western Desert Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa, C/- 11 Gordon Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 1,082,909.09 Working on Country Southern Gulf Fire and Weed Project on Gangalidda Carpentaria Land Council PO Box 6662 CAIRNS QLD 4870 66,627.27 Working on Country Thuwathu Bujimulla Sea Country Plan Carpentaria Land Council PO Box 6662 CAIRNS QLD 4870 686,440.33 Working on Country Torres Strait Indigenous Ranger Program Torres Strait Regional Authority PO Box 261 THURSDAY ISLAND QLD 4875 2,572,751.28 Working on Country Wattleridge & Tarriwa Kurrukun Banbai Business Enterprises 154 Sandon Street GUYRA NSW 2365 426,343.29 Working on Country Yalata IPA Ranger Program Yalata Community Inc. PMB 31 CEDUNA SA 5690 60,511.09 Working on Country Yarta Northern Flinders Ranges of SA Nipanha Community Inc. PMB Nepabunna COPLEY SA 5732 429,264.29 Working together to keep Mosman’s coasts clean Mosman Municipal Council 491 Tinderbox Road TINDERBOX TAS 7054 12,951.82 Working together to protect the iconic Margaret River Estuary Cape To Cape Catchments Group PO Box 896 BALGOWLAH NSW 2093 57,236.36 Working with local government and the community, in Wooli, to increase the resilience of coastal ecosystems Environmental Training & Employment Inc. PO Box 556 WINDSOR NSW 2756 45,454.54 Working with the community and government to protect and enhance Coffs Harbour coastal ecosystems and cultural places under threat from high usage demands Environmental Training & Employment Inc. 46 Smythe St CORINELLA VIC 3984 45,454.00 World Heritage Area - Tasmanian Wilderness Department of Primary Industries & Water GPO Box 771 HOBART TAS 7001 3,400,000.00 World Heritage Area - Wet Tropics of Queensland Qld Department of Natural Resources PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 2,700,000.00 World Heritage Property Program QLD Department of Natural Resources 80 Meiers Road INDOOR-OOPILLY QLD 4068 203,800.00 World Heritage Property Management Program NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water 10 Valentine Avenue PARRAMATTA NSW 2124 431,200.00 World Heritage Property Management Program WA Department Of Environment & Conservation 11 Herbet Street BROOME WA 6725 200,000.00 Yalata Indigenous Protected Area Yalata Community Inc PMB 12 CEDUNA SA 5690 110,000.00 Yellow Crazy Ant Management in North East Arnhem Land Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 1551 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 250,000.00 Yowrie Valley Biodiversity Enhancement & Sustainable Farming Program Yowrie Valley Landcare PO Box 154 COBARGO NSW 2550 82,272.74 Zero Toads - Community Control of Invasive Cane Toads in Darwin Darwin City Council GPO Box 84 DARWIN NT 0801 86,418.18               Total Payments to Projects in 2008-09           183,245,401.09 Implementation             49,767,027.14 Core and EPBC administration             32,399,999.09 Procurement and other activities               3,507,848.22 Total Payments 2008-09*           268,920,275.54 *Excluding base-level funding payments to regional natural resource management organisations   Attachment B 2009-10 Caring for Our Country Project Details Project Title Corporate Entity Legal Address Town   State Postcode Total $ (GST excl) “Enable Land managers to return cultivated hillslope areas to pasture to reduce erosion” Murilla Landcare Group Inc PO Box 214 MILES QLD 4415 7,200.00 “The Skink Link” Drum Drum Alloc Creek Friends of Chinamans Creek Inc. 14 Yootha Court RYE VIC 3941 25,700.00 (BMP) FRAMEWORK for Grazing Industries - Reef Catchment Pilot Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 51,556.00 ‘Cool Coastal Cows’- dairy farmers adapting to climate change in SE NSW Bega Cooperative Society Limited PO Box 123 BEGA NSW 2550 66,004.00 ‘Pats and Spats’ Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 118 BEGA NSW 2550 88,129.00 “Communities in Landscapes”: Working together to integrate conservation and production across Box–Gum Woodlands. Landcare NSW Incorporated. PO Box 710 WAGGA WAGGA NSW 2650 1,480,559.00 2-day workshop on program logic for WoNS coordinators Clear Horizon Consulting Unit 1/13 Avondale Avenue CHELSEA VIC 3196 7,948.18 A Collaborative Recruitment Forecasting Programme for the NT Mud Crab Fishery Northern Territory Seafood Council PO Box 618 DARWIN NT 0801 28,700.00 A revegetated dune on Frankston Foreshore. Frankston Beach Association Inc. 44 Violet Street FRANKSTON SOUTH VIC 3199 21,186.00 A Strategic Regional Conservation Plan for Australia’s Global Biodiversity Hotspot World Wide Fund For Nature Australia GPO Box 528 SYDNEY NSW 2000 66,750.91 Aboriginal Landcare and schools caring for country Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority 98a Norman Street GORDON-VALE QLD 4865 70,790.91 Administrative Support for Landcare Australia Limited Landcare Australia Limited PO Box 5666 WEST CHATSWOOD NSW 1515 1,400,000.00 Adoption of Conservation Farming Practices and increase Soil Organic Carbon through machinery conversions Little River Landcare Group Inc. 24 Forbes Street YEOVAL NSW 2868 59,820.00 Adoption of nutrient budgeting for sustainable dairy farms and healthy rivers DairyTas Board Inc PO Box 1352 BURNIE TAS 7320 45,000.00 Anindilyakwa Indigenous Protected Area Anindilyakwa Land Council PO Box 172 ALYANGULA NT 0885 189,000.00 Area Wide Integrated Pest Management for Bundaberg regional Production Horticulture. Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers Cooperative Ltd (BFVG) PO Box 45 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 92,475.00 Arid Recovery: developing new partnerships to restore our Arid lands Arid Recovery PO Box 150 RUGBY SA 5725 19,986.00 Asset Protection Decision Support Tools for Pastoralists in Semi-arid Landscapes. Barkly Landcare and Conservation Association Inc PO Box 36 TENNANT CREEK NT 0861 25,982.00 Australian Government Facilitator Network Dept of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts GPO BOX 787 CANBERRA ACT 2601 8,109,090.91 Banking soil carbon to reduce fertiliser application in the NSW sugar industry. NSW Suagr Milling Cooperative Ltd 117 Pacific Highway, BROAD-WATER NSW 2472 54,500.00 Bellarine Ramsar wetlands and coastal hotspots biodiversity protection and enhancement Bellarine Catchment Network PO Box 93 QUEENSCLIFF VIC 3225 20,000.00 Best practice management grazing systems for native grass pastures in the low rainfall cereal zone. Upper North Farming Systems Group PO Box 223 JAMESTOWN SA 5491 30,300.00 Best-practice mesquite management in the rangelands of Western Australia Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee Inc. PO Box 867 KARRATHA WA 6714 60,552.73 Bitou bush removal in Myall Lakes National Park Ramsar site NSW Department Of Environment And Climate Change (National Parks And Wildlife Service) PO Box 117 CALOUNDRA QLD 4551 181,719.27 BMP Grazing Strategies for Adapting to Climate Variability in the Maranoa-Balonne Queensland Murray Darling Committee PO Box 1078 ROMA QLD 4455 35,050.00 Building a Bass Coast Botanical Corridor Three Creeks Landcare Group PO Box 453 WONTHAGGI VIC 3995 49,000.00 Building capacity and active engagement with CfoC targets with ‘care’ groups and landholder network throughout Tasmania Tasmanian Landcare Association Inc PO Box 21 SOUTH HOBART TAS 7004 22,080.00 Building Capacity to Establish a Parkinsonia Dieback Biological Control Model Victoria River District Conservation Association Inc. PO Box 2404   KATHERINE NT 0850 36,318.17 Building profitable NRM outcomes with Perennials Pastures on beef & sheep farms Central Highlands Agribusiness Forum RMB A480 BALLARAT VIC 3352 65,400.00 Building resilient farms in times of change Serve-Ag Pty Ltd PO Box 149 GLENORCHY TAS 7010 50,000.00 Building Resilient People, Ecosystems and Agricultural Communities Little Landcare Group Inc. 24 Forbes Street YEOVAL NSW 2868 63,860.00 Bunya Biolink - Cooyar Creek riparian zone rehabilitation Greening Australia (Queensland) Ltd 333 Bennetts Road NORMAN PARK QLD 4067 78,758.18 Burdekin Bowen Integrated Farm Management Monitoring and Support Project Burdekin Bowen Integrated Floodplain Management Advisory Committee Inc PO Box 205 AYR QLD 4807 60,159.00 Burnett Mary Reef Partnership: Reducing sediment, nutrient and chemical pollutants entering the Reef Lagoon Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 1,021,219.00 Carbon – what does it means for me on my property Agforce Queensland PO Box 13186 BRISBANE QLD 4003 80,000.00 Clearing serrated Tussock from the Grasslands and Woodlands of the maclaughlin River Landcare group Maclaughlin River Landcare Group Inc PO Box 26 NIMMITABEL NSW 2631 33,060.00 Coastal Banksia regeneration and habitat improvement at Mills Beach, Mornington Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Private Bag 1000 ROSEBUD VIC 3939 42,000.00 Coastal Communities reducing the impact of WONS along the Angahook-Otway Coast Separation Creek to Marengo Coastal Reserves Committee of Management 70 Great Ocean Rd APOLLO BAY VIC 3233 35,500.00 Commercial application of Polychaete sand filters for wastewater remediation and broodstock feeds South East Queensland Catchments - Bribie Island Aquaculture Research Centre PO Box 2066 WOORIM QLD 4507 62,570.00 Communication Strategy - Indigenous Protected Area Support Cost Dept of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 5 Farrell Place CANBERRA ACT 2601 14,711.21 Community Building Biolinks from the Seed Up Up2Us Landcare Alliance Shop 3 12-22 Highett Street MANSFIELD VIC 3722 19,500.00 Community coastal environmental education resources - Maitland Bay Centre - Bouddi National Park Department of Environment & Climate Change PO Box 1477 GOSFORD NSW 2250 16,818.18 Community Coastcare Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment 2/8 Nicholson Street EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002 217,875.00 Community engagement for the protection of Little Penguins Department of Primary Industries Parks Water and Environment GPO Box 1751 HOBART TAS 7001 50,000.00 Community support for biodiversity restoration in Georges River catchment Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority PO Box 1151 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 89,866.36 Compost use in sustainable agriculture William (Bill) Grant PO Box 388 CASTLEMAINE VIC 3450 20,247.00 Conserving iconic marine wildlife in the Kimberley World Wide Fund For Nature Australia 14 Investigator Ave KINGSCOTE SA 5223 45,454.54 Control of WoNS outliers in Cradle Coast NRM Region, Tasmania Department Of Primary Industri GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 30,581.82 Coordinated response to on-ground control of Mimosa pigra in the Daly and Moyle Natural Resource Management Board (NT) Inc PO Box 30 PALMERSTON NT 0831 172,500.00 Coordinating and Communicating Industry’s Progress with Consistent and Comparable Land Management Frameworks under Reef Rescue Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 37,500.00 Coordinating M&E through effective regional and industry partnerships Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 26,750.00 Coping with Climate Change (CCC) Talgarno & Wises Creek Landcare Group 77 Talgarno Gap Rd BETHANGA VIC 3691 5,000.00 Corner Inlet coastal aquatic weed control and foreshore rehabilitation West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority Private Bag 1000 ROSEBUD VIC 3939 45,297.45 Creating a sustainable Shoalhaven Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority 7 Monash Avenue WARRNAM-BOOL VIC 3280 134,744.73 Cutting edge cropping techniques to establish Mallee biodiversity Manangatang Landcare Group 115 Wattle Street MANAN-GATANG VIC 3546 62,700.00 Dambimangari Saltwater Indigenous Protected Area consultation process 09/10 Kimberley Land Council PO Box 2145 BUNGEN-DORE WA 6725 69,000.00 Delivering wildlife habitat management decision support in the Brigalow Belt The University Of Queensland School of Natural and Rural Systems Management   ST LUCIA QLD 4072 16,090.91 Demonstrating resilient and sustainable production through disc seeding systems Western Australian No-Till Farmers Association PO Box 1091 NORTHAM WA 6401 20,700.00 Demonstrating the production and sustainability benefits of Precision Agriculture in the Ord River Irrigation Area Ord Irrigation Cooperative PO Box 573 KUNUNURRA WA 6743 15,600.00 Developing a native pasture farming system to improve sustainable agriculture, resilience and environmental benefits. Birchip Cropping Group Inc. PO Box 85 BIRCHIP VIC 3483 57,720.00 Developing Sustainable Management Practices For Chestnut Orchards Chestnuts Australia Inc. PO Box 472 MYRTLE-FORD VIC 3737 47,500.00 Developing sustainable production systems, resilient to climate change - Baselining Avongro Wheatbelt 56 Broadway Road BICKLEY WA 6076 79,936.00 Developing sustainable shrub-based forage systems for profitable mixed farming Coorong District Local Action Plan Committee, a committee of the Coorong District Council C/o Coorong District Council PO Box 1021 TINTINARA SA 5266 61,559.00 Development of Best Management Practices for No Till Cropping Systems in the High Rainfall Zone of Victoria Vic No Till Farmers Association PO Box 1397 HORSHAM VIC 3402 29,250.00 Development of multi-dose ejector for the control of foxes Frank Gigliotti 1087 Belvedere Park LPO SEAFORD VIC 3098 67,614.00 Dhimmuru Indigenous Protected Area Dhimurru Land Managmenet Aboriginal PO Box 1551 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 238,500.00 Dhimurru Sea Country Indigenous Protected Area Consultation Project Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 1551 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 70,000.00 Do it with Dung - from the Mountains to the Murray Kiewa Catchment Landcare 8 Barlow Lane BRUARONG VIC 3749 50,605.00 Dune erosion control, weed management and rehabilitative planting Friends of Adventure Bay Inc. 11 Seaview Road BRUNY ISLAND TAS 7150 20,400.23 East Gippsland Feedbase GippsDairy Board Inc.   PO Box 1059 WARRAGUL VIC 3820 5,000.00 East Gippsland Soil Carbon Project - Pilot Project Agribusiness Gippsland 129 Green Street IVANHOE VIC 3079 31,690.91 Eastern Creek Wetlands and Flood Mitigation Program East Gippsland Shire Council PO Box 1618 BAIRNSDALE VIC 3857 900,000.00 Educating Producers in accessing and utilising Spatial Information! Agforce Queensland PO Box 13186 BRISBANE QLD 4003 72,727.00 Efficient use of water, energy and nutrient resources on dairy farms Mid Coast Dairy Advancement Group PO Box 253 TAREE NSW 2430 68,210.00 EMU - Empowering pastoralists to manage for sustainable and productive landscapes Natural Resource Management Board (NT) Inc. PO Box 1120 ALICE SPRINGS NT 0870 40,300.00 Enabling Martu to Preserve Biodiversity in the Western Desert Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 504 NEWMAN WA 6753 88,909.09 Encouraging sustainable farm practices via adoption of Grains Best Management Practices in Queensland Fitzroy Basin Association PO Box 139 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 38,956.00 Endangered shorebird program Department of Environment & Climate Change 78 Hargreaves St TAREE NSW 2430 15,489.09 Engaged community groups for rapid uptake of hillslope, reef rescue and sustainable farm practices Fitzroy River and Coastal Catchments Inc PO Box 288 ROCK-HAMPTON QLD 4700 53,400.00 Engaging NSW Communities in coastline conservation Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 691,478.50 Enhancing adoption of best practice grazing management in northern Australia: Phase 1 integration and scenario testing Meat & Livestock Australia Limited PO Box 2363 FORTITUDE VALLEY BC QLD 4006 59,959.00 Enhancing Soil, Plant and Animal Health in the Southern Otways through sustainable, profitable pasture management practices. Southern Otway Landcare Network 69-71 Nelson St APOLLO BAY VIC 3233 12,250.00 Environment and economic gains of changing land management to meet NRM targets Eastern Riverina Landcare Network “Foligen Park” YERONG CREEK NSW 2642 40,950.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-025-08 M D & C H Pratten   BORENORE NSW 2800 16,500.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-088-08 JA, MH, SF & SL Duff   FORBES NSW 2871 12,322.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-096-08 Riverview Wallah & Co   RUGBY NSW 2583 14,700.00 Environmental Stewardship Program L-111-08 G R Lloyd   CROOKWELL NSW 2583 5,300.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-009-09 V Byrne   RED HILL ACT 2603 15,000.00 Environmental Stewardship Program M-102-08 R W Neil & W A Neil   BUNGEN-DORE NSW 2621 5,665.00 EnviroWool - an environmental accreditation system for the Tasmanian wool industry Roberts Wool Link 15 St John Street LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 27,240.00 Eradicating Rodents from Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island Board PO Box 5 LORD HOWE ISLAND NSW 2898 40,101.82 Establishing Sustainable Perennial Pastures Systems in the Upper Wimmera Catchment Project Platypus Association Inc. PO Box 838 STAWELL VIC 3380 20,181.82 Evaluating alternative nutrient sources to maintain pasture and crop productivity. Woady Yaloak Catchment Project Inc 32 Stevens Street QUEENSCLIFF VIC 3225 13,250.00 Fairlight Landcare - Biodiversity Recovered on the Canterbury Tablelands and Fairlight Creek Southern Gulf Catchments PO Box 2211 MT ISA QLD 4825 30,000.00 Farming for a Sustainable Future - Demonstrating Best Farm Practices Lake Wellington Landcare 1301 Hazeldean Road ELLINBANK VIC 3821 22,654.55 Farming Sustainably - Future Systems for Intensive Cropping Cradle Coast NRM Region PO Box 338 BURNIE TAS 7320 21,080.00 FishTrack: Fish Movement and Effects of Flows and Barriers Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 65,624.73 Focusing Reef Rescue investment to accelerate rates of rural land practice change Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 9,250.00 Forestry SA Multi-Region Strategic Area and Habitat Restoration Project South Australian Forestry Corporation PO Box 162   MT GAMBIER SA 5290 27,000.00 GBR Wide Sugarcane Coordination and Communication Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 110,500.00 Gidarjil Working on Country Gidarjil Development Corporation Ltd 53 Walker Street BUNDABERG QLD 4670 232,950.00 Gippsland Grows ‘Green’ Grass GippsDairy PO Box 1059 WARRAGUL VIC 3820 5,000.00 Gippsland Plains drought tolerant pastures demonstration Yarram Yarram Landcare Network Livingston Street YARRUM VIC 3971 40,000.00 GLM - Demonstration, Evaluation and Continuation Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association PO Box 1346 KATHERINE NT 0851 68,582.00 Good practice and better environmental outcomes in vegetable production WA Vegetable Growers 103 Outram Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 29,455.00 Gouldian finch conservation through Indigenous fire management in east Kimberley Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 2145 BROOME WA 6725 19,800.00 Granite Flora: Recovery in Action Queensland Murray-Darling Committee Inc. PO Box 6243 TOOW-OOMBA QLD 4350 31,618.18 Grazing The Hills - Improved Pasture Management Systems for the Upper Murray Towong Shire Council PO Box 55 TALLAN-GATTA VIC 3700 64,000.00 Guanaba Indigenous Protected Area Ngarang Wal Gold Coast Aboriginal Association Inc 44 Bulitti Street HOPE ISLAND QLD 4212 94,500.00 Harnessing continent-wide biodiversity datasets for prioritising national conservation investment Commonwealth Science And Industrial Research Organisation GPO Box 1700 CANBERRA ACT 2601 4,787.09 Healthy Pastures - Native Grasses and Fodder Trees in Production Systems Greening Australia (Nt) Ltd. PO Box 1604 DARWIN NT 0801 33,500.00 Healthy Soils, Stock and Pasture Cardinia Environment Coalition PO Box 875 PAKENHAM VIC 3810 59,934.00 Healthy wetlands for healthy catchments in the Southern Rivers region Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 43,445.45 Heytesbury ‘FOCUS’ project: Boosting production, resilience & environmental gains using best management practices. Heytesbury District Landcare Network PO Box 69 TIMBOON VIC 3268 5,000.00 Highfields Cooby Catchment Landcare Group Toowomba Landcare PO Box 1733 TOOW-OOMBA QLD 4350 9,350.00 Iluka Peninsula coastal vegetation restoration Department of Environment & Climate Change PO Box 361 GRAFTON NSW 2460 19,900.00 Implementation and Coordination of Cotton BMP in High Risk Reef Catchments Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 10,000.00 Implementation of Priority Landcare Works in the Southern Rivers Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 91,250.00 Implementation of Sustainable Horticultural Practices in Torres Strait Torres Strait Regional Authority PO Box 261 THURSDAY ISLAND QLD 4875 77,500.00 Implementation of the Coorong and Tatiara Local Action Plans 2009 - 2013 Coorong District Council PO Box 1021 TINTINARA SA 5266 112,050.00 Implementation of the EnviroWine Australia program in the Margaret River wine region Curtin University of Technology PMB 1 MARGARET RIVER WA 6285 73,078.00 Implementation of the Thuwathu/Bujimulla Sea Country Plan by the Wellesley Island Rangers Carpentaria Land Council PO Box 6662 CAIRNS QLD 4870 28,669.74 Implementing Best management practices and bidoversity conservation in the Lower Rangarai Catchment Liverpool Plains Land Management PO Box 777 GUNNEDAH NSW 2380 10,000.00 Implementing Land and Sea Management Initiatives on Mabuiag Torres Strait Torres Strait Regional Authority PO Box 261 THURSDAY ISLAND QLD 4875 375,247.50 Implementing Priority Actions to control Serrated Tussock in the Berridale Rocky Plains area. Berridale Rocky Plains Landcare Group Inc PO Box 26 COOMA NSW 2630 49,700.00 Implementing sustainable land management practises in the Glen Innes region Glen Innes Natural Resources Advisory Committee Inc PO Box 660 GLEN INNES NSW 2370 29,260.00 Implementing water use efficiency & establishing new varieties of perennial pastures within the Upper Mt Lofty Ranges New Springs Landcare Group PO Box 24 MT TORRENS SA 5244 35,582.00 Improve Irrigation Efficiency, Nutrient and Land Management in Top End Intensive Farming Systems NT Agricultural Association         PO Box 2243 KATHERINE NT 0851 70,319.00 Improved Pasture Condition in the Georgina River Catchment NT Barkly Landcare and Conservation Association PO Box 36 TENNANT CREEK NT 0861 27,500.00 Improved soil organic carbon and ground cover using Pasture Cropping principles Mid Goulburn Broken Catchment Landcare Network – T/A Gecko CLaN 89 Sydney Road BENALLA VIC 3672 37,200.00 Improving efficiency of irrigation water use within the horticultural sector of the Swan Region (Waterwise on the Farm - Swan) Swan Catchment Council PO Box 2206 MIDLAND WA 6936 95,489.00 Improving Land Condition and Profitability Through Sustainable Grazing Strategies in the Indigenous Pastoral Program Central Land Council PO Box 3321 ALICE SPRINGS NT 0871 42,350.00 Improving land management practices within the Lake MacLeod catchment area. Lyndon Land Conservation District Committee Williambury Station CARNAVON WA 6701 10,000.00 Improving management of native habitat and steep, erosion prone grazing land in South Myall Catchment. South Myall Catchment Landcare Group Inc 407 Reushle Rd KLEINTON QLD 4352 58,860.00 Improving Natural Resource Management Outcomes in the Rangelands by Strategically Removing Feral Goats South Australian Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 70,636.36 Improving No-Till farming Systems through Adoption of Innovative Technical Advances (disc seeders and new herbicide options) Birchip Cropping Group PO Box 85 BIRCHIP VIC 3483 19,000.00 Improving NRM outcomes through engagement with farmers, land managers & community in the Tasman catchment. Tasman Landcare Group Inc 1713 Main Road NUBEENA TAS 7184 29,885.00 Improving the efficacy of hydrogen phosphide (PH3) fumigation for rabbit control Frank Gigliotti 1087 Belvedere Park LPO SEAFORD VIC 3098 27,182.00 Improving the resilience of dryland farming in low rainfall areas of the Avon Region Corrigin Farm Improvement Group PO Box 166 CORRIGIN WA 6375 47,750.00 Improving Water Quality in the Botany Bay “Hot Spot” Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority PO Box 3720 PARRA-MATTA NSW 2124 465,000.00 Increase Coastal Community Engagement, Participation and On-Ground Action Tamar Region Natural Resource Management Strategy Reference Group Inc. PO Box 396 LAUNCESTON TAS 7250 41,850.00 Increasing Adoption of Sustainable Farming and Risk Management in the SA Mallee Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc. PO Box 5093 MILDURA VIC 3502 67,495.45 Increasing biodiversity by reducing willows weeds in the Lower Murray of South Australia Mannum to Wellington Local Action Planning Committee Incorporated PO Box 2056 MURRAY BRIDGE SA 5253 58,020.00 Increasing capacity managing acid sulphate soils in the Hawkesbury Estuary Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Authority PO Box 882 MONA VALE NSW 1660 10,490.91 Increasing farmers’ capacity to manage soil acidification, carbon sequestration, ecosystem services and adopt improved soil management systems. SoilCare Inc (Landcare Group) PO Box 525 ALSTON-VILLE NSW 2477 34,080.00 Increasing Native Habitat in Endangered Ecological Communities – Granite Borders Granite Borders Landcare Committee Incorporated PO Box 400 TENTERFIELD NSW 2372 24,875.00 Increasing Precision Ag Awareness and Adoption in South East South Australia MacKillop Farm Managment PO Box 249 MENINGIE SA 5264 17,367.00 Increasing profitability and reducing erosion with No-tillage on Eyre Peninsula Eyre Peninsula Agricultural Research Foundation (EPARF) Minnipa Agricultural Centre PO Box 31 MINNIPA SA 5654 67,649.00 Increasing Soil Carbon through Grazing Management and Biological Enhancement of Soil on the Far South Coast. Far South Coast Landcare Association PO Box 118 BEGA NSW 2550 21,550.00 Increasing Soil Health and Water Retention on Macquarie Floodplain Macquarie 2100 Inc. “Weemabah” TRANGIE NSW 2823 38,850.00 Increasing the awareness and role of Precision Ag in soil Carbon Management in the South-East of SA MacKillop Farm Management Group Inc Nyroca Road PADTHAWAY SA 5271 7,800.00 Increasing the Productivity of Improved Pastures by the Sustainable Management of Native Vegetation Regrowth Northern Territory Agricultural Association PO Box 2243 KATHERINE NT 0851 74,500.00 Increasing the uptake of sustainable land management practices through precision agriculture and reduced tillage systems Hart Field Site Group Inc. PO Box 939 CLARE SA 5453 17,500.00 Indigenous community connections and protection of Corangamite coastal country Australian Trust for Conservation Volunteers PO Box 423 BALLARAT VIC 3353 50,000.00 Indigenous Ecosystem Revegetation and Regeneration Whitecliffs to Cameron’s Bight Foreshore Reserves Committee of Management PO Box 207 RYE VIC 3931 40,500.00 Indigenous Protected Area Declarations - IPA Support Costs Dept of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 5 Farrell Place CANBERRA ACT 2601 17,725.45 Indigenous Protected Area Support Costs - Managers Workshops Dept of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 5 Farrell Place CANBERRA ACT 2601 77,688.35 Industry Leaders, Sustainable Dairying – Dairying for Tomorrow in the South East Dairy SA PO Box 235 LUCINDALE SA 5272 30,849.00 Innovative and improved management strategies to overcome wind erosion in the Dalwallinu, Coorow, Perenjori and Wongan-Ballidu shires. The Liebe Group Inc. PO Box 90 WUBIN WA 6612 60,000.00 Innovative Land Managers, Kangaroo Island Agriculture Kangaroo Island (AgKI) RSD 7 - Flinders Chase Service KINGSCOTE SA 5223 9,136.00 Integrated Weed Management of Riparian Areas of the Kimberley Ord Land And Water Incorporated PO Box 1804 KUNUNURRA WA 6743 29,454.54 Intergrated Erosion Control in the Matong and Meadows Creek Catchments Upper Snowy Landcare Committee PO Box 26 COOMA NSW 2630 24,600.00 Involving Community in Conserving Threatened Species in the Angas River Catchment Angas River Catchment Group PO Box 625 STRATH-ALBYN SA 5255 20,797.27 Kaanju Ngaachi Indigenous Protected Area Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation Chuulangun Aboriginal Corp. c/o Post Office COEN  QLD 4871 142,200.00 Kaanju Ngaachi Wenlock and Pascoe Rivers Working on Country Project Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation PMB 30 CAIRNS MAIL CENTRE QLD 4871 218,690.00 Kalare (Lachlan) River Willow Eradication and Management Project Lachlan Aboriginal Natural Resource Management Corporation PO Box 82 FORBES NSW 2871 72,526.55 Karajarri Indigenous Protected Area Consultation Project Kimberley Land Council PO Box 2145 BROOME WA 6725 70,000.00 Keep Australia beautiful Queensland clean beach challenge 2008-2009 Keep Australia Beautiful Council Queensland Inc Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 21,818.18 KidsCare for Tasmanian Coasts The Understory Network Inc. PO Box 4535 HOBART TAS 7000 48,230.00 Kurnell 2020 vision: Engaging community in integrated ecological restoration - stage 1 Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority 6302 Kennedy Hwy WALKAMIN QLD 4872 170,454.55 Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area Laynhapuy Homelands Association Inc   PO Box 1546 NHULUNBUY NT 0881 270,000.00 Limeburners Link -Saltmarsh Weed Control Greening Australia (Vic) Ltd PO Box 525 HEIDELBERG VIC 3084 18,766.50 Linkages in the landscape Lexton Landcare Group Inc. PO Box 21 LEXTON VIC 3352 11,400.00 Linking Farm Management and Biodiversity The Understory Network Inc. PO Box 4535 HOBART TAS 7000 42,000.00 Lungatalanana, Great Dog and Babel islands Indigenous Protected Area Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc GPO Box 569 HOBART TAS 7000 148,500.00 Macintyre Brook Sustainability Initiative Macintyre Brook Irrigators PO Box 213 INGLEWOOD QLD 4387 26,225.00 Mackay Whitsunday Reef Rescue Water Quality Grants and Partnerships Delivery Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 2,511,000.00 Maclaughlan River Rehabilitation Stage 3 - Stepping Stones for Climate Change Maclaughlin River Landcare Group Inc PO Box 26 NIMMITABEL NSW 2631 49,191.00 Managing and controlling high-risk pest plants on Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Management Board 35 Dauncey Street KINGSCOTE SA 5223 18,181.82 Managing soil moisture in glacial soils within the Southern Fleurieu Peninsula Adelaide Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 781 WILLUNGA SA 5172 30,000.00 Managing southern pastoral lands for ecological and productivity benefits through coordinated on-ground works South Australian Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 102,500.00 Managing the Cane Toad Menace In Tropical Savannas Riyala Association Inc 19 Tasman Circuit WAGAMAN NT 0810 23,727.27 Mandingalbay Yidinji Indigenous Protected Area Mandingalbay Yidinji Aboriginal 35A Norman Street GORDON-VALE QLD 4865 3,500.00 Marine Monitoring in Victoria’s Subtidal Environment Reef Watch Victoria C/- Museum Victoria PO Box 666 MELBOURNE VIC 3001 42,576.93 Maximising on-ground outcomes for Reef Rescue Horticulture Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 41,250.00 Milham Pond saltmarsh and shorebird habitat protection Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority Private Bag 2010 PATERSON NSW 2421 7,280.00 Moolapio: Coastal Protection Greening Australia (Vic) Ltd PO Box 525 HEIDELBERG VIC 3084 26,158.25 Mount Willoughby Indigenous Protected Area Tjirilya Aboriginal Corporation   Tjirilya Aboriginal Corp.PMB 9 COOBER PEDY  SA 5723 73,000.00 Mt Chappell/ Badger Is Indigenous Protected Area Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc GPO Box 569F HOBART  TAS 7001 132,300.00 Mt Martha foreshore and associated Balcombe Estuary and Creek biodiversity and habitat improvement Balcombe Estuary Rehabilitation Group Inc (BERG) PO Box 433 MT MARTHA VIC 3934 50,000.00 Multi purpose crops Rainbow & District Landcare group PO Box 28 HOPETOUN VIC 3396 10,329.00 Nambucca Valley LandCare and Nymabaga Goori Green Team Protection Proposal Nambucca Valley LandCare Inc PO Box 239 BOWRAVILLE NSW 2449 60,000.00 Nantawarrina Indigenous Protected Area Nepabunna Community Inc “Nepabunna”   COPLEY SA 5732 150,000.00 National Reserve System Acquisition of Aerodrome Road Department of Environment and Conservation 17 Dick Perry Ave - Technology Park KENSINGTON WA 6151 193,332.00 National Reserve System Directions Statement (Professional Services) Brian Gilligan PO Box 100 RAYMOND NSW 2324 1,637.65 National Reserve System N049 Protected Areas on Private Lands - Tas PAPL 2 Department of Primary Industries and Water GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 147,194.40 National Reserve System N281 Protection Local Government land in NSW Southern rivers Catchment Authority PO Box 309 NOWRA NSW 2541 45,648.00 National Reserve System N360 Belmah National Park acquisition Department of Environment and Conservation PO Box 155 BRISBANE CITY EAST QLD 4002 600,000.00 National Reserve System N364 Bedourie National Park Department of Environment and Conservation PO Box 155 BRISBANE CITY EAST QLD 4002 1,080,000.00 National Reserve System N366 SQ Local Government Strategy 2 Brisbane City Council Level 7, Brisbane Square 266 George St BRISBANE QLD 4000 1,458,904.65 National Reserve System N559 Protected Areas on Private Lands - SA PAPL 2 Department ofEnvironment and Heritage GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 65,000.00 National Reserve System N7121 Credo Pastoral Lease - acquisition and addition to the national reserve system Department of Environment and Conservation 17 Dick Perry Ave, Technology Park KENSINGTON WA 6983 410,000.00 National Reserve System N7122 Port Gregory new nature reserve Department of Environment and Conservation 17 Dick Perry Ave, Technology Park KENSINGTON WA 6983 226,000.00 National Reserve System Protected Areas on Private Lands - QLD Agforce Queensland PO Box 13186 George St BRISBANE QLD 4003 40,000.00 National Reserve System Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve - Indigenous Consultation costs Cape York Land Council PO Box 2496 CAIRNS QLD 4870 178,762.00 Ngaanyatjarra Indigenous Protected Area Ngaanyatjarra Council PMB 71   ALICE SPRINGS  NT 0871 298,800.00 Ninghan Indigenous Protected Area Pindiddy Aboriginal Corporation   PO Box 19 WUBIN WA 6612 8,500.00 NRM capacity building for peri-urban landholders in the Goulburn region Hawkesbury Nepean CMA Locked Bag 2048 GOULBURN NSW 2580 91,700.00 Oil Spill SE QLD - Recovery & Restoration Department of Natural Resources and Water PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 500,000.00 Oyster Growers Fight Green Shore Crab Menace Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre (Eden Whale Discovery Centre Research Trust) PO Box 239 EDEN NSW 2551 16,578.00 Penguins to the Prom Bass Coast Landcare Network Inc PO Box 453 WONTHAGGI VIC 3995 23,400.00 Perennial Pasture Companions Evergreen Farming Inc PO Box 645 BELMONT   WA 6984 293,375.45 Perrenial farming systems targeting wind erosion within the North Eastern and southern Wheatbelt regions of WA Wheatbelt East Regional Organisation of Councils (WEROC) PO Box 145 KELLER-BERRIN WA 6410 143,400.00 Phase II – Implementation of an integrated catchment management plan to improve agricultural sustainability and protect State priority biodiversity assets in the Buntine-Marchagee Catchment Coorow Land Conservation District Committee PO Box 24 COOROW WA 6515 81,500.00 Piloting Adoption of Grazing Best Management Practices for Improving Water Quality in the Burdekin Rangelands Dalrymple Landcare Committee PO Box 976 CHARTERS TOWERS QLD 4820 108,075.00 Pineapple Sustainable Practices Project - Industry Roll Out to all Australian Pineapple Production Areas South East Queensland Catchments PO Box 13204 George Street BRISBANE QLD 4003 7,500.00 Platypus disease assessment and conservation in Tasmania Department Of Primary Industries GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 45,920.00 Preminghana Indigenous Protected Areas Tasmanian Aboriginal Land 4 Lefroy Street NORTH HOBART TAS 7002 15,000.00 Premium Practice in Burnett Land Management South East Burnett Landcare Group Inc PO Box 34 GOOMERI QLD 4601 25,000.00 Preventing Hillslip erosion through improved grazing management in the Traprock region of Southern QLD Granite Borders Landcare Committee Inc PO Box 400 TENTERFIELD NSW 2372 24,875.00 Priority Onground Works to Protect The Endangered Mount Lofty Ranges Southern Emu-Wren (MLRSEW) and the Critically Endangered Fleurieu Peninsula Swamps Conservation Council Of South Australia Incorporated Level 1, 157 Franklin Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 52,386.36 Productive and sustainable grazing systems for the South East of South Australia South East Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 618 NARA-COORTE SA 5271 3,625.00 Productive saltbush pastures to combat wind erosion in the Moore River Catchment Moore Catchment Council PO Box 337 MOORA WA 6510 18,214.25 Progressing Nationally Strategic Control of Boneseed and Asparagus Weeds (WONS) in Southern Tasmania Department Of Primary Industri GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 23,944.54 Promoting integrated pest management and improved pollination processes Yorke Peninsular Alkaline Soils Group PO Box 15 MINLATON SA 5575 15,920.00 Protect and manage biodiversity in the Lower Daly within and adjacent to a HCVAE site Wangamaty (Lower Daly) Landcare Group Inc. Private Bag 28 Nauiyu Community DALY RIVER NT 0822 12,500.00 Protecting and enhancing smaller patches of endangered remnant native vegetation in the north east Darling Downs North East Downs (NED) Landcare Group PO Box 199 OAKEY QLD 4401 59,700.00 Protecting and enhancing woodlands and coastal wetland habitats of the Lower South East Port MacDonnell Landcare Group PO BOX 3472 MT GAMBIER SA 5290 18,000.00 Protecting and rehabilitating critical aquatic habitats, priority wetlands and riparian vegetation adjacent to the Corner Inlet Ramsar area. West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority PO BOX 1215 BIBRA LAKE DC WA 6969 40,363.64 Protecting and Restoring Arid Rivers from Invasive Athel Pine (Tamarix spp) Department Of Primary Industries And Resources GPO Box 1671 ADELAIDE SA 5000 72,046.91 Protecting coastal habitats (Hays Inlet and Burpengary Creek) from trail bike and 4WD impacts through fencing Moreton Bay Regional Council PO Box 12204 BRISBANE QLD 4003 36,980.91 Protecting critical habitat for the endangered Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo Birds Australia Western Australia Inc. Peregrine House - 167 Perry Lakes Drive FLOREAT WA 6014 32,387.09 Protecting Quolls in Queensland Landscapes Wildlife Preservation Society Of Queensland 95 William St BRISBANE QLD 4000 20,331.27 Protecting Tas sustainable farming and biodiversity assets from serrated tussock Tasmanian Land & Water Professionals Pty Ltd Level 1 - 148 Elizabeth St HOBART TAS 7000 39,132.00 Protecting the Environmental Values of the Pitt Water-Orielton Lagoon Hot Spot Department of Primary Industries Parks Water and Environment GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 29,608.00 Protecting the Northern Territory from Rubber vine incursion Roper River Landcare Group Inc PO Box 2133 KATHERINE NT 0852 31,700.00 Protection and enhancement of Anderson Inlet catchment via community engagement Anderson Inlet Landcare Group VFF Farm Tree & Landcare Association Inc C/O Bass Coast Landcare, PO Box 453 WONTHAGGI VIC 3995 49,000.00 Protection and enhancement of biodiversity on Nanya Station University Of Ballarat PO Box 663 BALLARAT VIC 3353 25,818.73 Providing the opportunity for growers to successfully adopt zero tillage Western Australian No-Tillage Farmers Association (WANTFA) PO Box 1091 NORTHAM WA 6401 24,850.00 Putalina and Risdon Cove Indigenous Protected Area Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc GPO Box 569 HOBART TAS 7001 142,200.00 Queensland Grow Me Instead Project Nursery & Garden Industry PO Box 345 SALISBURY QLD 4107 34,600.00 Quicker uptake of sustainable farming practises that eliminate wind erosion in SW NSW. Homebush Landcare Group “Tylden” BALRANALD NSW 2715 12,465.00 Realising a National Rangeland Monitoring Network “Vegmachine” Department Of Primary Industries And Fisheries PO Box 6014 PARKHURST QLD 4702 4,538.64 Reduce impact of weeds of national significance in littoral rainforst and endangered plant species habitat. Macleay Landcare Network PO Box W48 WEST KEMPSEY NSW 2440 12,380.00 Reducing erosion and improving soil carbon levels in the mid to upper slopes of the north-east Darling Downs North East Downs (NED) Landcare Group PO Box 199 OAKEY QLD 4401 54,300.00 Reducing impacts of rabbits to regenerate threatened flora, communities and critical habitat Department of Agriculture and Food Locked Bag 4 BENTLEY DELIVERY CENTRE WA 6983 77,625.00 Reducing Nutrient, Pesticide and Sediment Pollution to the Barrier Reef Lagoon in Wet Tropics catchments Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 1,899,000.00 Reducing soil loss by wind erosion through the use of No-Till practices in the South East Mallee Nullawil Landcare Grioup PO Box 17 NULLAWILL VIC 3529 40,500.00 Reducing wild dog impacts on agriculture through enhanced community participation Wild Dog Management 1 McKoy Street WODONGA VIC 3690 31,454.00 Reef-Wide Coordination of the “Dairying Better ‘n Better for the Reef” Program Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 13,291.50 Regeneration/preservation of native Tweed Riverbank and Bushland within Wildlife Corridor. Mt Warning – Mt Misery Tweed Landcare Inc. PO Box 42 MUR-WILLUMBAH NSW 2484 11,350.00 Remote weighing technologies to increase sustainability of sheep meat enterprises. North West Sheep Meat Production Group PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 27,994.00 Rescuing a Gondwanaland Survivor: The Eastern Bristlebird Habitat Restoration Project Condamine Catchment Natural Resource Management Corporation Limited PO Box 3477 Village Fair PO TOO-WOOMBA QLD 4350 43,727.27 Restoration of fire-affected threatened ecological communities and species around Hat Head National Park South West Rocks Community Dune Care Group Incorporated 37 Waterfront Circle GERALDTON WA 6530 49,000.00 Restoration of southern coast of French Island including mangrove rehabilitation. French Island Landcare Group. C/o Tankerton Post Office FRENCH ISLAND VIC 3921 13,900.00 Restoration of Tuggerah Lakes estuarine system through improved water quality management Wyong Shire Council PO Box 20 WYONG NSW 2259 2,000,000.00 Restoring Lowland Rainforest in the NSW North Coast Bioregion Big Scrub Rainforest Landcare Group Inc. (BSRLG) PO Box 106 BANGALOW NSW 2479 73,661.82 Re-vegnet.au Private Forestry Southern Queensland 224 Mary Street GYMPIE QLD 4570 600,000.00 RHD Boost: Import and evaluate new RHD virus strains to strengthen rabbit biocontrols Invasive Animal CRC NSW DPI/IA CRC - Orange Agricultural Institute Forest Road ORANGE NSW 2800 51,125.00 Riparian Management in the Yanco Creek System The Yanco Creek And Tributaries Advisory Council Bowen Station   DENILIQUIN NSW 2710 72,727.27 Saving Island Ecology - Eradication of Weeds from Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island Board PO Box 5 LORD HOWE ISLAND NSW 2898 72,727.27 Saving our Swamps: National Restoration Program for Temperate Peat Swamps Blue Mountains City Council Locked Bag 1005 KATOOMBA NSW 2780 72,903.64 Scoping study, targeted data collection, analysis and directed intervention activities Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 261,562.50 Seabird Habitat Restoration Project - Montague Island Nature Reserve Department Of Environment And Climate Change PO Box 282 NAROOMA NSW 2546 14,563.64 SeaNet East- The Environmental Fisheries Extension Program for Qld, NSW and Vic OceanWatch Australia Ltd Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 79,709.00 SeaNet West - The Environmental Fisheries Extension Program for NT, WA, SA and Tas OceanWatch Australia Ltd Locked Bag 247 PYRMONT NSW 2009 79,709.00 Sharing the shoreline - Towra Point community shorebird protection program Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority PO Box 974 AYR QLD 4807 45,114.09 Shoalhaven / Illawarra Dairy Industry NRM Partnership South Coast and Southern Highlands Dairy Industry Group PO Box 63 BERRY NSW 2535 99,750.00 Shores Drive coastal bushland rehabilitation project Department of Environment & Climate Change PO Box 361 GRAFTON NSW 2460 14,945.45 Shrub-based grazing systems on Eyre Peninsula for climatic risk management Eyre Peninsula National Resource Management Board (EPNRM) PO Box 1783 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 23,670.00 Smart Choice, Sustainable Land Use Tobacco and Associated Farmers Co-Cooperative Ltd Trading as TAFCO Rural Supplies PO Box 277 MYRTLE-FORD VIC 3737 41,600.00 Soil Carbon sequestration and rehabilitation: Landholders develop, implement & assess biochar Richmond Landcare Inc. PO Box 525 ALSTON-VILLE NSW 2477 49,789.00 Soil Ecosystem Health Measures: An Interpretive Guide for Land Managers Department Of Primary Industri GPO Box 44 HOBART TAS 7001 22,224.54 Solutions at the source - slowing the flow into Western Port Bass Valley Land Care Group Inc 25 Turners Avenue TURNERS BEACH TAS 7315 44,459.55 Southern Gulf Fire and Weed Project on Gangalidda Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 6662 CAIRNS QLD 4870 518,704.50 State-wide (TAS) devolved grants program to support community engagement with CfoC targets through small-scale projects. Tasmanian Landcare Association Inc PO Box 21 SOUTH HOBART TAS 7004 222,090.00 Strategic bitou bush control to protect biodiversity in NSW Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (Nrcma) PO Box 618 GRAFTON NSW 2460 80,000.00 Summer Perennial Pastures – A Response to Climate Variability Little River Landcare Group Inc. 24 Forbes Street YEOVAL NSW 2868 25,680.00 Super Graze – maximising adoption of sustainable grazing practices in Southern Queensland Burnett Mary Regional Group for NRM   PO Box 501 BUNDABERG QLD 4670 195,169.00 Supporting Land Management Groups to achieve Landscape Scale Conservation in the SA Murray Mallee Murray Mallee Local Action Planning Association Inc. PO Box 2056 MURRAY BRIDGE SA 5253 58,200.00 Supporting Local Government in Natural Resource Management Delivery Across the Northern and Yorke Region Central Local Government Region Of South Australia Inc PO Box 168 CRYSTAL BROOK SA 5523 57,272.73 Supporting Sustainable Agriculture in the Tweed Tweed Shire Council PO Box 816 MUR-WILLUMBAH NSW 2484 12,410.00 Suppress the threats posed by invasive plant and animal species at HCVAE site, Katarapko Wetland Loxton to Bookpurnong Local Action Planning Committee PO Box 427 BERRI SA 5343 66,450.00 Sustainability on Small Farms - Molonglo Catchment Molonglo Catchment Group Inc. PO Box 1573 FYSHWICK ACT 2609 59,400.00 Sustainable floodplain management in the Nambucca and Bellinger Catchments Ducks Unlimited Pty Ltd t/a Wetlandcare Australia PO Box 1782 COFFS HARBOUR NSW 2450 24,725.00 Sustainable land management & environmental enhancement in the Shire of Chapman Shire of Chapman Valley PO Box 1 NABAWA WA 6532 25,000.00 Sustainable Mgmt of Soil Health, Grnd Cover & Biodiversity in a Changing Climate Agrilink Agricultural Consultants Pty Ltd PO Box 118 WATERVALE SA 5452 22,000.00 Sustainable Milk Production Model for the Northern Dairy Industry Queensland Dairyfarmers PO Box 13061 - George Street BRISBANE QLD 4003 30,455.00 Sustainable Practice - Development of the Horticulture Recognition Framework Horticulture Australia Limited Level 7 - 179 Elizabeth Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 47,865.00 Sustainable Practices Implementation in NT Agriculture Northern Territory Horticultural Association PO Box 2207 PALMERSTON NT 0831 58,688.18 Sustainable production and landscape repair in salinity-affected, water supply catchments Treenomics Locked Bag 888 PERTH BUSINESS CENTRE WA 9849 29,943.63 Taking action on soil acidity in South Australia Advisory Board of Agriculture (ABA) GPO Box 1671 ADELAIDE SA 5001 49,700.00 Tarriwa Kurrukun Indigenous Protected Area Banbai Business Enterprises Inc. PO Box 12 GUYRA NSW 2365 135,000.00 Tasmanian coastal works manual – a good practice guide in an era of climate change Coastal And Marine Branch, Environment Division, Department Of Environment, Parks, Heritage And The Arts 55 Jackson Road RUSSELL ISLAND QLD 4184 12,205.82 The Fitzroy region rescues the Reef Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 2,223,281.00 The Great Toad Muster and National Cane Toad Eradication Week Stop The Toad Foundation (Inc.) City West Lotteries House - 2 Delhi Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 30,054.54 The Middleback Alliance - a Regional Conservation Initiative Ecological Horizons Pty Ltd 2 Quandong St ROXBY DOWNS QLD 5725 16,323.64 The Saltwater People Network Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University - Purple 12.3.27 DARWIN NT 0909 250,000.00 Thompsons Creek reed bed filtration project Virginia Horticulture Centre PO Box 894 ALBANY WA 6330 18,766.50 Threatened flora recovery on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands Department For Environment And Heritage GPO Box 1047 ADELAIDE SA 5001 35,749.27 Threatened Plant Action Group - Community Action to Recover South Australia’s Threatened Flora Nature Conservation Society Of South Australia (Ncssa) 260 Franklin Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 14,545.45 To the Rescue - our reef, our solution: Delivering water quality improvement in the Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM Region Department of Environment and Resource Management (Natural Resources and Water) PO Box 2454 BRISBANE QLD 4001 2,511,000.00 Toogimbie Indigenous Protected Area Nari Nari tribal council PO Box 75 HAY NSW 2711 100,000.00 Traditional and innovative practices demonstrating improved land management and sustainability in cereal cropping systems Serve-Ag South Australia Pty Ltd 132 Glynburn Road TRANMERE SA 5073 24,830.00 Training, trials, and workshops raising the awareness and skills of landholders to increase soil carbon. Manning Landcare Co ordinators Management Committee Inc. PO Box 130 WINGHAM NSW 2429 30,060.00 Training/Conferences - Indigenous Protected Area Support Costs Dept of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 5 Farrell Place CANBERRA ACT 2601 5,000.00 Understanding managing critical refugia arid lands of Central North Australia South Australia Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2227 PORT AUGUSTA SA 5700 168,458.50 Urban NRM Campaign for Community Action in Queensland Landcare Queensland Ltd 13204 George Street BRISBANE QLD 4003 135,820.00 Using landscape ecology to prioritise property management actions in Tasmania Natural Resource Planning Pty Ltd PO Box 4530 HOBART TAS 7000 59,252.73 Uunguu Saltwater Indigenous Protected Area Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 2145 BROOME WA 6725 65,000.00 Victorian Bushfires Biod & Natural Icons Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment Box 3100, Bendigo Delivery Centre BENDIGO VIC 3554 800,000.00 Victorian Bushfires Coastal & Aquatic Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment Box 3100, Bendigo Delivery Centre BENDIGO VIC 3554 800,000.00 Victorian Bushfires Sustainable Farm Practices Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment Box 3100, Bendigo Delivery Centre BENDIGO VIC 3554 800,000.00 Warlu Jilajaa Jumu Indigenous Protected Area Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 110 - KALACC FITZROY CROSSING WA 6765 217,170.00 Warren Destruction Mallee Landcare Group PO Box 89 OUYEN VIC 3490 12,700.00 Watarru Indigenous Protected Area Anangu Pitjantjatjara PMB “Umuwa”   ALICE SPRINGS NT 0872 6,400.00 Water quality improvements and community engagement in the Derwent estuary Department of Primary Industries Parks Water and Environment GPO Box 1751 HOBART TAS 7001 58,830.00 Wattleridge Indigenous Protected Area Banbai Business Enterprises Inc PO Box 12 GUYRA NSW 2365 132,000.00 Weed management, erosion control, and revegetation on Deal Island Wildcare Inc. C/- Secretary, 546 Huon Road SOUTH HOBART TAS 7004 30,040.00 Wellesley Island Region Indigenous Protected Area Carpentaria Land Council PO Box 6662 CAIRNS  QLD 4870 32,800.00 Wildeyre - Collaborative, Landscape-Scale, Biodiversity Conservation on the Eyre Peninsula Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board PO Box 2916 PORT LINCOLN SA 5606 28,871.64 Woodland Birds for Biodiversity Royal Australiasian Ornithologists Union Suite 2-05, 60 Leicester St CARLTON VIC 3053 225,000.00 Working on Country Ngulingah Local Aboriginal Land Council - restoring biodiversity and traditional knowledge around the Nimbin Rocks Ngulingah Local Aboriginal Land Council PO BOX 981 LISMORE NSW 2480 55,733.43 Working on Woodlands and Waterways with Landcare and Community in Buloke and Northern Grampians Buloke and Northern Grampians Landcare Network PO Box 244 ST ARNAUD VIC 3478 178,719.00 Working together to keep Mosman’s coasts clean Mosman Municipal Council 491 Tinderbox Road TINDERBOX TAS 7054 30,040.00 Yalata Indigenous Protected Area Yalata Community Inc PMB 12 CEDUNA SA 5690 123,300.00 Yalata IPA Ranger Program Yalata Community Inc. PMB 31 CEDUNA SA 5690 86,351.40 Total Payments for Projects to 23 November 2009           50,399,782.53 Implementation             16,790,428.49 Procurement and other activities               2,138,852.50 Total Payments to 23 November 2009*             69,329,063.52               Payments remaining in 2009-10*           200,597,936.48 *Excluding base-level funding payments to regional natural resource management organisations