The PRESIDENT (09:31): I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator.

Senator RICE (Victoria—Deputy Australian Greens Whip) (09:31): by leave—In respect of the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2020, I move amendments (4) and (5) on sheet 1078 together:

(4) Page 69 (after line 16), after clause 56, insert:

56A Guidelines

(1) The Minister must, by notifiable instrument, issue guidelines for the purposes of this Act.

(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the guidelines must outline the matters in relation to Australia's foreign policy which the Minister may consider when making a decision for the purposes of this Act.

(3) For the purposes of the performance of a function, the exercise of a power, or making of a decision under this Act, regard must be had to any guidelines issued by the Minister under this section.

(5) Page 69, after proposed clause 56A, insert:

56B Foreign Policy Statement

(1) The Minister must, by legislative instrument, make a statement (the Foreign Policy Statement) at least once each calendar year that outlines Australia's foreign policy for the purposes of this Act.

(2) The rules may prescribe other matters relating to the content or form of the Foreign Policy Statement.

(3) Regulations must not be made under paragraph 44(2) (b) of the Legislation Act 2003 to exempt the instrument from disallowance.

I don't need to speak to the amendments. They cover the same issues that we covered at length yesterday about putting some more checks and balances in the bill, getting clarity and not having the same complete control and power that the minister would have. It's setting in place some guidelines for how decisions are going to be made and setting in place a definition of foreign policy. In the interests of time I won't speak any more about them because I think we canvassed in a lot of detail yesterday the issues they cover.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (09:32): The opposition will support amendment (4) but vote against amendment (5). Chair, I ask that you put them separately on that basis.

The CHAIR: I will put amendment (4) first. The question is that amendment (4) on sheet 1078 be agreed to.

Question negatived.

The CHAIR: I will now put the second part of that. The question is that amendment (5) on sheet 1078 be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Senator RICE (Victoria—Deputy Australian Greens Whip) (09:33): by leave—I ask that the votes of the Greens in favour of that amendment be recorded.

The CHAIR: Yes, we can do that.

Senator RICE: In respect of the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2020, the Greens oppose clause 58 on sheet 1078 in the following terms:

(6) Clause 58, page 70 (lines 1 to 4), TO BE OPPOSED.

This is to remove a clause from the bill. At the moment, the bill says that the minister is not required to observe any requirements of procedural fairness in exercising a power or performing a function under this act. We think that it is pretty unreasonable. We think that basic legislative standards and common-law standards are that procedural fairness should be allowed. When these bills went to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, the committee said:

The committee considers that the right to procedural fairness is a fundamental common law right and it expects that any limitation on this right be comprehensively justified…

The committee did not consider that the explanation in the explanatory memorandum as to why procedural fairness should be excluded was at all satisfactory, and we wrote to the minister. We received further information back from the minister and, certainly, having seen that letter, I do not see any further justification as to why procedural fairness should be excluded. The right to procedural fairness is based on two things. It requires that decision-makers aren't biased and do not appear to be biased, and that a person who may be adversely affected by a decision is given an adequate opportunity to put their case before the decision is made. I think these are two very, very basic requirements, and there is no reason why procedural fairness should be excluded in this legislation.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (09:36): In relation to Senator Rice's amendment, I understand that, in the normal course of events, issues—such as this one in relation to procedural fairness—are raised, but this is a different form of legislation. The inclusion of procedural fairness would require the disclosure to a state or territory entity, where there was a likelihood of an adverse decision, of the specific foreign policy matters considered which made the adverse decision likely. It is our view that it is not appropriate for sensitive decisions on foreign policy or foreign relations to be shared.

It's a well-established principle that information relating to Australia's international or foreign relations is not required to be released, and there are numerous examples of this: the Freedom of Information Act 1982 exempts documents affecting national security, defence or international relations; the Archives Act 1983 provides that access may be refused if releasing the information would damage Australia's security, defence or international relations; and under the Criminal Code there are offences for Commonwealth officers who cause harm to Australia's interests by communicating information that causes harm to Australia's interests, including information that harms or prejudices Australia's international relations. Public interest immunity considerations also include damage to Australia's international relations, particularly in instances where the information relates to exchanges between government officials.

It does not, in our view, make sense and it is damaging to Australia to reverse a longstanding principle in the context of these bills. If the sensitive foreign policy information were excluded from such disclosures, the opportunity for procedural fairness would actually not be meaningful. The exclusion of procedural fairness does not prevent state or territory entities from consulting DFAT in relation to arrangements or relevant policy considerations prior to a formal notification.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (09:38): For the reasons previously outlined, Labor will support the amendment.

Senator RICE (Victoria—Deputy Australian Greens Whip) (09:38): Minister, do you have any legal advice that suggests that in these bills the requirements of procedural fairness would require disclosing sensitive information?

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (09:38): Senator Rice, we don't comment on legal advice of that nature in a discussion such as this, but I've been clear, I think, throughout the debate in relation to the sensitivity of the sorts of matters that these bills go to. The examples that I have just provided—from the FOI Act, from the Archives Act and from the Criminal Code—go to the seriousness of these issues. We are not talking about basic administrative decisions, Senator. We are talking about decisions in relation to foreign policy and foreign relations.

Senator RICE (Victoria—Deputy Australian Greens Whip) (09:39): Thank you, Minister; but do you have any legal advice? My understanding is that in the sort of legislation that you were talking about—and, indeed, in this legislation—you can have procedural fairness that does not require the disclosure of sensitive information. There was a discussion about this by the Australian Law Reform Commission that basically outlined that procedural fairness is still required, even where sensitive information is not disclosed.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (09:39): We have comprehensive legal advice on all aspects of the piece of legislation.

The CHAIR: The question is that clause 58 stand as printed.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (09:46): I seek leave to move amendments (1) to (4) on sheet 1120 and amendment (5) on sheet 1120 together. I know that they will be voted on separately, but I'd like to move them together.

Leave granted.

Senator FARUQI: In respect of the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2020, I move:

(1) Clause 7, page 9 (lines 6 and 7), omit paragraph (7) (e).

(2) Clause 7, page 9 (after line 12), after paragraph (h), insert:

(ha) a university established by, or under, a law of a State or a Territory; or

(3) Clause 10, page 11 (line 28), omit "paragraph 7(d), (e) or (f)", substitute "paragraph 7(d) or (f)".

(4) Clause 50, page 60 (lines 19 and 20), omit "Generally, this Act applies to the Australian National University as if it were a State/Territory entity."

And the Greens oppose division 6 in the following terms:

(5) Division 6, clause 55, page 68 (lines 1 to 12), to be opposed.

This year the government has presided over the complete devastation of universities, with $1 billion of core funding cuts; the doubling of fees for many degrees; international students being left completely abandoned during this time of crisis, having to line up outside food banks to put food in their stomach; and not lifting a finger to stop thousands of uni jobs being cut. The government are actually allowing all of that to happen right under their watch. One day, they want university autonomy and to wash their hands of any responsibility they have for universities; the next day, they come in here wanting to crack the whip on universities.

We side with the university sector, which says that the inclusion of universities in Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Bill 2020 is going to be damaging to them. This bill has extraordinary scope. It is seemingly dressed up, but it is up to the whim of the government as to what they think the national interest is on a particular day. That is how they are going to operate. Nothing that the minister said in response to the questions from Senator Wong or Senator Rice has convinced me that it should be otherwise.

If this bill passes, the government can basically tear up any agreement between Australian universities and overseas organisations or governments, and those agreements could underpin vital research, which is something that the government doesn't like. It doesn't have to be international interference. It could be cultural issues or joint degrees—any of that. The attitude is, 'Trust us; we don't know what we are going to do with universities yet, but trust us.' I'm sorry; we don't really trust you.

I know the Labor Party have stood here over the past four days saying that universities haven't been consulted. Labor colleagues have waxed lyrical about the importance of consulting and engaging with universities properly. I would plead with you to support these amendments and exclude the universities. Once the government has consulted with the universities, even if you do want them included, maybe think about that later. At this point, we just don't know what the government is going to do. I commend these amendments to the Senate.

Senator HANSON (Queensland—Leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation) (09:49): I have to respond to that. When I hear the Greens talk in this chamber I sometimes wonder whether they are really here to represent the Australian people, when all the time they're talking about overseas countries or foreign students, as they are in this case. I wonder if they have really taken the time to speak to the government to understand why the universities have been included in this bill. Have you really followed up to get some understanding about why they are in the bill?

This is about national interest, our safety. What we've found is that, even in the case of students, universities are collaborating and working with the Chinese government in research programs. On top of their jobs with universities, they're getting paid up to $150,000. We don't know what they're doing. We've built up our national security in this country in relation to cyberattacks and things like that. It is quite understandable to say that, if any agreements are taken up by universities with other foreign countries, we must know what those agreements are, pure and simple. To drag foreign students into this, saying it is about taking food out of their stomachs, is a load of rubbish as far as I'm concerned. Stick with what this bill is about. If you really care about this country, about the national interest, then you'll stand up and support this bill.

I think this is quite sensible and feasible. We've spoken about private universities being included in this. I suggested to the government that they send a letter to them and invite them to be part of this. A lot of people in the universities don't understand what the government, ASIO or the Federal Police know is going on. They should be working with the foreign affairs department. So I have no problem with it. Instead of whinging and complaining about legislation, how many of you, even on the Labor side, have really taken the time to sit down and talk to the government about their legislation and the impact this is having? This whinging and complaining goes on all the time. Half the time you don't really know the full guts of the bill.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (09:52): The government does not support the Greens amendments to remove universities from the bill. Of course we acknowledge that universities are a major contributor to the Australian economy. That are a major exporter. They have world-class standing and an increasing global posture, which is absolutely welcomed by the government. But it is a complex and contested world, and one of the things that this bill seeks to do is to ensure that we are working together to ensure consistency in foreign policy and foreign relations, because Australian public universities are publicly funded institutions, established by law with a fundamental role in international research and partnerships, because the status of Australian public universities and their international posture means their foreign arrangements do have the potential to impact Australia's foreign relations and foreign policy. It's also the case, though—and the government has acknowledged this—that university arrangements present a lower degree of risk than state and territory arrangements with foreign national governments. So, within the bill, they are designated as non-core arrangements; they are subject to fewer requirements and a lesser degree of scrutiny as a consequence of that.

We will work very closely, through the task force in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with universities to support their efficient and effective engagement with the scheme. As I set out yesterday in my discussions in the committee stage with Senator Rice and Senator Wong in particular, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has consulted during many meetings with universities and representative university bodies, and we will continue to work closely with them in the implementation of the bill, should it be passed.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (09:54): We have worked through this in committee and as you would have seen from the amendments. Whilst I understand the points, and the political point, that Senator Faruqi wishes to make, we start from the proposition that universities' international engagement does have potential implications for Australia's foreign policy and therefore should be subject to regulation.

We have substantial concerns, which I outlined at length, I think, yesterday, about the government's refusal to engage, the minister's continued refusal to engage and the fact that UFIT, the task force which was doing work on this, was bypassed. We also have concerns about the regulatory gap, which has never been explained, whereby private universities like Bond University will be excluded from the operations of the bill.

However, those concerns do not lead us to the proposition that the principle that universities should be subject to regulation in respect of foreign arrangements ought be abrogated. So, for that reason, we will not be supporting the Greens amendments, as I've expressed to them publicly.

I also note that the government has accepted the need for a review of the operation of the bill and for a narrowing of the definition of 'arrangements' and has provided a definition of 'institutional autonomy', all of which were matters raised and dealt with through the Senate committee which we participated in.

The CHAIR: The question is that amendments (1) to (4) on sheet 1220 as moved by Senator Faruqi be agreed to.

The CHAIR (11:18): In relation to amendment (5) on sheet 1120, and the question is that division 6 stand as printed.

Question agreed to.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (10:04): In respect of the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2020, I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 1118:

(1) Clause 9, page 11 (after line 10), after subclause (1), insert:

(1A) However, if a party to the arrangement is a university within the meaning of subsection 7(e), an arrangement has a value equal to, or more than, the threshold amount per financial year.

(1B) The threshold amount for the financial year starting on 1 July 2020 is $250,000. The amount is to be indexed in accordance with Part 5‑6 (Indexation) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to move this amendment, because really universities should be excluded, but now that's not the case. This amendment really is about at least making sure that the larger projects or agreements are the ones that allow the government's broad scope to be looked at by the government. This amendment has a threshold amount of $250,000 for the government to be able to do what they want to do. Like I said: sadly, in the absence of universities being excluded from this legislation, at least this will minimise some of the damage and the harm done to universities and the people who work there. I commend the amendment to the Senate.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:05): The government opposes this amendment. The principles of this bill and the motivation behind it are related neither to the monetary value of arrangements such as this nor to the potential impact of the arrangements. It is our view that including a monetary value to limit application of the scheme could potentially allow circumvention of the scheme by breaking projects down into smaller amounts for precisely that reason—to avoid its application—and by masking arrangements with monetary value in subsidiary arrangements, which are not within the scheme unless head arrangements are caught. I also think, from an administrative perspective, it may on occasion be difficult to ascertain the value of certain arrangements, creating uncertainty in the bill's application. I don't think this amendment would go any way to assisting the implementation of the bill at all.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Askew ): The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 1118 moved by Senator Faruqi be agreed to.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:14): I move opposition amendment (1) on sheet 1115R:

(1) Page 67 (before line 1), before Division 5, insert:

Division 4B—Port of Darwin Report

53B Port of Darwin Report

(1) The Minister must cause a report to be prepared on the following:

(a) whether the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin adversely affects, or is likely to adversely affect, Australia's foreign relations;

(b) whether the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin is, or is likely to be inconsistent with, Australia's foreign policy;

(c) what action the Minister may or may not take under this Act in relation to the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin;

(d) any other implications of this Act for the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin;

(e) the application of this Act to arrangements similar to the Port of Darwin lease that may be made in the future.

(2) The persons who prepare the report must give the report to the Minister within 3 months of the commencement of this section.

(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the report is given to the Minister.

This is the opportunity for those who have been complaining about the Port of Darwin to actually get some accountability from this government about the 99-year lease, which they have steadfastly refused to be clear about. I would make this point: even yesterday, the minister was unable to give the chamber a clear answer about whether or not the Port of Darwin could be subject to this bill. This bill is, in effect, retrospective, so the minister can veto arrangements which have already been put in place prior to the legislation being passed. When asked about the Port of Darwin, the minister first said that, because it was leased with a private entity, it would be excluded, but then she could not rule out the potential for it to be included within the remit of the legislation, on the basis that there was a subsidiary arrangement and therefore it would be subject to the bill. What this amendment does is require the minister to provide a report. We're not seeking to actually take over the minister's role. We're seeking to ensure that there is transparency around the Port of Darwin lease, that a report be tabled in this chamber that goes to both the effect of the legislation on the lease but, as importantly, the effect of the lease on Australia's foreign policy objectives, which has been the subject of a number of contributions from senators around the chamber. I commend the amendment.

Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales) (10:15): Over the years, I have been consistent in my strident criticisms of the decision to lease the Port of Darwin to Landbridge. How can one of our most strategic assets in northern Australia be leased to a company with ties to the Communist Party in Beijing? There have been long concerns about the decision, attributed to the surveillance and espionage capabilities presented by the port's close proximity to Australian and US defence facilities as well as concerns about the strategic purpose of China's investment in the region as part of its Maritime Silk Road. I know many Australians who have contacted me do not agree, respectfully, with the defence minister's comments on 9 September that there are no security concerns regarding the Port of Darwin. How can this not be a matter of concern? Indeed, I have to say that, after the events of this week, I envisage that there will be renewed focus on the Port of Darwin and it will become very much symbolic of our political fortitude to stand up to the bullying tactics of the CCP.

I think it's important to highlight some of the aspects of that decision on the Port of Darwin, and they remain perplexing to this day. I know that, after its win in August 2012, the CLP started exploring the privatisation of assets, including the port. There was a process. There were 33 investors, including Australian and European companies, that expressed an interest, including Landbridge. At the time, media reports indicated that Landbridge was a subsidiary of the Shandong Landbridge Group, a private company, and that its 2013 billionaire owner, Ye Cheng, was named by the Chinese government as one of the top 10 individuals caring about the development of national defence. Shandong was found to have extensive links to the CCP and the PLA. Indeed, in an interview in Beijing in 2016, Mr Ye stated:

… the Darwin Port investment fit the company's strategy to expand its shipping and energy interests and served China's foreign policy goal known as One Belt, One Road …

In February 2015, the Northern Territory assembly appointed the Port of Darwin Select Committee. That committee went through a process. The evidence from that committee also indicated that the federal government had advised the Northern Territory government that the port was better privatised than continuing in government hands. One of the key recommendations in its April 2015 report was that an Australian entity control the lease and that there be FIRB and defence consultations regarding the strategic and security risks of a potential international investor. On 14 September, FIRB contacted Landbridge indicating that the lease was outside the purview of FIRB review because of a technicality that assets owned by state, territory and local governments were exempt from FIRB scrutiny. To this day, that remains the case. The exception has been modified to some extent, but it still remains an issue, and I think that that's something that we should be looking at.

But, in any case, on 13 October Chief Minister Giles announced the 99-year lease valued at $506 million. The lease process raises some legitimate questions as to why, given the lead time to this decision, more effort wasn't made by those in key federal positions and those advising them to remove the foreign investment exemption, given the national security implications of allowing such a critical asset to be handed over to an entity with well-known ties to the CCP and the PLA. We do note that, at the time, the Abbott government was very keen to ensure that a free trade agreement was entered into with China. The Chinese President, on 17 November 2014, addressed a joint sitting and, the day after, the FTA was announced by the trade minister, Andrew Robb—$18 billion. Subsequent to that, Mr Robb left and he took on a job with Landbridge—$880,000. I will leave it there, but those questions still remain open.

In its report after the decision, the Senate Economics References Committee examined a number of issues pertinent to the decision and, in particular, made recommendations regarding that exemption. Peter Jennings, Neil James and others gave evidence. They were very, very critical of the decision. As Peter Jennings said, we would now have to have our national security interests balanced against the reality of operating out of a harbour run by a company whose website proclaims that it is contributing its best to realise the great rejuvenation of the Chinese dream.

There were different offers at the time. An ABC report of 12 March 2019 goes back and looks at some of these offers. That article reflects that, whilst Landbridge was the highest offer, the second and third offers were very close thereto. Neil James said:

If [Landbridge's] offer was the best offer, but it introduced a major element of strategic risk for the whole country, they should have had the common sense to realise they take the second best offer or the third best offer and not have any strategic risk.

I have been consistent on this issue but also on my criticisms of predatory actions by totalitarian regimes and their state owned entities on various issues—in particular, the acquisition of strategic assets. I have advocated for a major overhaul of critical infrastructure legislation, including retaking the Port of Darwin. As the minister said, there is absolutely no doubt that, were the lease of the port to be considered today, it would be subject to FIRB rules. But I also believe that because the exemption has now been modified, most likely it would be rejected by the Treasurer. However, I am disappointed that the foreign investment changes proposed by the Treasurer, which we will probably be debating shortly in this place, will not allow a retrospective consideration of the port decision. Under FIRB rules, that is not going to be possible.

Regardless of why the lease was signed, there are cogent national security imperatives as to why consideration should be given to breaking the lease. It's obvious from the Northern Territory submission on these bills that there is some contemplation of a re-acquisition. However, I did put specific questions to the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Michael Gunner, which weren't responded to. They very much went to this issue. It would have been useful to have Mr Gunner give evidence, or at least provide responses to those questions, so that we could explore the issues. The only way we are going to explore these issues is with information from the Northern Territory government. So I say to those opposite that a better course of action here would be to seek the cooperation of the Northern Territory government. They have been reluctant in relation to releasing these documents. I would urge those opposite that a better course of action, rather than getting another report here as requested, would be to urge the Northern Territory government to release those documents so that we can make a comprehensive assessment.

The minister has answered in the committee stage the very questions that are raised in this amendment. This amendment also raises technical issues, that it's not just actions in the purview of the foreign minister but also actions in the purview of other ministers, including the Treasurer, that will be required to take action. So I believe there is a technical problem with this amendment. I won't repeat my concerns about this bill, which I outlined in the second reading debate. Suffice to say that I believe this amendment will not lead to any report that would be useful. I think that it's a futile exercise, because we already know the outcome, and the outcome is that there will not be a retaking of the Port of Darwin under this legislation.

As I have said, there are other opportunities. I have been advised that there are circumstances which may provide cause for the lease to be broken, including a failure by the port operator to meet legislative requirements if the company were to become insolvent, failure to meet defence access requirements and in the event that defence powers are exercised. (Time expired)

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:26): The government does not support this amendment. We discussed it during the debate in the committee stage for some time yesterday. The government absolutely recognises that foreign investment must be in our national interest. Foreign investment is a vital source of funds to maintain and enhance Australia's infrastructure networks—our assets. Investment in critical assets, however, must not be contrary to the national interest.

I can confirm to the chamber again that the Port of Darwin arrangement was not covered by the foreign investment regime in 2015. But, given the changes that have been made since 2015 by this government, similar leasing and acquisition proposals would now be covered and would require a formal FIRB process going forward. The Prime Minister repeated in June of this year, during the announcement of the upcoming foreign investment reforms:

The Darwin Port was not sold with the approval or authority of the Commonwealth Government. It was not. At that time, sales of assets by Territory governments, state governments, did not require and did not call in the authority of the Foreign Investment Review Board or the Treasurer. As a result of that, I engaged with all the states and territories and had the rules changed and that came into effect in March of 2016.

As the Prime Minister has said, the lease decision wasn't solely on the basis of the decision of the Northern Territory government. Of course, that decision could only be explained by the Northern Territory government of the time.

The issues in the system that that sale identified were addressed by our government—indeed, by the Prime Minister when he was Treasurer. In March 2016, the then Treasurer added those additional safeguards to Australia's foreign investment framework. Working with the states and territories, the government amended the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Regulations so that the FIRB would assess the sale of critical state owned infrastructure assets to private foreign investors. In addition, in 2017 the government established the Critical Infrastructure Centre. The centre provides coordinated and comprehensive assessments of national security risks to critical infrastructure in the ports, water, electricity, gas and telecommunications sectors. The centre is also responsible for the administration of the security of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018. That act also established a critical infrastructure assets register, a ministerial last-resort directions power to manage the risks to water, electricity, gas and port assets. These legislative measures must ensure that the government knows who owns and operates our most critical assets and is able to mitigate any identified national security risks. Of course, departments coordinate on this basis: they bring matters of concern to the attention of the Treasurer, who then consults across government, including with my department and, where necessary and appropriate, with the foreign minister on the ramifications for the national security risks identified.

The previous reforms which have been made by the coalition government will both complement and be added to by the comprehensive reforms to the foreign investment review framework, introduced to parliament by the government in October of this year. These are reforms which also address national security risks, including those related to critical infrastructure. They strengthen the existing system, particularly as it relates to compliance by foreign investments.

So I assure the Senate that the government takes these issues very seriously. We will always act in the national interest, as clearly shown by the development of this foreign relations bill, which will necessarily address a separate, but just as important, gap in our overall system.

Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales) (10:29): Minister, I would envisage, as part of the stocktake that you have indicated to the chamber, that it would include approaches to the states and territories, including the Northern Territory, which to this day has been reluctant to release any of those documents publicly or, as I understand it, to the Commonwealth itself. As part of that stocktake would we envisage that without the cooperation of the states and territories—and in particular without the cooperation of the Northern Territory Labor government—that we won't be in the position to make a comprehensive assessment of what the Port of Darwin issue is?

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:30): Senator, thank you for your question. I'm not going to speculate, as I have not through this entire debate, on specific examples of particular cases, because that is the purpose of the stocktake. But we are working closely with the states and territories, including the Northern Territory—who were part of the consultations that I outlined in detail to the chamber yesterday—in relation to these matters. Once the bill sets out the requirements that the states and territories are required to respond to in the stocktake process and the task force is working with those state and territory agencies, then I would hope and expect that states and territories would work constructively with the Commonwealth to address these issues.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Askew ): The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 1115 revised, moved by Senator Wong, be agreed to.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:38): I move:

That the report be adopted.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:38): I move the following amendment to the report from the Committee of the Whole:

At the end of the motion add:

"and that, in relation to amendment (1) on sheet 1112:

(a) each annual report tabled by the Minister for Foreign Affairs pursuant to section 53A of the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020 ('the Act'),stand referred to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry and report in accordance with standing order 25(20);

(b) should the committee, as part of its inquiry into each annual report, request and receive information from the Minister related to the exercise of the Minister's decision-making powers under the Act that is information of the kind referred to in subsection 53(3) of the Act, the committee is to examine that information in confidence, including hearing any evidence in relation to such material in camera; and

(c) this order is of continuing effect.

It simply relates to ensuring that the annual report, which we have previously inserted into the legislation, will be referred to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:39): Senator Wong and I did speak about this very, very briefly, and I did that without the amendment in front of me. It is an amendment of continuing effect. I don't believe it's just consequential to the resolution to the amendment that the chamber agreed in relation to the annual report. In that case, the government will oppose the amendment.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:39): Thank you for giving me notice of the fact that you are not going to agree with what we agreed previously at the table. And I just say, yet again, here is a minister, on a bill we agreed with—

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Wong, you need to seek leave.

Senator WONG: I seek leave to make further statements.

Leave granted.

Senator WONG: We have written to this minister. We have invited them to negotiate on amendments. There has been silence as a result. She has not had the outcome in the chamber that she wanted—all for want of picking up the phone and actually having a discussion. Now we have, frankly, an absurd proposition that a bill which has been amended to include an annual report—an uncontroversial amendment—that would require that report to go to a committee that the government controls, she's now going to oppose. You want a fight when you don't need to have one. There's an annual report that we can send to a references committee. It is a very responsible and sensible amendment to send to a committee the government controls.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:40): Senator Wong, you'd be sadly mistaken if you thought that I was seeking a fight. I'm not seeking a fight. Senator Wong, we had an informal discussion—

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Minister, you need to seek leave as well.

Senator PAYNE: I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave granted.

Senator PAYNE: Let me repeat. If Senator Wong thinks I'm seeking a fight she's sadly mistaken. She most certainly will know if I am. But I would say, on this matter—

Senator Wong interjecting —

Senator PAYNE: Senator, that's not my intention whatsoever. I don't think this matter is merely a consequential amendment to the amendment that was agreed by the chamber in relation to the annual report. Of course I accept that that is agreed by the chamber and now forms part of the bill. There is no question in relation to that. If, with the provision of the annual report, the chamber is then minded to refer it to a committee at the time then that will be a matter for the chamber. But this is an order of continuing effect, Senator. It's not a minor amendment and the government doesn't support it.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:41): I seek leave to make a statement of no more than two minutes.

Leave granted.

Senator WONG: So we are clear, and the coalition senators can be very clear about what we are now going to have a division on: we are having a division because the minister is refusing to have an order which requires an annual report, which has now been inserted in the bill, to go to a committee that the government controls.

Senator RICE (Victoria—Deputy Australian Greens Whip) (10:42): The Greens will be supporting this motion for having this report in continuing effect, to report on what has occurred under this legislation. It is a tiny measure that we have been able to get through this chamber to provide some level of accountability for this bill. It is a tiny measure, which is why we will support it.

In terms of the bill overall, the Greens know that issues of foreign interference are serious. We know that it is far preferable to have the Commonwealth, the states, the territories, universities and local governments, actually working collaboratively and coherently together to make sure that their interactions with foreign governments and foreign universities are in the national interest. The Greens would have supported reasonable legislation that aimed to do that—legislation that was developed collaboratively and cooperatively, with input from the states, the territories, the universities and local governments, before the legislation was put into this place. But we cannot support this legislation. As I said, this motion is to have an annual report on the legislation. Other than that, this legislation gives unbridled power to the foreign minister. It hasn't been developed in consultation with affected parties; it hasn't got definitions in it; there are no guidelines on how decisions are going to be made as to overriding decisions that sovereign governments have made with foreign entities. There are no reasons for decisions that have to be issued to people who are going to be affected—who have had their decisions overridden. There is retrospectivity, so that states, territories and universities can enter into arrangements, and at some stage in the future, because foreign policy is deemed to have changed, suddenly their arrangements can be overridden. There is no procedural fairness, as we discussed earlier on today. It has all been, 'Trust us; everything will be fine.' Frankly, we do not trust you. You have form in not being able to be trusted to work cooperatively and genuinely with everyone to make sure things are occurring in the national interest and in the interests of all Australians, not just for your vested interests, not just for the people that you happen to get on with. The Greens, as I said, would have supported legislation that went to the serious issue that we're facing. We are supporting this amendment as one tiny measure, but, overall, we cannot support this legislation.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:45): I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave not granted.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Askew ): The question is that the amendment to the report of the Committee of the Whole moved by Senator Wong be agreed to.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Askew ) (10:52): The question now is that the report from the Committee of the Whole, as amended, be adopted.

Question agreed to.

Report adopted.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Wong?

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:53): I understand that the government made a mistake on an earlier division—I was giving you time to be briefed, Madam Acting Deputy President. I've been briefed by text message that the government is going to seek to recommit the vote. As long as the procedure is followed—and perhaps the manager or the minister can explain it—then the opposition will allow the vote to be recommitted in accordance with the usual conventions.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:53): Thank you, Senator Wong. I understand that there was an error in the arrangements for the vote on opposition amendment (1) on sheet 1115. The government seeks to recommit the vote.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 1115, standing in the name of Senator Wong be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (10:53): I move:

That these bills be now read a third time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Askew ): The question is that the bills be read a third time.

Senator McCARTHY (Northern Territory—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (11:01): Given that we've had a fairly hectic morning here with previous bills, I'm absolutely delighted to be able to get to my feet on behalf of the people of the Northern Territory and speak about a bill of absolute importance in preserving the seat of Solomon and the seat of Lingiari for the people of the Northern Territory. That's what the Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020 is all about.

My speech today is really to the people of the Northern Territory and also to the people on Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Thank you for your support in ensuring that we did not lose our voices in the Australian parliament. Many of you provided submissions to the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Matters and spoke so passionately about the need for democratic fairness and the rights of the Territory and the Indian Ocean Territories to be heard in the House of Representatives, so this speech goes out to you: our First Nations communities; our organisations; our ranger groups; our farmers; the cattle industry; the mining industry; the fishos, amateur and commercial alike; our health workers on the frontline, whether you're working in our hospitals, in our clinics or in the remote and regional areas of the Northern Territory and the Indian Ocean Territories—this is about you. It's about your voice. It's about ensuring that the Australian parliament never forgets the people of Lingiari and Solomon.

I thank the Senate for this opportunity, and I certainly thank colleagues on all sides who've stood very strongly in pursuing this. In particular I thank, in the House, Warren Snowdon, the member for Lingiari, and Luke Gosling, the member for Solomon, and, in the Senate, Senator Sam McMahon. It is important that, no matter our political ideologies, our parties or where we live, we have come together very strongly to say this must not happen, where we lose a voice.

In 2022 it will be 100 years since the first member for the Northern Territory came into this parliament—nearly 100 years now. So, nearly a hundred years later, you wanted to keep it at one? It really is a shame job that the Northern Territory has not progressed even more. Two is not enough, but for the purposes of this bill we are enormously grateful that what seemed impossible at the beginning of this year is now becoming very real. I urge all senators to wholeheartedly support the passage of this legislation today, because the people of the Northern Territory—and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island—have many issues to battle. Whether it's the cashless debit card, whether it's the Community Development Program, whether it's jobs and infrastructure or whether it's COVID-19, we want to know that we have voices in this parliament to represent us.

This should never have been an issue. It should never have distracted us to the extent it has, but boy am I enormously grateful to those who stood by us to make sure we never gave up on these voices for the Northern Territory and the Indian Ocean Territories. So this Christmas it is, hopefully, an important gift that we can be certain about as we go into next year. Who knows what next year is going to look like? Are we going to have an election next year? It's a big question, isn't it, for 2021? And the people of the Northern Territory and the Indian Ocean Territories want to make sure we have our voices ready to go.

I'd like to acknowledge a couple of people in particular. I think about the seat of Lingiari. Lingiari, as hopefully everyone does know, comes from the name of Vincent Lingiari, the late Gurindji elder. He fought for land rights—not just for the Northern Territory but for all First Nations people right across Australia—and for our country, Australia, to treat First Nations people with the dignity and respect that we have forever been calling for. Dignity and respect come not only in the way we treat one another but in the financial ways in which we treat each other: in the economic cycles, in the ability to have decent homes—families living not 20 to a house but comfortably in one home, knowing they have families in another home, without feeling overcrowded. That's the dignity and respect that Vincent Lingiari stood for, and his message lives on in his children and grandchildren.

It was Vincent Lingiari's family that I drove out to. I got in my four-wheel drive and went out to Wave Hill, and I spoke to so many people, all these communities—pastoralists, the road workers, the families at Wave Hill—and said: 'Listen, I really need your support here. We have to fight this.' When I got out to Wave Hill, the Gurindji mob got together and we sat down and we talked. I went through and explained: 'This is the Senate. This is how many senators there are. Over here, this is the House. This is how many members there are in the House. And this is us four—Warren, Luke, Sam and I, four of us—in these two houses of over 200 people.' When I sat down with people and explained—'This is our voice'—they looked at me and they said: 'What? And they want to take one of you away?' They said: 'That's not right. We should have more than that.' And I said, 'Yeah, you're right we should, but we definitely shouldn't be losing any.' So the Gurindji got together and they wrote a letter to the Prime Minister. I'm going to table the letter and just read a little bit of it because I think it's important to acknowledge what the children and grandchildren of Vincent Lingiari did on this particular occasion:

Dear Prime Minister,

We are the grandchildren of Vincent Lingiari. In 2000, we gave permission for the Australian Electoral Commission to use our grandfather's name for the electorate of Lingiari. We were proud to see the achievements of Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people recognised in this way.

Now, the Australian Electoral Commission has declared the Northern Territory will lose a seat in the Federal Parliament at the next election.

Losing a seat will make our voices softer not louder.

Government talks about Closing the Gap and a First Nations voice yet in the Northern Territory, where almost 30% of the population are Aboriginal, we are losing our voice.

The fight for Land Rights began here on Gurindji country. Our Grandfather Vincent Lingiari fought against power and privilege for the betterment of our people, and all Australians.

We'd love to welcome you, as our Prime Minister …

In fact, they've actually invited not only the Prime Minister but probably most senators and members at some point to come to Wave Hill and walk. I know that Senator Penny Wong has spent time with me out there walking the walk and talking the talk on the importance of what the legacy of Vincent Lingiari is about—the fight against power and privilege. The Gurindji hold that flame so strongly, as they do here in this legislation before the Senate.

I'm enormously proud that, through the combined efforts of so many, we stand here to do the right thing, to make sure the voices of the people of the Northern Territory and the people of the Indian Ocean Territories grow louder in strength, not softer. Bauji Barra.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Polley ): Are you seeking leave to table the letter?

Senator McCARTHY: Yes, I am seeking leave to table this letter from the Gurindji Aboriginal Corporation.

Leave granted.

Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate) (11:12): I rise on behalf of the Greens speak to the Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020. This is a really exciting day and we hope for these reforms to be passed today. With that in mind, I intend to keep my remarks nice and short because we're coming up against the motions hard marker at 11.45 am.

I am really pleased that we are here today. People will recall that the history of this reform. The AEC, based on small population changes in the Territory, ruled that there was to be only one lower house seat to cover the whole Territory rather than the current two. In a very welcome display of chamber unity, we saw both Senator McCarthy and Senator McMahon sponsor a bill to fix that situation, to restore the right to two seats for the Territory and to ensure that the voices of First Nations people wouldn't be further downgraded in this system that has already underdelivered so much. It was a little bit awkward, because the government didn't actually want Senator McMahon to be collaborating. Through discussions behind closed doors, that bill was withdrawn. But I'm really pleased that the government has now put its own version on the table. We don't actually mind whose name is on the front page; the important outcome is that now we will see that two seats in the lower house will be restored for the Northern Territory and also for the ACT. The way it will do that is slightly different to the original bill. It was suggested by Antony Green to use a harmonic mean. The end result is a strong one. At least two seats will be guaranteed, with the possibility of more going forward.

We strongly support this bill. I want to particularly congratulate the efforts of Senator McCarthy and Senator McMahon in pushing this issue, which has led to this excellent outcome.

I have just a few more comments to make. I think everybody understands that the seat of Lingiari—which Senator McCarthy has so beautifully given us the history of—is made up of 40 per cent First Nations people. What an affront to potentially have had that seat abolished. When 27 per cent of the population of the Northern Territory are First Nations people and 40 per cent are in the seat of Lingiari, and when we already see a system here that has so far been pretty deaf to the needs of First Nations people, that would have just been adding insult to injury.

The other issue is the downgrading of regional and rural issues. In proposing to amalgamate it with an urban seat, the seat of Solomon concentrated around Darwin, you would have seen those rural and regional issues again further diluted, with an inevitable focus on urban issues at the expense of those rural and regional areas where 40 per cent are First Nations voters.

We are thrilled to be supporting this bill today. This is a crucial time in our nation's history. Our relationship with the first peoples of this country remains a festering sore that we here could and should be doing so much better on. Our newest Greens senator, Lidia Thorpe, gave a very powerful first speech last night when she talked to these issues in a way that I hope made everyone feel proud and hopeful for the potential for these issues to be resolved. We need to work on treaties, we need to recognise sovereignty, we need a voice to parliament, we need truth-telling, we need justice, we need healing and we need reparations.

To have abolished a seat that was 40 per cent First Nations would have been going in the absolute wrong direction, so the Greens are really pleased to support this bill today which will see the voices of First Nations people maintained. We share Senator McCarthy's view that in fact they should be elevated. We look forward to working on those issues going forward. Thanks again to Senator McCarthy and Senator McMahon for the initial strong move that has culminated in the government's bill today. Well done to the government for actually coming to the table.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) (11:16): I am very pleased to support the Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020. I'm pleased with this outcome not only as the assistant minister responsible for electoral matters but also as a senator for the ACT, one of the jurisdictions that is affected by this bill.

We know concerns were raised on sheer geography. It was pointed out that the new division of the Northern Territory would constitute one-sixth of Australia's total land mass, equal in size to the area of France, Spain and Italy put together. If it were a country, it would have been the 20th largest in the world. Notwithstanding the fact that geography is always an issue when it comes to electorates, the real concern is that we have evolved a system that could be considered, in some cases, unduly harsh, unfair and unrepresentative against that backdrop. In essence, a reduction of a relatively minor margin in voters can result in a massive reduction in representation for those areas. In the Northern Territory, dropping below the quota would result in representation being reduced by half. It also exaggerates the differences between populations per representative. For example, the Northern Territory with one representative would have a population 74,743 greater than other mainland divisions, 139,878 greater than a Tasmanian division and 100,529 more than a division in the ACT. As further illustration, adding one seat in Victoria reduces the average population per member from around 175,000 to 170,500, a difference of only about 4,500. By comparison, dropping one seat in the ACT changes the population per member from 143,186 to 214,780, a difference of 71,594. In the Northern Territory, dropping a seat creates a difference of over 123,000 votes.

These risks are not just hypothetical. They are historical facts. In 2003 the Northern Territory's population fell just 294 short of the required quota, yet it threatened to take their representation down to just one seat. This resulted in amendments to electoral legislation that took into account statistical errors in population estimates. The use of the margin-of-error calculation did indeed keep a second seat for the Northern Territory in 2004, but it was a solution built on the acceptance of statistical error as a legitimate tool for representation and it did not address the issue of aligning the number of voters per electorate as closely as possible between crowded city electorates and sprawling regional ones.

The question then was how to create an electoral system that was fair and representative across the whole of our nation but also reasonable and robust as a matter of electoral mathematics. There was the option of simply mandating a minimum number of seats, which was put to this parliament. Upon closer examination, that simplicity is also a flaw. While simple, that option does not fully discharge our responsibility to deliver, as far as possible, the best, principled basis for determining seats for representation. A politically mandated number could easily be seen as arbitrary, and certainly not in the spirit of the founding of our nation nor the interests of finding a genuinely robust methodology. This very point was raised during the 2004 debates when Warren Snowden warned that such a path could:

… undermine the credibility of the Electoral Act and which would create a precedent for future governments to intervene in a very political and partisan way …

It's a wise warning, and it's worthy of serious consideration. It's also a two-edged sword. Mandating a minimum seat number regardless of how low population actually falls could result in the perverse outcome of an electorate being massively over-represented. In either case, there are issues that need to be addressed. That's why, after consultation with colleagues and submissions from stakeholders, another method was considered and is included in this bill.

This bill proposes the adoption of the harmonic mean, or Dean's method, as a fairer, more robust and more reliable solution than others proposed so far. As Antony Green advocated in his submission on this matter, the adoption of the harmonic mean both protects the people of the territories and provides a legitimate, principle-based solution going forward. It removes the harshness and inequity of knife-edge differences in population creating massive drops in representation. It removes the requirement for statistical errors to be included as a safety net to overcome more fundamental flaws in our electoral calculations. It is a system designed to keep the voter-per-member average in smaller population areas more closely aligned with the national average, something Antony Green notes is not a property of the existing method.

Not only am I pleased with the solution proposed as a legitimate, tested and supported solution for all Australians, it's also a sound result for the Australian Capital Territory. Though smaller in size, the ACT does face the same vagaries in terms of outcomes. Despite our population, the ACT was only granted a third seat based on the margin-of-error calculation. According to Antony Green's submission, using the proposed harmonic mean would have given the ACT a third seat for 1993, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2016, in each case applying the same rules that would apply to the Northern Territory. It is this issue of equal treatment between the territories that has raised concerns not only in the pursuit of electoral fairness but also to ensure it is fair to the ACT as well as to the Northern Territory. As Senator for the ACT I'm very pleased with where we've gotten to. I contrast this with the proposal that was supported by Labor representatives for the ACT. The bill included in its title the words, 'Ensuring Fair Representation for the Northern Territory'; it didn't give the same fairness to the ACT.

After that bill was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, this issue became abundantly clear. The committee's report notes:

The private Senators' Bill would introduce a new minimum of two seats for the Northern Territory but would keep the Australian Capital Territory, uniquely, on the lower one seat floor. 1.80 This would institute a two-tier arrangement for minimum Territory representation, rather than modelling the section on the constitutional treatment of Original States whereby all Original States are treated with parity. It would also be a departure from existing electoral arrangements.

It further notes:

By having separate minimum entitlement provisions treating each Territory differently, the Bill departs from this longstanding position, raising parity, equity and, conceivably, constitutional concerns.

…   …   …

Notwithstanding whether this may give rise to legal issues, the Committee considers that on principle alone there ought to be parity in the treatment of the two Territories.

This is a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. Clearly, Labor, including Senator Gallagher, Andrew Leigh, Alicia Payne and David Smith, supported a solution which would have treated the ACT differently and at a significant relative disadvantage to the Northern Territory. Their proposal was far more favourable to the NT as against the Australian Capital Territory. This disparity guaranteed two seats for the Northern Territory but only one for the ACT. This is not only unfair to the people of the ACT, it raises constitutional issues of treating voters differently in different jurisdictions. As I said, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters made this point in a very sound way.

Lastly, I would note that the bill before us today removes the margin-of-error rule as it is applied to the ACT and the Northern Territory. This rule was arguably only affixed for a specific fault at the time. With better systems, those reasons no longer apply. Far more importantly, the system proposed does not need a second safety net, and certainly not one based on codifying a margin of error as a permanent part of our electoral system. As I've said and welcomed, our electoral systems are vital to our democracy, and faith in that system from the public is dependent on the good faith of negotiations undertaken by this parliament. I believe the bill before us today is a demonstration of that commitment and that good faith.

As Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters, I applaud the hard work and rigour that colleagues and commentators have brought to this discussion. As a local representative for the ACT, I'm very pleased to champion and deliver a system that gives fair representation to both territories: the ACT and the Northern Territory. As a parliamentarian, I welcome a system of fairer representation for all Australians, whether here in the seat of government in the ACT or in the heart of our country in the Northern Territory. I thank everyone who contributed to the development of the bill, and I commend it to the Senate.

Senator FARRELL (South Australia) (11:25): Labor welcomes this Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020, which will ensure that the Northern Territory retains two seats in the House of Representatives. Of course, this bill is in response to Labor's original bill introduced by Senator Malarndirri McCarthy earlier this year, which I was a proud co-sponsor of.

Since the introduction of our bill in June, my Labor colleagues in the Northern Territory—Luke Gosling, Warren Snowdon and Senator McCarthy—have fought to ensure that the voices of Territorians are not diminished by having the Territory reduced to one enormous electorate. This bill is the outcome of a sustained campaign. We were able to secure the support of the CLP's Senator McMahon, the Greens, the crossbench, the Northern Territory government, the Northern Territory opposition and even the National Party to ensure that the government was forced to deal with this issue. I'd like to thank all of my Senate colleagues and colleagues in the other place for their support of this bill. I'd also like to thank the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Michael Gunner; the ALP national secretary, Paul Erickson; and the ALP NT secretary, Anthony Brereton, for all their hard work and commitment to securing the Territory's representation. I extend my thanks and appreciation to the Labor members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters—Senator Carol Brown, Milton Dick, Senator Marielle Smith and Kate Thwaites—for the time and effort they put into the inquiry on this bill.

There was no accounting for community interest—that is, what the people in remote and regional communities need and how different it is from what the people of Darwin and Palmerston need. There was no accounting for demography—that is, the fact that First Nations Australians make up about 30 per cent of the Territory's population. There's only one thing that the AEC can look at, and that's population. On those figures, the Northern Territory fell short of retaining its two seats by around 4,000 people. Labor couldn't stand by and let the Territory representation diminish. The government wasn't acting to save the Northern Territory's second seat, so we in Labor introduced our own piece of legislation. The bill that the government introduced isn't exactly what Labor would have done, but it does fix the problem. And, instead of enacting JSCEM's third recommendation—which is to change the method by which both territories are entitled to a determination—it uses a method that we didn't advocate but that does the job of fixing the issue.

Many others have spoken about the various details of the bill, so I won't go over that again. The bill also sets aside the AEC's most recent determination in relation to the Northern Territory. The determination made in 2017, which allocated two seats to the Northern Territory, will apply. I met with the Electoral Commissioner earlier this week, and he confirmed to me that the current boundaries of Solomon and Lingiari will remain unchanged and there will be no requirement for a further redistribution.

My first visit to the Northern Territory was some 44 years ago, to help Darwin rebuild after the cyclone, and I've made countless trips there ever since. Working with my Labor colleagues in the Northern Territory to help secure this important change has been an honour—and, particularly, working with Senator McCarthy on this issue. Passion and dedication have been the driving forces behind this campaign. Labor has always been committed to ensuring all Territorians continue to have fair representation in our federal parliament. We are glad that the government has come on board. I thank the former minister, Minister Cormann, and Minister Birmingham for the respectful way in which they've handled this issue. This is a win for democracy, and we're all pleased to support this bill.

Senator McMAHON (Northern Territory) (11:29): I rise to speak on this historic and important piece of legislation, the Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020. It's historic and important not just to the Northern Territory—although that is obviously where my passion lies—but also to the ACT, because this bill includes not just the Northern Territory but our other territory, right here around our nation's capital.

So why is this important to Territorians? Around the rest of Australia, if you suggested to a lot of people that you should take away a politician or two, they would probably say that that's a good thing. That's not so in the Territory. We, obviously, as a territory, have only two senators, and we have two lower house members—four representatives to the federal parliament for the whole of the Territory. So Territorians are very well aware of their need for federal representation. They're very well aware of the role that the federal government plays. They're well aware that Labor, in the Northern Territory, has sent us broke and that if we were a company we would be bankrupt. So they're well aware of the need for the federal government to provide for the programs, the services and the infrastructure that Territorians need. If we look just at the geography of the Northern Territory, at almost 1.4 million square kilometres it's absolutely huge.

As has been said by my colleagues, it also includes Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) islands. To get to these islands, one must actually travel—and one did, pre-COVID, as well; this has not been affected by COVID—via Perth or via Malaysia. I don't imagine there are too many other jurisdictions in the world where you not only have to leave your state or territory but actually to travel through another country to get to another part of your state or territory. It's unique and quite amazing. I know the people of Christmas and Cocos islands value their federal representation and they, feeling so isolated—as they are, sitting out there in the middle of the ocean—realise that, with less representation, they're hardly ever going to see anybody ever. For a group of people who are fairly marginalised and very isolated, you can imagine that that is not something that they would welcome.

As for the rest of the Territory, as I said, it's almost 1.4 million square kilometres and very, very difficult to get around. We have very few roads. Most of the roads that we do have can be cut off, sometimes for large parts of the year. A lot of them are fairly poor and not very easily passed. A lot of the Territory you can't even get to by road for large parts of the year, sometimes even all year. We have quite a few islands as well, such as Groote Eylandt, Croker Island, Melville Island and Bathurst Island, accessible only via barge or air, and, again, difficult and time-consuming to get around. You can imagine that taking one of four representatives out of that mix is going to mean that these people are not going to be able to see or speak to a federal representative or show them their part of the world and their issues, or hardly ever, which would be quite a negative thing for, again, people who are often the most disadvantaged, marginalised people in our country.

We have the two electorates, Solomon and Lingiari. They are very, very different. Solomon is basically Darwin. Darwin is a reasonably modern, cosmopolitan, urbanised city these days, and then you have Lingiari, which is all of the rest—basically, almost all of those 1.4 million square kilometres. Lingiari is approximately 40 per cent Indigenous—again, some of the most isolated, disadvantaged and marginalised people in the world. Having only one federal representative to serve them would be quite unfair and, quite frankly, disastrous for the Northern Territory.

Also, if we look at the socioeconomics, I know there are both ends of the spectrum in every state and territory, but it was certainly typified to me how much that is so in the Territory just last week. I was sitting in a building in Darwin which had lovely 360-degree views all around the harbour and the city with three of the richest people in the Northern Territory. We're talking billions, not millions here. Typically, when you think of someone who is wealthy in the Territory it's someone who can buy a round without taking out a bank loan! But that isn't the case with these people; we had billions of dollars assembled in that room. The very next day, I was sitting in the dirt north of Tennant Creek with a group of traditional owners. We say 'traditional owners', but they don't have the money, the land, the businesses or the education of the three men I was with the day before.

That's very typical of the Territory. We tend to get extremes, and lots of people at those extremes. Those traditional owners who were sitting there in the dirt were getting part of their traditional land handed back to them—600 square kilometres, which is not a lot, particularly in that part of the country. In that part of the country, 600 square kilometres would probably run 10 head of cattle, so it's not a lot. But they were happy that it was getting handed back to them. So I was sitting there in the dirt with severely marginalised and disadvantaged people, compared with the big end of town. Whilst there are extremes in all jurisdictions, that is certainly emphasised in the Territory, and we have a lot of our population at the lower extreme rather than at the top extreme. These people value their representation—they really do. People in remote Indigenous communities think it's a great honour and they're very happy when a federal representative, of whatever persuasion, comes to see them. They really do appreciate it; they put time aside and they want to talk to you about their issues.

I thank senator James McGrath, the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, for the work that he and the committee did on this inquiry and the report from that, which was handed up to the Senate this week and which recommended a couple of different methods by which we might maintain representation. I'm very pleased that this bill enshrines in law the use of the harmonic mean—otherwise referred to as Dean's method—for determining representation, as that will not only guarantee that the NT retains its two seats currently but also make it easier, as our population grows, for us to move from two up to three. I think this is an excellent resolution. I'm very, very proud to be part of the government that has put this bill forward. I thank all my colleagues, and I thank former Senator Cormann for the work that he did on it and also Senator Birmingham for taking over and carrying on that work, presenting us with a very good piece of legislation.

I acknowledge Senators Farrell and McCarthy for their support—for working with me and for their faith in me and the government to deliver on this. With great pride, and on behalf of all Territorians I commend this legislation to the Senate.

Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia—Minister for Finance, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (11:39): I thank senators who've contributed to this debate on the Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020. In particular, I thank Senator McMahon for her advocacy and thoughtful engagement. I acknowledge Senator McCarthy and Senator Farrell. I also acknowledge Senator Seselja, noting the broader territory implications of the engagement through the debate and the construction of this legislation. I also thank the JSCEM for their thoughtful work and engagement through this.

I shall let the details of the bill stand, noting the time, aside from noting that many other members of the parliament have followed this matter closely and are conscious of ensuring a principled approach in relation to how such matters are handled. The use of a harmonic mean calculation for allocating seats to the territories addresses the types of concerns that had been raised in relation to territory representation and does so through means that maintain principles around the application of electoral redistributions. It also ensures that this parliament is not in and of itself overreaching in the construction of the House of Representatives but that a methodology is applied according to principles consistent with how the House of Representatives is intended to be constructed in terms of determining numerical representation of those seats. We welcome the fact that the result of that approach and the decisions made in this legislation will ensure that at the next election, and based on projections beyond that, the Territory will continue to have two representatives in the House of Representatives and in doing so will not find itself in a situation of having the single-largest electorate, potentially, when you combine population, geography and all the challenges that would come with effective representation in this place.

I note that there's been conjecture in parliamentary committee hearings about the future status of the Australian Electoral Officer for the Northern Territory, and I take this opportunity to put those concerns to rest. The bill recognises that the Australian Electoral Officer in the NT is always to be a member of the redistribution committee for any redistributions in that territory and, for the record, that the process to permanently refill the AEO position for the NT will begin before the end of 2020.

In conclusion, I remind everyone that it's important that we remain committed to improving electoral legislation in a nonpartisan manner that promotes public confidence and ensures strong representation for Australia's territories. We've seen elsewhere in the world in recent times the challenges that can come when politicians undermine public confidence in electoral systems. It's incumbent on all of us to make sure that it is upheld at the highest possible levels. I commend the bill to the Senate.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that the bill be read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

The PRESIDENT (11:42): As no amendments to the bill have been circulated, I shall call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bill be considered in Committee of the Whole.

Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia—Minister for Finance, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (11:42): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (11:43): I rise to continue my speech on the Native Title Amendment (Infrastructure and Public Facilities) Bill 2020. The Greens will be moving amendments to this bill. Instead of extending the operation of section 24JAA by another 10 years, as the government has proposed, we are proposing to extend it by only one more year instead. In our view, the minister has not made the case for why a 10-year extension is required. Remember that this isn't just about building public homes. The government could also build police stations in communities that are already overtargeted by police and apparently do this for their benefit. I know from personal experience that, for our people, having police as first responders is often not helpful but harmful, and sometimes lethal.

If the government were serious about negotiating with traditional owners or even just negotiating in good faith, they would be properly funding prescribed bodies corporate. They would also be properly funding native title claimants to properly negotiate on an equal footing with the government, as well as funding them to develop community-led land use plans over their country. Most importantly, they would be bending over backwards, just like they do for their big corporate mates, to protect our heritage. Every time the Minerals Council comes knocking on these doors, the government get themselves tied up in knots and do whatever it wants. If only they listened to—

The PRESIDENT: Order! Thank you for your flexibility, Senator Thorpe. You will be in continuation when debate resumes. We will now move on to petitions.

Senator DEAN SMITH (Western Australia—Government Whip in the Senate) (11:46): I present the 11th report of 2020 of the Selection of Bills Committee and seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows—

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 11 OF 2020

1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 2 December 2020 at 7.34 pm.

2. The committee recommends that—

(a) the Judges' Pensions Amendment (Pension Not Payable for Misconduct) Bill 2020 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 5 April 2021 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral).

3. The committee recommends that the following bills not be referred to committees:

Designs Amendment (Advisory Council on Intellectual Property Response) Bill 2020

Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill 2020

Native Title Amendment (Infrastructure and Public Facilities) Bill 2020

Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Protecting Consumers from Predatory Leasing Practices) Bill 2020

Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020

Treasury Laws Amendment (2020 Measures No. 5) Bill 2020

VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020.

4. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Serious Incident Response Scheme and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Air Services Amendment Bill 2018

Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020

Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020

Constitution Alteration (Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press) 2019

Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Customs Amendment (Safer Cladding) Bill 2019

Discrimination Free Schools Bill 2018

Export Control Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2020

Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response) Bill 2020 Corporations (Fees) Amendment (Hayne Royal Commission Response) Bill 2020

Governor-General Amendment (Cessation of Allowances in the Public Interest) Bill 2019

Great Australian Bight Environment Protection Bill 2019

Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Bill 2020 Industrial Chemicals Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Charge (General) Bill 2020

Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Charge (Customs) Bill 2020

Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Charge (Excise) Bill 2020

Interactive Gambling Amendment (Prohibition on Credit Card Use) Bill 2020

Migration Amendment (New Maritime Crew Visas) Bill 2020

National Collecting Institutions Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

National Emergency Declaration Bill 2020

National Emergency Declaration (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2020

Regional Forest Agreements Legislation (Repeal) Bill 2017

Regulatory Powers (Standardisation Reform) Bill 2020

Social Security Amendment (COVID-19 Supplement) Bill 2020

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2019

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2019

Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020

Treasury Laws Amendment (2020 Measures No. 6) Bill 2020.

5. The committee considered the following bill but was unable to reach agreement:

Corporations Amendment (Corporate Insolvency Reforms) Bill 2020 (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral).

(Dean Smith)

Chair

3 December 2020

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Judges' Pensions Amendment (Pension Not Payable for Misconduct) Bill2020

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To facilitate stakeholder engagement, give opportunity for the profession to contribute, and look the bills impact within the profession.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Courts, legal profession, and court administrative and support staff.

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Possible hearing date(s): As determined by Committee

Possible reporting date: As determined by Committee, possible reporting date April 2021

Appendix 2

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

- Corporations Amendment (Corporate Insolvency Reforms) Bill 2020

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

- Potential impact on business environment, including supply of credit.

- Potential impact on worker, including payment of wages and entitlements.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

- Academics and think tanks

- Business groups

- Unions

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

- Economics

Possible hearing date(s):

- On the papers

Possible reporting date:

/

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (11:46): I move:

At the end of the motion, add "except that the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 not be referred to a committee".

Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate) (11:47): I would like to make the point that, from the Australian Greens point of view, the Corporations Amendment (Corporate Insolvency Reforms) Bill 2020 should be referred to a parliamentary committee, and it won't be if the Senate accepts the Selection of Bills Committee report. I just wanted to place on the record that the Corporations Amendment (Corporate Insolvency Reforms) Bill 2020 does propose to ease the regulatory burden on businesses. I note that we regulate businesses for many reasons, including to protect our environment and to provide safer workplaces for people, and, ultimately, we regulate businesses in the public interest.

This bill would wind back business regulation. We're not saying that's a bad thing; we're simply saying it is a matter worthy of Senate inquiry, and we are disappointed that the Selection of Bills Committee report does not recommend that that bill be inquired into by the Economics Legislation Committee.

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (12:20): I move:

That—

(a) the Senate notes that:

(i) the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) entered into force on 20 December 2015, and

(ii) the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is undertaking a post-implementation review within 5 years of implementation;

(b) there be laid on the table by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, by no later than 5 pm on 8 December 2020, a statement explaining the Government's assessment of:

(i) China's compliance with the letter and spirit of ChAFTA,

(ii) the extent and consequences of Australian economic dependence on the Chinese market, and

(iii) the wider economic, strategic and diplomatic context of Australia's trade relations with China; and

(c) at 9.30 am on 9 December 2020, before government business is called on

(i) the Senate requires the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment to provide an explanation of the Government's statement referred to in paragraph (b), and

(ii) a senator may, at the conclusion of the explanation, move without notice that the Senate take note of the explanation.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:20): by leave—I move the following amendment to the motion:

At the end of the motion, add "for up to 30 minutes".

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: The question now is that the motion moved by Senator Patrick, as amended, be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:27): I move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:28): 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—

The Australian Government is committed to supporting individuals, families and the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing financial assistance to people who lose their jobs or have reduced income as a result of the outbreak.

The Government is also committed to ensuring fiscal responsibility, by adjusting temporarily increased levels of support.

The Government is actively monitoring economic conditions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and is responding by continuing assistance for individuals and families.

The Government thanks the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for its report on this Bill and its recommendation that this Bill be passed.

The Government notes the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens commented on an ongoing increase to JobSeeker Payment. As the Government has previously indicated, we are focused on the immediate issue at hand, which is outlining and providing the next stage of temporary social security supports to Australians as we transition to a post-COVID economy.

The Australian Greens also recommend a further waiver of the Liquid Assets Test Waiting Period. Successive Governments have always been clear that people should rely on their own resources before calling on the community for support. As the health and economic situation improves, it is no longer appropriate to continue to waive the Liquid Assets Test Waiting Period.

The Government rejects the Greens comment that the Coronavirus Supplement should be paid at a rate of $550 a fortnight. While there remains uncertainty around economic conditions, there are signs of improvement and confidence is increasing. The Government considers support at $150 a fortnight is appropriate as the economy starts to open up and people have capacity to take up work to support themselves.

To date, temporary measures have been successful in supporting Australians through economic shock and uncertainty, but challenging conditions continue.

This Bill responds to the continuing uncertainty around economic conditions in Australia by extending temporary financial support, through the Coronavirus Supplement and other temporary eligibility and access measures, mostly until 31 March 2021.

The Bill permanently repeals provisions providing temporary exemptions to the assets tests. These exemptions were put in place as part of the initial package of Coronavirus Economic Response measures in March 2020 and are no longer necessary.

The Bill also introduces a discretionary power under the social security and veterans' entitlements assets tests to extend the principal home temporary absence provisions. This provision is beneficial as it prevents the inclusion of the principal home in the assets test while a person is unable to return to Australia within the allowable absence period, due to circumstances beyond their control.

Schedule 11 of the Coronavirus Economic Response Package Omnibus Act 2020 included a power that allowed the Minister to temporarily modify social security law to respond to circumstances relating to COVID-19 by making a disallowable legislative instrument.

This broad power that allowed the Minister to modify (or vary) any qualification or rate in social security law was critical in allowing the Government to respond flexibly to emerging situations, amend the partner income test for JobSeeker Payment and apply changes that aided Services Australia in quickly addressing the large volume of claims received in March and April 2020. The Minister's power to make these modifications will be automatically repealed on 31 December 2020 and instruments made under the modification power will no longer have any effect.

This Bill introduces a new, diminished and time-limited instrument-making power, allowing the Government to respond flexibly to any changes in circumstances which might arise as a result of COVID-19 in the first quarter of next year, while Parliament may not be sitting. The temporary power will operate until 31 March 2021.

The current powers in social security law that enable the Minister to set the rate and duration of the Coronavirus Supplement and the related exemptions from waiting and preclusion periods will remain in place until 31 March 2021.

Together, these powers in effect until 31 March 2021 will enable the Minister to determine:

the rate of Coronavirus Supplement and the cohorts it is paid to;

the personal income test for recipients of JobSeeker Payment (excluding Single Principal Carer recipients) and Youth Allowance (other);

the partner income test for JobSeeker Payment recipients (only);

eligibility criteria for JobSeeker Payment and Youth Allowance (other);

the waiver of certain waiting periods;

the waiver of the 104-week qualifying residence period for Parenting Payment;

the period in which income support recipients can maintain eligibility for payment and retain their concession card while receiving a nil rate of payment due to employment income;

the period self-declarations could continue to be used for member of a couple assessments with a modified test for JobSeeker Payment;

pension portability arrangements; and

Mobility Allowance two and 12-week grace periods.

Under current temporary arrangements in place until 28 March 2021, the Australian Taxation Office provides JobKeeper information to Services Australia for planning, policy development and compliance purposes. While the Australian Taxation Office will not provide any new JobKeeper data to Services Australia after 28 March 2021, the Bill will clarify that, after 28 March 2021, Services Australia and the Department of Social Services will be able to continue to use the Jobkeeper information provided on or before 28 March 2021.

The policy delivered by this Bill has a cost of $3.2 billion to 2024-25.

Debate adjourned.

Senator DEAN SMITH (Western Australia—Government Whip in the Senate) (12:28): I present the report of the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Donation Reform and Other Measures) Bill 2020, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (12:29): I continue my contribution to the debate on the Native Title Amendment (Infrastructure and Public Facilities) Bill 2020. If only they listened to our mobs in the way that they say they do, because then we wouldn't have to go to court to fight tooth and nail to protect our heritage, just as we have been doing on Djab Wurrung country. Today Justice Forbes handed down her decision on the injunction application by Djab Wurrung people to have their sacred birthing trees protected. This is a welcome decision for the Djab Wurrung mob. We shouldn't have to go to court to fight for country over and over again. If only governments would listen to our people and work with us, we wouldn't have to be in the Supreme Court arguing. If this country valued its First Peoples then we wouldn't have to be in court.

This is why we will vote against this bill today. The Greens know that this bill doesn't extinguish native title, but it does extinguish our people's sovereignty. The Greens know that this bill doesn't extinguish native title and this breach of the right of our people to get free, prior and informed consent will not be supported by the Greens. The minister has not made a strong enough case for extending this legislation for another 10 years, when this government has been in government for seven of those years. As our amendments to this bill show, we are willing to give them one more year to come back and properly make the case to us as to why this section is needed. If this section weren't in the Native Title Act, it would rightly be condemned for being racist, because the government is trying to acquire interest over the property on Aboriginal territory without due process of payment.

The government's bill leaves native title owners with infrastructure built on their land, which is allegedly for their benefit, but they have no control over it. This is shameful and we will not support it. Our amendment would give the government one year. If they cannot justify to the parliament in one year why they need this change to section 24JAA then that section must lapse.

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania—Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians and Minister for Youth and Sport) (12:32): I thank senators for their contributions and commend the bill to the Senate.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Neill ): The question is that the bill be read a second time.

Senator McCARTHY (Northern Territory—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (12:44): This is such an important topic around native title. I would remind all senators of some of the unhelpful comments that were made in relation to this bill—and towards a First Nations senator as well.

Progress reported.

Senator LINES (Western Australia—Deputy President and Chair of Committees) (12:45): Well, finally this bill, the Family Law Amendment (Western Australia De Facto Superannuation Splitting and Bankruptcy) Bill 2020, comes before this parliament and, now, the Senate. It has taken way too long to get here. There has been unimaginable hurt created because the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have taken way too long to act on something that should have been done and dusted in a day. I've stood in this place and seen legislation go through both houses in one day. This bill, which deals with discrimination against de facto couples in WA over years and years, has taken a very long time. Of course, the discrimination has been particularly against women. As we know, women have much lower superannuation balances, and de facto couples, when they've chosen to separate, have not been able to legally split their superannuation.

There's one person who's been central to holding this up—that is, the member for Pearce, Mr Christian Porter, who, ironically, was Attorney General in the WA state parliament and is now Attorney-General in this place. The bill has sat with him for a very long time, and he must have been aware of this issue. I've got my good friend Rachel Roberts to thank for telling me about this six years ago—six years ago!—when the Barnett government refused to do anything about the splitting of superannuation for de facto couples. I thank Rachel for being so steadfast in making sure we dealt with this issue. I also thank John Quigley, Labor's Attorney General in the state parliament, for urging the Attorney-General, Mr Christian Porter, who's absolutely central to this, to act so that finally the superannuation of those de facto couples in Western Australia who, unfortunately, split up will be treated in exactly the same way as that of all other de facto couples across this country. I have no idea why the Attorney-General chose to sit on this legislation for more than a year—to sit on a bill that's not controversial and that deals with discrimination in Western Australia against de facto couples who are separating—and I'm really pleased that the bill is finally before the Senate.

Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (12:48): I want to add just a few comments in this debate on the Family Law Amendment (Western Australia De Facto Superannuation Splitting and Bankruptcy) Bill 2020. I'd very much like to support the comments that Senator Lines has just made. Anybody who pays attention to these issues in WA knows that this has been a very significant issue for a very long time and it's way beyond time that it was dealt with. The bill deals with an anomaly whereby women—and it's nearly always the women who suffer—were not being treated fairly and equally, so it is long past due and I'm really pleased that it has finally come to the top of the list. I'd also like to give a shout-out to the women who have been emailing to urge that this be done. Thank you for keeping it on the agenda. I think you'll all finally be very, very happy that this bill is about to pass.

Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (12:49): Back in 2001, Western Australia was the first place in the country—because the rest of the nation was covered by the federal Family Law Act—to do law reform so that couples in de facto relationships, be they same-sex or opposite sex, could split their assets. In 2008, federal Labor also did superannuation splitting as part of its de facto law reform. But it has taken until 2020—because Western Australia is not part of the federal Family Law Act—for de facto couples now to be able to split their superannuation. I cannot begin to tell you of the injustices that have been done in that time because of the lack of capacity for people to split their assets.

A constituent wrote to me, pleading with the parliament to make sure that this gets passed. She had been paying most of the household bills, and her partner at the time had said to her: 'Look, this is great. Because you're paying the bills out of your salary, I can afford to pay more into my super so that we can have a happy, full and rich retirement.' So that is what they, as a couple, did. But what happens when they're before the Family Court? Even if they had wanted to split their assets amicably, when a lot of the assets were in superannuation the failure to act on law reform in this area meant that they could not. This has left hundreds, if not thousands, of people worse off than they otherwise would have been if they had been able to split their assets fairly, including superannuation.

Minister Porter said that this was urgent 12 months ago. I don't think the fact that it is now in this place some 12 months later reflects that urgency, but I will make these remarks short because I believe it is urgent that the bill passes today.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:52): I thank senators for their contributions and commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Neill ) (12:52): No amendments have been circulated. Does any senator require a committee stage? If not, I'll call the minister to move the third reading.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:52): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator FARRELL (South Australia) (12:53): I rise to speak on the VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020. I indicate that the bill proposes sensible administrative changes that Labor will of course support. However, as we reach the end point of this year, we continue to see the devastating impacts of the government's failure in the vocational education and training sector.

As you would be aware, Madam Acting Deputy President O'Neill, before the COVID pandemic the Liberal government had ripped $3 billion from the TAFE and training sector and had overseen a decline in Australian apprentices by 140,000—the very people who will be responsible for rebuilding Australia's path out of these health and economic crises. It's very disappointing that this government is doing so little to help Australian tradies.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:54): I thank Senator Farrell for his contribution and commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:55): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator FARRELL (South Australia) (12:58): I seek to speak on the Native Title Amendment (Infrastructure and Public Facilities) Bill 2020. Labor does not support the amendment being proposed. When Labor introduced these measures back in 2010, we did so with great care, following extensive consultations with First Nations communities. While the provisions have been used sparingly over the decade, they have been in force. They have been a useful means to help facilitate the building of necessary facilities on land subject to native title. We support their extension for a further ten years.

That being said, we in Labor share some of the concerns raised about the way in which facilities built on Indigenous lands are managed. These were outlined by the shadow assistant minister for reconciliation in his speech in the second reading debate on the bill. In particular, it is essential that proper good-faith consultations take place with affected communities. The legal framework contains a number of safeguards outlined to ensure this occurs. This includes requiring consultation to take place at the request of affected parties. It also includes granting the Attorney-General the ability to prescribe how consultations with native title parties should occur and put in place specific requirements that can be tailored to a particular community. These provisions for consultation are an essential part of Labor's original design for subdivision JA. It's important that this subdivision continues to be used only when strictly necessary to facilitate urgent construction.

I take this opportunity to reiterate our calls for the government to ensure that, at all times, it deals with First Nations communities in a consultative manner so as to ensure that any facilities built under subdivision JA of the Native Title Act are managed in a manner that is appropriate and respectful to those communities before, during and after construction.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:01): The government won't be supporting the amendment proposed by Senator Thorpe because it has the effect of extending this particular provision for only a further year instead of the 10 years proposed by the government. The reason the government don't support the one-year extension is that we don't believe it will provide certainty to communities or to state governments and it has the risk of delaying critical public infrastructure on Indigenous lands for the benefit of Indigenous Australians. We think that the bill still does retain the temporary status of the provision, but it does so for a time period that allows certainty and continued support through infrastructure for the benefit of Indigenous Australians.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (13:02): How does this bill facilitate the principle of free, prior and informed consent over all decisions on what happens on the lands of traditional owners?

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:02): To Senator Thorpe's question and further to the comments made by Senator Farrell in his contribution on this amendment, fundamental to any actions and activities that occur on lands of Indigenous Australians is the consultation to make sure that the infrastructure and the activities that are being undertaken on those lands reflect the wants of the people.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (13:03): Can you outline in detail where traditional owners have been so unreasonable and where Indigenous land use agreements have not been possible such that this section of the Native Title Act must be relied upon to construct infrastructure on country against the wishes of traditional owners?

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:03): Senator Thorpe, I can inform you that this particular section has been used 127 times on approximately 1,000 residential lots since 2011, so over the last 10 years—53 times in Queensland and 74 times in Western Australia. This includes at least 778 public houses and other facilities in Queensland and 312 public houses and 73 other facilities in Western Australia. These figures are as at 8 October 2020. That's been the overwhelming purpose for using it—for residential properties and public housing. But you can be assured that the measure is used only sparingly.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (13:04): Minister, what reasons have traditional owners given you for not allowing infrastructure to be built on country that this section of the act must be used to build it anyway?

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:05): My understanding is that it's being used at the request of the state or territory governments and also of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander councils. It's solely for the purpose of delivering public assets and infrastructure, but it has been at the request of the state and territory governments within whose jurisdictions the infrastructure is to be built.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (13:06): Minister, can you explain the rationale for not funding prescribed bodies corporate to operate and develop strategic plans and land use plans, instead of expecting them, as underresourced organisations, to respond to proposals drawn up by government agencies under the threat that if they don't agree to infrastructure on country that it will be built anyway without their consent?

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:06): Each and every application is assessed on its merit; there is no one blanket answer to your question.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (13:06): Minister, can you clarify that this bill will lump traditional owners with infrastructure over which they have no control on their land?

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:07): This is a matter for the state and territory governments, in negotiation and consultation with the traditional owners.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (13:07): Minister, why is the government using the need for housing as an emotional wedge to undermine the fundamental rights of free, prior and informed consent over country?

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:07): I don't accept the premise of your accusation, Senator Thorpe.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Kitching ): The question is that the amendment on sheet 1102 be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendments; report adopted.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:09): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales) (13:09): Labor welcomes these bills. We generate 67 million tonnes of waste a year and a large portion of that waste is recyclable. On a per capita basis, we generate more than a hundred kilograms of plastic each and every year, yet we recycle barely 12 per cent of that waste. We're not alone in having that problem. Globally, more than 10 million tonnes of plastic finds its way into the oceans every year, and that is only expected to grow. Some estimates are that it will triple in the next 20 years—wrap your minds around that proposition. We are going to need to come to grips with this as a parliament, as a country and, frankly, as a planet, because the environmental effects of large amounts of plastic entering the ecosystem are stark and well understood. Everyone has seen the horrific photos of the impact on wildlife—turtles with straws, birds that have ingested large amounts of plastic—and we're confronted by the visible reminders of our waste habits when we see the debris in our creek beds and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which swirls around in the ocean environment that we inhabit. The evidence for the impact on human health is growing. We know that microplastics have entered marine ecosystems and are accumulating in the food chain, with uncertain effects.

Our current practices are not sustainable in any sense of the word. Limited materials are sunk into ultradisposable products—many of them have a life span of minutes before being thrown away—and there is no doubt that the best future for Australia and for the world lies in building a more circular economy, where materials are seen as a resource to use minimally and to reuse and recycle to the maximum extent possible. There's a strong economic incentive to act. In addition to being environmentally responsible, it allows the prospect of creating new resource recovery and manufacturing opportunities, and that means jobs and employment. For every 10,000 tonnes of waste recycled, 9.2 jobs are created, and you can compare that to the 2.8 jobs when the same amount of plastic goes into landfill.

The Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 and related bills build on an important Labor legacy. Labor supercharged the process towards a more sustainable approach to material management by creating a national waste policy in 2009. We introduced the Product Stewardship Act in 2011, and that was a major step forward in developing a regulatory framework to encourage responsible waste management in partnership with industry. Labor created the one co-regulatory scheme in existence, the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, and the well overdue statutory review of the relevant act confirms the fundamental value of this scheme. These bills establish a framework for the phased ban on the export of certain waste materials and they also absorb the regulatory framework previously contained in the Product Stewardship Act 2011, while making some minor changes to the substantive rules for product stewardship.

The government should have acted significantly sooner, but it has dragged its heels on this question. These bills are best understood as a response to our inability to export our waste, as we previously were able to do. In January 2018, China instituted its National Sword policy, which banned the importation of most categories of waste. Until that point, a large proportion of Australia's waste products were sent to China. Similar announcements were subsequently made by India, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand, and there were reports of paper and glass building up in waste management centres across Australia. Some municipalities resorted to dumping recyclable waste in landfill to deal with the problem. These changes forced Australia's hand, and in March this year COAG agreed to ban the export of waste glass, plastics, tyres and paper.

The reality is that exporting our waste was never a good solution. It is ultimately, and indeed by definition, unsustainable. It is not a real long-term solution. There were reports that material was not necessarily being recycled in the jurisdictions we were exporting this waste to. In some cases rubbish was burned, buried or thrown into rivers. Nonetheless, exporting that waste could have, in theory, bought us time to deal with our own waste problem, but that time was not used. The government could have been transitioning to a more sustainable use of resources during their time in office. Instead, next to nothing has been done. The amount of waste we exported actually grew under this government. Three million tonnes were being exported in 2006-07, compared to 4.5 million tonnes by 2018-19.

As I've already indicated, they didn't even do the required statutory review on time. That review of the Product Stewardship Act was supposed to be handed down in 2016 but was handed down three years later. There are consequences for the endless delay on almost everything by this government on matters of substance. On this question, a Senate inquiry into this bill heard from the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation. and they said:

I think it [the review of the NEPM] would have been a useful contribution to the discussion. The NEPM, like any regulation, has both positive and negative in it, and there are things that we recognise could be done better going forward. I think the fact that we're 20 years into that regulation and there hasn't been a review is probably more indicative of some of the issues or some of the perceptions that are currently out there, and I think that if a NEPM review had been done earlier then obviously it would have informed this discussion and given rise to thinking around other alternatives as well.

Since taking office, the coalition has taken no action in listing any new item for co-regulatory or mandatory schemes. It is clearly not a priority for this government, whose indifference to the natural environment is scandalous.

As I said, we welcome these bills. They are an important step but they do not go far enough. There are a number of specific amendments before the Senate to improve the operation of this act, but we also need practical steps to support recycling. The government announced a recycling fund after last year's election; however, it turns out that $100 million of this was, in fact, merely a reallocation of existing Clean Energy Finance Corporation funds, and questions to the government this year confirmed that not a single dollar had been loaned to support recycling infrastructure through the CEFC. The $20 million National Product Stewardship Investment Fund has not made a single grant.

The Senate inquiry into this bill noted the urgent need for the Commonwealth 'to adopt sustainable procurement models to provide leadership and boost the recyclables sector'. The inquiry recommended that the government should expedite consideration of a cost-benefit analysis of large infrastructure projects, including mandatory targets for the use of a percentage of recycled material. Most importantly, as the Labor senators noted in the inquiry's report on this bill:

Australia's lack of capacity to recycle the waste we produce, especially in certain material categories like plastic, is not unrelated to the lack of demand for recyclate, and there is no doubt this must be an area of focus and support, both through relevant procurement arrangements, and through product stewardship arrangements that are effective in seeing changes in product design and the lifting of recycled content outcomes.

The failure of the Morrison government to finalise market incentives for the use of recycled materials before implementing an export ban is creating a risk that domestic reprocessed materials which can be repurposed may still go to landfill after the bans are in place. As noted, such matters can only be addressed through the adequate provision of procurement targets that would drive the acquisition of waste materials. As the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia noted:

I think the perverse outcomes we were talking about first and foremost were the fact that we've lost access to markets by bringing in the export bill without the commensurate demand onshore. The opportunity existed, if there was more emphasis on the product stewardship, with the paradigm shift towards generator responsibility, of utilising that product onshore. So, if I'm the packager that's making the plastic that was previously getting exported, now I have to use that packaging material in Australia, because it's good food grade. We could have avoided those perverse outcomes of additional stockpiling or landfilling. So the opportunity that's being missed today is the integration of these packages to change the shift of the paradigm to say, 'This is good material that could be used over and over in Australia and create jobs'.

I'll conclude by making the obvious point that this is a disappointingly familiar story. The previous Labor government put in place a scheme to tackle a major problem. The scheme suffers neglect under the coalition. It turned out that there were consequences for literally taking no action at all, and the government was forced to take action. But, instead of getting a proper scheme that would stimulate jobs and build industry, we get a minor regulatory fix. Recycling, climate, energy—that is a story that we see time and time again. This government is incapable of recognising environmental problems as being worth fixing. It is incapable of recognising the economic opportunities that come when you engage with environmental challenges properly. These bills are a necessary first step, but they're a step that should have been taken years ago and been accompanied by real action to build a real market for recycled materials in Australia.

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (13:21): I really am glad to be rising to speak on this bill that the government calls the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020. But the simple problem is that it does very little to reduce waste in Australia and it doesn't give the recycling industry the certainty they need to invest in a circular economy and move this country out of the waste crisis that we have been in since China soared in 2017. We have a historic opportunity with this bill to not only fix this waste crisis, create tens of thousands of new green jobs in a green industry, in recycling, and solve an environmental problem but also do a solid for our oceans and our community.

This is very important to me personally. For nearly 15 years, I've been campaigning on trying to stop plastic going into the ocean. Nearly half of that time has been in this building, in parliament. In my first speech, I talked about this issue and some of the fantastic people in the community and in the environment movement I've been working with to tackle this problem. My first senator's statement was about tackling marine debris. I feel very privileged to have had the platform as a senator with a fantastic committee system and the cooperation across political parties to have initiated and chaired two Senate inquiries into marine plastic and into the plastic waste crisis we find ourselves in. This was the world's first parliament to do so. We were the first parliament to inquire into this most pervasive and enormous environmental problem and how we were going to get our way out of this waste crisis, because we've been so lazy by exporting our contaminated waste to the rest of the world for so long. We came up with a series of very good recommendations.

So this is important to me. I know it's extremely important to my party—that is, my colleagues, who are going to make fantastic contributions to this debate; to Greens state MPs; to dozens of fantastic local government representatives for the Greens around the country; the supporters; and the environment movement. If I were to name the good people that I have campaigned shoulder to shoulder with on this for the last 15 years, my entire speech would be taken up by naming them, but I will try and get their names on record at some stage soon.

But here's the really interesting thing. I was really surprised—and I must say pleasantly surprised; you'd have to forgive me for being a little bit cynical—when the Prime Minister mentioned at a press conference that his daughter had raised this issue with him and that he was going to tackle this problem. I was even more surprised when he made it the keynote part of his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2019. Of course, I'd like to have seen him talking about Australia taking a leadership role in climate change, but I wasn't going to complain that a prime minister of this country was telling the world that Australia was going to lead on this issue of tackling marine plastics—the toxic tide, the scourge of plastics in our ocean. And I understand it was something he discussed with US President-elect, soon to be President, Joe Biden; it was one of the issues they discussed on the telephone.

The problem is that this bill, the way it is written, doesn't act on plastics in the ocean because it deliberately excludes plastic packaging, the key source of marine plastics. Yes, of course it is a global problem on a massive scale. As we speak now, thousands of tonnes of mostly single-use plastics are making their way into the ocean. It's been estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. We're finding microplastics in plankton in the Antarctic. It's all through our seafood chain. Yet what do we do about it? If you came to someone who understood this issue and said: 'How are we going to take action to reduce plastics in the ocean? What's the single most important thing you would do?' They would say: 'Ban the single-use plastics that are causing so much problem. Reduce our consumption and production of plastics that are almost impossible to recycle and that form so much of the litter and the trash that does so much damage to our precious marine life.' So the first thing you'd do is ban those plastics. But guess what? There's nothing in here to ban plastics. There's nothing in here to hold accountable the big producers of plastic—some of the most profitable companies in Australia and internationally—and the retailers of plastic products, like the big supermarket chains. There's nothing in here to mandate strong targets for those companies. That's the second thing you would do; you would say, 'If plastic packaging is the problem, let's try and reduce as much as we can of the stuff that we just don't need.'

By the way, everybody agrees, including the Australian Packaging Covenant, that we need to get rid of problematic single-use plastics. But where's the action on it? I'll tell you where it is: it's in the states and it's in the territories. They're going their own way because we've failed to show national leadership on this issue. The Senate Environment and Communications Committee recommended a ban on single-use plastics in 2017. It's not even included in the government's threat abatement plan for marine debris. Guess when marine plastic was declared a threatening process under federal environmental laws? In 2003! Nearly 20 years later we still haven't tackled the key source of plastic that's doing so much damage. But today, next week, this chamber and this parliament can do that. I expect we will do that, and that's what the Australian people expect of all of us. There's no more time for being cute and no more time for technicalities, excuses or wriggle room. Let's do it!

I'll talk in more detail about the Greens' amendments and other amendments when we get to the committee stage. They've been circulated now for over a month. We've had discussions with all political parties and all Independents about this issue. We can create Aussie jobs. Banning the export of waste, okay, was probably not the way I thought the government was going to go but, given the waste crisis we find ourselves in, if we ban the export of waste such as plastics, it does put it back on us to do something about it. It forces us to deal with this problem. If we go down the right path—and what we do in the Senate will dictate that—and build a circular economy then we will create Australian jobs, and not just in the big cities but also in rural and remote Australia. We will see massive upgrades in technology and infrastructure from the recycling industry. The recycling industry want to fix this problem, but they need policy certainty, and I'll go into that in more detail when we get to the Greens amendment on mandatory product stewardship schemes.

I can't stress how important it is that we get this right. This is the first piece of legislation on waste that this parliament has seen in nearly a decade—I would say nearly two decades. I do acknowledge what Senator McAllister said earlier about Labor's contribution around product stewardship schemes. The architecture is already there. If anything, the second part of this bill, which is rewriting product stewardship schemes, really just fiddles around the edges. It has some added benefits and measures that we support, but it doesn't get to the root cause of the problem. But, as I said, I am convinced that we will do so today and next week, when we vote on this.

I put up a private member's bill over 18 months ago to ban single-use plastics, to copy the European Parliament. I had been genuinely disappointed that the European Parliament beat us to the punch. They were the first parliament in the world to ban single-use plastics—although this chamber, this Senate, was the first to have a parliamentary inquiry into the problem. The Europeans beat us and banned single-use plastics, so I put up a bill that was going to do that. I also put up a private member's bill that was going to take the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation's voluntary targets for plastic and other packaging and mandate those, to put them into law—to take Labor's existing architecture and legislation and mandate it. I believe APCO when they tell me they are different from what they used to be. In 2005 APCO set themselves some targets for 2010 to achieve a 30 per cent recycling rate in this country. Ten years later, does anybody know what it is? It's 16 per cent. After 15 years we're recycling only 16 per cent of the plastic we consume in this country.

The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, which is predominantly made up of big packaging companies and retailers, have had these voluntary targets that they have never come close to meeting, and they've never been held to account. It's time for that to end. The recycling industry employs nearly 60,000 Australians, and it could be tens of thousands more if we had a full circular economy. If we back the recycling industry and give them the policy certainty they are asking for—and they support the amendments that will be before the Senate—we can actually create a circular economy with tens of thousands of jobs and solve an environmental problem.

There are four key stakeholders in this debate: the recycling industry; the packaging and retailing industry; local governments, who do a lot of the kerbside recycling; and community and environment groups. When my bill went to the Senate's environment committee we took extensive evidence, and three of those stakeholders supported the amendments that will be before the Senate. Local governments supported mandatory product stewardship schemes banning single-use plastics. Environment and community groups unanimously cheered on mandatory product stewardship schemes—government putting packaging targets into law and banning single-use plastics. Three out of the four supported it—no surprises as to who didn't support it: the packaging industry.

Now, in saying that, I'll be really clear: APCO said that they were agnostic as to what kind of structure they were put under. And the big retailers, like Woolworths and the Food and Grocery Council—which deals with a lot of the APCO members; I was on a really good hook-up with the CEO of Amcor—all said that they were going to meet their 2025 voluntary targets. They're confident that they're going to meet them, so why would they have a problem with the Senate mandating them in law? You can talk the talk; walk the walk. It's easy enough.

When we get to the committee stage we'll be able to talk in more detail about why banning single-use plastics is important—why taking voluntary schemes and mandating them, giving the recycling industry the confidence it needs, is so important if we want to fix this problem. In a truly circular economy, waste doesn't exist. Rubbish doesn't exist—the term doesn't exist—because everything has value. Everything is created for its end of life. It doesn't end up in the ocean and it doesn't end up in landfill. It ends up being reused and creating Australian jobs.

Senator GREEN (Queensland) (13:36): I rise to speak on the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 and the related bills. In doing so, as senators often do, we reflect on the constituents in our communities—for me, people all across Queensland who would be listening in to this debate and paying special attention. I live in Cairns, the same place as does Molly Steer. She is a 12-year-old campaigner, who led the Straw No More campaign and managed to eradicate straws from cans when at a very young age—she was 10 or 11 years old when she started her campaign. I give this speech today in full recognition of the fact that there are people like Molly listening and wondering what the government has done after all its rhetoric about action on recycling, on waste and on plastics.

Labor supports this bill but remains critical of the government's inaction when it comes to regulatory reform of waste management and, quite frankly, to job creation in recycling—we know there's that potential if the government gets the settings right. Evidence from the Senate inquiry showed that, while stakeholders support an export waste ban, this bill lacks effectiveness. It highlights the Morrison government's poor track record of making lots of announcements and failing to deliver on those promises. This bill and the related bills would introduce a ban on the export of certain waste materials through a new licensing and declaration scheme, with standard qualifying requirements, fees and charges to cover those costs, and reporting arrangements. The bills would replace and update existing product stewardship laws, making overdue changes to the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme.

This legislation has been introduced, in part, because of China's decision in 2018 to ban the importation of most categories of waste—a decision which had a major consequence for the Australian waste management sector. It has meant that Australia now needs to dramatically increase our recycling capability and to better manage waste across the board. Labor has been critical of the government for its inaction when it comes to regulatory reform for waste management. Since the Liberal-National government came to power, it has taken no action in listing any new items for co-regulatory or mandatory schemes. The Morrison government has taken three years to conduct a review at a time when the country's waste crisis is worsening. Labor will support these bills, because there is no time to delay when it comes to banning the export of waste materials. But, in doing so, we want to highlight to the Senate some of the evidence that was received during the Senate inquiry and contained in the report handed down last month.

Stakeholders have said that they do support this legislation, but are concerned about the effectiveness of the legislation itself and some of the failures of this government to get the policy settings right. Stakeholders, including the National Waste and Recycling Industry Council, have acknowledged the government's lack of focus on reforming Australia's product stewardship regime. In their submission, the National Waste and Recycling Industry Council said:

there is nothing that compels the Minister to act should the recommended actions not be completed.

Nor is it clear if the Minister can actually recommend in the priority list "apply for accreditation as a voluntary arrangement" as an action.

The Global Product Stewardship Council submission said:

We encourage the Government to consider reflecting more of a clear willingness to pursue coregulatory approaches as appropriate to build upon the proposed strengthening around the Minister's priority list.

Stakeholders also recognised problems with the National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure 2011, which regulates industry participation for improving environmental outcomes for plastic packaging.

The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation drove this point home in their evidence to the committee inquiry. They said:

I think the fact that we're 20 years into that regulation and there hasn't been a review is probably more indicative of some of the issues or some of the perceptions that are currently out there, and I think that if a NEPM review had been done earlier then obviously it would have informed this discussion and given rise to thinking around other alternatives as well.

Labor agrees that this evidence should be heeded, and notes that the Morrison government should have reviewed the National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure 2011 in conjunction with the Product Stewardship Act. As Senator McAllister pointed out, it was the former Labor government that established the product stewardship framework in 2011, which included the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme. This has led to the recycling of 360,000 tonnes of computer and TV e-waste. But since the Liberal-National government were elected they have failed to introduce any additional co-regulatory or mandatory schemes.

Witnesses during the inquiry recognised the government's shortcomings in meeting key targets, including the goal of achieving 70 per cent recycling of packaging and elimination of unnecessary packaging. Currently only 12 per cent of plastic packaging in Australia is recycled, despite it being a major contributor to Australia's waste crisis. This raises the question of whether the targets can be achieved within the current voluntary participation framework.

It is a shame that it took a ban on importations by another country and several other key nations for the government to act on waste and recycling. There is now a serious deficiency in Australia's recycling capacity. There is now less capacity to recycle plastic than there was in 2005. All of those jobs that could have been created through this industry if the government had been willing to act have gone wanting. In Australia we recycle only 12 per cent of plastics—58 per cent of waste in total. The government's own review found that the growing number of industry free riders is the primary factor that leads to a failed voluntary scheme, yet their limiting response is to set up a form of naming and shaming to influence businesses to take responsibility but without any way of effecting that change.

This bill also brings into sharp focus some of the empty words and lack of follow-up by the Prime Minister and the Morrison government. They are always there for the photo op. When it comes to recycling, those photo ops are always quite flamboyant, always very interesting. The media releases go out. The Prime Minister has said he will champion recycling personally, but he still has not delivered on this. Just one week after the election the member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, hit the headlines in Cairns about his so-called war on plastic pollution. It was the major media story after the election. Mr Entsch, who had been returned as the member for Leichhardt, appeared on the front page of the local paper holding up a big bag of waste and saying he was going to declare a war on waste to protect the Great Barrier Reef.

In making those announcements, the Morrison government promised $100 million for the Australian Recycling Investment Fund, to be run by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. That's $100 million that this government promised. This scheme was intended to provide concessional loans of between $10,000 and $5 million to support the manufacturing of products from recycled plastics and paper, to take on the 'war on waste'. But, over 12 months later, not a single cent of this fund has been spent—a promise of $100 million, but nothing has been spent. This is starting to become a very familiar pattern for this government. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has confirmed that zero dollars have been loaned to date. The Morrison government has form when it comes to making carefully packaged announcements on waste and recycling, but, in large part, they're not worth the paper that they are written on.

The Morrison government also promised $20 million for the National Product Stewardship Investment Fund. This money was supposed to provide grants of between $300,000 and $1 million to encourage new and existing product stewardship schemes for batteries, electronic products and plastic oil containers. But in June this year the environment department revealed that the guidelines for this program had not even been finished—a $20 million announcement, and we don't even have guidelines yet, and the money isn't being spent. All these things that have been promised—here we go again.

These two schemes form part of the Morrison government's $167 million recycling investment package. I'm sure that, in their speeches today, senators opposite will be talking about all these numbers, all these schemes and all these programs. Can I tell you, Madam Acting Deputy President Kitching, they don't mean anything if you don't actually deliver them. At least 72 per cent of the package that was announced by the Morrison government has made no difference to Australia's waste crisis 18 months on. Eighteen months on—after the waste crisis was finally acknowledged by this government, and a war on waste was declared by members like Mr Entsch in Leichhardt and by the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison himself—at least 72 per cent of the package has not been delivered. Failures like this undermine the federal government's promise that the $600 million Recycling Modernisation Fund would create 10,000 jobs and divert 10 million tonnes of waste from landfill—again, big numbers, big promises, but it's just not happening. These aren't isolated examples of incompetence. There is example after example of promises not being delivered by this government. Eight months ago, the Morrison government announced a $4 billion Emergency Response Fund to prepare for disaster recovery, and we know that that has not been rolled out. There are countless other examples of announcements made by this government, and recycling and waste is just another area where it has failed to deliver.

Labor supports this bill because there is no time to delay when it comes to banning waste materials and developing our recycling and waste industry. We want to see those jobs in places like regional Queensland. But we remain critical of the Morrison government's record on waste management. If the Morrison government continue to lag behind on targets to cut plastic pollution, this bill will not be as effective as it could be. Under the Liberal-National government, only 12 per cent of plastic packaging is being recycled. Progress on election promises like the $100 million Australian Recycling Investment Fund and the $20 million National Product Stewardship Investment Fund have stalled. The government have promised to spend this money, and they have failed. Time and time again, the Morrison government are failing to roll out what they are promising in a timely manner or in a manner that would make a difference. In many cases, they can't even get program guidelines finalised.

In conclusion, I say to the young people living in Cairns, particularly Molly Steer, the activist of the Straw No More campaign, all the people who have stood next to members like Mr Entsch, all the people who have gone to the plastics summits and stood next to the Prime Minister as he's delivered yet another announcement and a commitment to take on this war on waste: unfortunately, the government are not delivering on their promises to you. They were very happy to stand up next to you, very happy to get a photo with you, very happy to tell you the big numbers they were going to spend and going to deliver, but they're not doing that. They stood next to young people and told them that they were going to take action on recycling and waste, they stood next to workers and said they were going to create jobs in this industry, but they haven't. The numbers don't lie. They are not spending this money and they are not rolling out these packages, and it can only be for one reason—that is, they really are not committed to taking action on recycling, taking action to help our environment or taking action to create jobs.

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (13:50): As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I'm very pleased to say that One Nation will support this bill. It's a rare event when I can honestly compliment the government for the quality of their drafting and the sincerity of the process. We have the courage and the integrity to give credit where it's due. This bill has been developed over many years of consultation, public submissions, exposure drafts and fine-tuning. The Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 is an excellent outcome.

The provisions allow the minister discretion to pick the approach on an industry-by-industry basis, yet with enough written discretion for the minister so that there can be no backsliding. The time frames envisaged in the legislation are appropriate. The Greens amendments, sadly, are bringing forward time frames to the point where they will place an onerous burden on industry, and that means on jobs. Industry must have time to change their practices in a sensible and orderly fashion. Products with outdated packaging must be allowed to work their way through the supply chain so that small businesses and family supermarkets and low turnover areas—often rural and regional Australia—are not left holding products that are illegal to sell. Where industry doesn't cooperate, there are penalties in this bill to ensure compliance. Those penalties are fit for purpose. The Greens amendments to increase the penalties would place a burden on small and medium business such that they are likely to threaten the future of those businesses.

Almost every policy that comes from the Greens demonstrates a complete failure to understand rural and regional Australia and small business—in fact, a failure to understand Australia. Australia is more than the big cities. It's more than the inner big cities. The Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill finds the right balance between urgency and fairness. And there is urgency required around this issue. Every year 645,000 tonnes of waste is exported to Third World countries from Australia. The locals there sift through the waste to remove anything of value, and, sadly, the leftover waste is often dumped into rivers, where it makes its way into our oceans. I often see social media posts pointing out that the garbage problem in the oceans comes from just seven major rivers and, therefore, is not our problem. The point that social media is missing here is that the waste from those rivers originated in countries like ours. It's our waste, and we need to own it and deal with it ourselves. This bill does exactly that.

Processing such a large amount of extra waste will create additional employment here in Australia. Now, I appreciate that the Morrison government is getting quite the reputation for dodgy job creation stats—trying to look good, not do good. The budget laid claim to creating more jobs than there are unemployed. For example, 400,000 JobMaker positions turned into 40,000, one-tenth. I was pleased, then, to fact check the figures for job creation contained in the explanatory memorandum to this bill and to find, to my surprise, they are accurate. This bill should create 10,000 new jobs, at a time when those jobs are badly needed. This bill is a win for the environment, a win for local industry and a win for the countries that we will no longer be using as our rubbish dumps.

In the waste reduction space, I often hear the phrase 'circular economy'. What it actually means is reusing plastics by cleaning them and then melting them down to re-enter the production process. As such, recycled resins compete with new resin. The suggestion on the CSIRO website is that the cheap cost of new resin makes the high cost of re-used resin commercially unviable. The Greens would add a carbon dioxide tax to new resin, meaning oil, to make the new option dear enough to make recycled resins attractive. Adding cost needlessly is typical Green thinking. Their solution is always to tax it or ban it.

One Nation has a better idea. Our CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, has a role to play here. I acknowledge that it's been a long time since the industrial element of their charter has been used. The CSIRO, after all, has become in some ways a propagandist for global governance. Yet, I live in hope that the organisation charged by the Australian people with finding industrial solutions to everyday problems and challenges can come to our rescue here.

Let's talk about what the CSIRO is actually doing on this topic. Their website states:

Data analytics—creating new data collection and sampling strategies … to establish baselines of plastic leakage.

Machine learning—our artificial intelligence capabilities can be used to … conduct autonomous visual detection and analysis of plastic debris.

… … …

Behavioural science—we have researchers focused on social questions, like, how to … inspire communication action.

Has the CSIRO gone mad? The next one is:

Waste to energy—our work considers how to use plastics at end of life as a feedstock for energy production.

Won't that create so called greenhouse gases—the dreaded carbon dioxide? What rank hypocrisy from the CSIRO. It says:

Environmental economics—we are studying the financial impacts of changes … in the plastics supply chain.

Isn't that the Productivity Commission's or Treasury's job? How is that anything to do with the CSIRO? The last point from the CSIRO is:

Materials science—we recognise the importance of plastic polymers—

biological catalysts—

and identifying recycling options and new bio-materials that could be less destructive to the environment.

There we go: finally a mention on contributing the science behind a whole new Australian industry for biodegradable and compostable plastics that will drive billions of dollars of economic growth.

I remember when the CSIRO invented things and solved problems that Australia faced. The CSIRO, sadly is now more interested in telling us that we have a problem than they are in fixing the problem, and, at times, the CSIRO helps politicians fabricate problems. I'll get back to the bill, after suggesting my hope for the CSIRO.

This bill is a massive opportunity for free enterprise to fix the problem of human progress. I urge the CSIRO to work with industry to produce biodegradable and compostable plastics that will allow Australians to simply switch from environmentally-damaging materials to environmentally-friendly materials. There is an opportunity, because pollution is waste. There is an opportunity for higher productivity. There is an opportunity for higher profits to those who are sensible. For example, safety was seen as a cost burden, yet incidents are a waste, so improving safety by removing incidents is an aid to reducing waste. It's an aid to improving productivity and profit. That's changing. Fortunately, people are starting to work out safety is not a cost and not a burden; it's potentially a boost to productivity.

Secondly, quality used to be seen as a cost, as a burden. Defects are obviously waste. Now quality is starting to be seen by enlightened management as improving productivity and profit. The environment is similar. The environment is seen as a cost by many—seen as a burden. Yet pollution is waste. Pollution is the enemy of productivity. Pollution is waste, and when we remove the waste—remove the pollution—it improves the environment and it improves productivity and profit.

Real environmental problems, like real pollution of air, soil and water, are costly to humanity, to business and to profits. Fortunately, humans address real pollution. In California, for example, the pollution coming out of car exhausts is now one-thousandth of what it was in the seventies. That has led to more efficient use of fuel, which has saved money for people—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, you'll be in continuation when debate resumes.

Senator McGRATH (Queensland—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:35): On behalf of the Chair of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator Askew, I present additional information received by the committee on its inquiry into the provisions of the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020.

Senator McCARTHY (Northern Territory—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:35): I wish to take note of the committee's report. The cashless welfare card—and I don't think there is another issue that so clearly demonstrates this government's agenda to demonise, penalise and brutalise people who find themselves relying on our social safety nets. It is a terrible policy, a devastating policy and one that has through numerous inquiries seen no evidence to suggest that this is the direction our country should continue to go. For the people of the Northern Territory, whom I represent here in the Senate, there has been overwhelming evidence that they certainly do not wish to be a part of the cashless debit card trials or permanent situation.

The people of the Northern Territory had the 2007 intervention put upon them, which brought the BasicsCard and forced compulsory income management on every single family who lived in over 70 communities that were identified by the Commonwealth as areas that they should intervene in. Those families, their children and, for some, their grandchildren have grown up under this system over the last 13 years of income management.

We have heard some comments around whether there is extra food on the table, but can I just remind the Senate that we have had a COVID-19 pandemic which has seen the increase of funds to families across Australia. And guess what? That too puts food on the table. The real issue here though goes far deeper. The real issue here is the focus on a particular race here in the Northern Territory. I cannot stand more passionately against such racist intervention, such a deliberate attempt to continue to disempower some of the most vulnerable families without encouraging them to empower themselves to rise above their particular situation.

It is not good enough to say that the family over there who lives in a remote or regional part of Australia should have their money and their choices determined by this parliament in such a way where they feel they have no chance to rise above their own situations and to grow, just as any other Australians do in determining their own futures, their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their children. The Australian government is considering the best possible ways to support people, families and communities in places where high levels of welfare dependence coexist with high levels of social harm. The cashless debit card is testing whether reducing the amount of cash available in a community will reduce the overall harm caused by welfare-fuelled alcohol, gambling and drug misuse. It is pretty clear the CDC has failed that test; by any measure it is exacerbating harm and hardship. The efficacy of the cashless debit card and income management more generally has been the subject of several inquiries, as I have mentioned, and these investigations have not found evidence of the effectiveness of these policies. In fact, significant harm has been associated with compulsory, broad based income management.

An independent analysis of the cashless card in Ceduna conducted by the University of South Australia concluded:

We have shown the CDC policy to have had no substantive effect on the available measures for the targeted behaviours of gambling or intoxicant abuse.

Isn't it incumbent on us as political leaders to listen to this and, in particular, on this government to listen to its own reviews of its own policies? Yet on this particular occasion a mere $2.5 million review of the evaluation of four trial sites across three jurisdictions, with two trial sites in one, was not even read by this minister. Not even the department that she is responsible for could tell us of the certainty of that report. However, all of that aside, the minister still introduced this piece of legislation in order to continue to permanency those four trial sites across Australia and, even worse than that, include 23,000 Territorians and families in Cape York without even having read her own evaluation report. It is absolutely disgraceful.

Then we saw in the House of Representatives last night the member for Bass, Bridget Archer, stand up and argue that numerous inquiries have failed to find any evidence that the cashless debit card scheme is of any benefit to at-risk communities. She is a Liberal member of the Morrison government who says it fails to address systemic issues of disadvantage among vulnerable Australians. Mrs Archer was telling her team this is a policy that is not working and she does not want to see it in Tasmania. Unfortunately, Mrs Archer did not go far enough and vote against the cashless debit card.

But then we see today another Liberal MP has come out and said, 'This just does not work.' Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent said his expectation is that the government would drop the legislation, which also transitions another 46,000 people in the Northern Territory, in Cape York, onto the card. According to Mr Broadbent:

No one wants to rock the boat over this issue but I don't believe it has broad support in the party room.

Mr Broadbent told The Australian:

People should have the freedom to deal in cash if they want to.

Well, there you go. I wonder if we have courageous senators of the coalition government who will not only speak their truth, similar to their colleagues in the lower house, but stand up and vote against this horrendous policy that disempowers, brutalises and keeps people in poverty and gives them no hope of breaking through their incredible disadvantage, which they do not need thrown in their faces, because they experience it so deeply.

I have had the wonderful pleasure of being able to invite senators to the Northern Territory and to ask them to listen to the people of the Northern Territory. I thank Senator Rex Patrick and Senator Jacqui Lambie for doing exactly that. This particular piece of legislation is going to have a profound impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of families of the Northern Territory who have had enough. I want senators in here to speak from the heart, to bring back the voices that they listen to up north. I also thank Centre Alliance. Rebekha Sharkie and her staff came up to the Northern Territory. I know that that was shared with Senator Griff.

Senators, I dearly hope that you will do some solid reflection on this piece of legislation. This is the time when our parliament can be enormously courageous and get rid of the cashless debit card and get rid of the falsehood of what it espouses to do for the people of Australia, when in reality what it does is disempower, disengage and give hopelessness to Australian families who need far more from us as politicians and who need far more from us as a country that should be working with all families to rise above all of those issues and empower them to be the people that they are here to be, just as we are standing here in this parliament.

Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (15:45): I rise to make comments on the additional information presented to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. My views on the cashless debit card and income management are well known in this place. From day one the Greens have said, 'This is not good policy; this is not the way to treat people.' Compulsory income management has been in this country, in the Northern Territory, for nearly 13½ years.

An honourable senator interjecting—

Senator SIEWERT: Yes, I heard that intervention. For those that didn't hear it, they mentioned Jenny Macklin. And, yes, Labor did make a mistake. I have said that many times in this place. But they have now looked at the evidence and seen it doesn't work. So I give them an enormous amount of credit for that. Certain Labor senators have been opposed to this all along. They knew it wasn't going to work. They've looked at the evidence—or should I say lack of evidence? That is, in itself, evidence, I suppose you'd say. It doesn't work. The final evaluation of the Northern Territory Intervention clearly showed that. It met none of its objectives.

The government keeps changing what the objectives of the trials are. The Intervention was originally supposedly about ending child abuse and putting food on the table, and then the trials morphed into addressing alcohol and drug abuse and gambling. And now they seem to be morphing back into being about putting food on the table. This is flawed ideology about the way that you achieve change. Do you know the way you achieve change? You address the underlying causes of the disadvantage that exists in First Nations communities. You address the social determinants of health. You address the fact that this is still stolen land. We have never, ever acknowledged that as a nation. You address the intergenerational trauma. You address the fact that children are still being inappropriately taken from their families. You address the fact that there's not sufficient housing. You acknowledge the intergenerational trauma and finally address that.

Instead, what do the government do? They take an ideological approach. That's the only conclusion you can draw. Despite the fact that there's no evidence, they still proceed and they send in the warriors to argue that this is the way to go. A certain billionaire puts up the idea that income management is the way to go, despite the fact that the final evaluation of the Northern Territory Intervention showed that it did not meet any of its objectives. This is the time where we knock this failed, flawed, ideological, punitive approach, this racist, discriminatory approach, on the head.

When this comes up for a vote next week, this chamber has the opportunity to say no permanently and end this abusive card which for 13 years has been in place in this country. Knock it off. I beg crossbench senators to knock this off finally. Say no. Don't let them do this permanently, and don't negotiate any form of extension, which is what has happened in the past; they've said: 'Oh, let's just extend this a little bit longer'. No. We don't need any more extensions. It's flawed. It's failed. The government haven't produced their evaluation. They've had it for quite some time now—it makes you wonder what's going on with it. Perhaps it doesn't say the things they want it to say, just like the ORIMA evaluation didn't say the things they wanted it to say, and just like the Auditor-General's report. The ANAO's report found that there was actually no evidence to show that they could claim there was a reduction in social harm. Knock this legislation off, and let's focus the resources, the time and energy, that are wasted on this flawed approach on something that works. Let's genuinely commit to walk with First Nations peoples—in fact, to walk behind them. We need to have First Nations-led decision making here. The government runs the line: 'We did talk to First Nations peoples.' Well, they didn't talk to communities. Let's walk the talk of the new Closing the Gap agreement with First Nations peoples. The cashless debit card is not walking the talk. Knock it off for good—permanently—when this comes to a vote next week.

Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:51): I want to speak briefly to this matter but more to correct the record. Senator McCarthy quoted Mr Broadbent from the other place. My understanding is Mr Broadbent has corrected the record and those comments were actually to do with another piece of legislation. I just think it is important that the chamber knows that. Perhaps Senator O'Sullivan may be wanting to expand on that if he is making a contribution.

Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (15:52): I also rise to take note of the additional information in relation to the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. I share the anger and the angst of others on this side of the chamber in relation to the government's pursuit of this legislation. Among this additional information that's been presented to the chamber this afternoon, I note in particular that Senator Siewert asked for information about the departmental costs to date associated with the CDC for the department and any other government department associated with the trials. And it was a rather eye-watering amount: the cost from 2015-16 to 2019-20 was some $33.632 million—for the hotline, the card, merchant management, administration, processing and support, blah, blah, blah. I have to say, when this government is looking at putting people into mandatory cashless debit card income management and they also want to reduce the payments for the same people who are on payments like JobSeeker to just $40 a day—what is it they really think they're doing in spending that astronomical amount of money on micromanaging people's finances? What's the point of micromanaging the finances of people who simply don't have enough to live on anyway?

I note that one of the objectives of the so-called cashless debit card is to address alcohol and drug abuse. I have to say that if you are managing to buy alcohol on those low payments—looking at Labor's dissenting report, we know the research into the cashless debit card showed that some 87 per cent of people on the card simply didn't have a problem with alcohol. Eighty-seven per cent of participants reported they did not have a problem with alcohol. Now, if you take the 76 senators in this place and 76 people who might be on JobSeeker payments in the Northern Territory and who have been placed on this cashless debit card—76 senators verses 76 people on the cashless debit card who get JobSeeker payments in the Northern Territory—who do you think spends more on alcohol each month, each fortnight? Hands down, I'm sure the money spent in here would be tenfold the money spent by anyone on a cashless debit card, so if you want to invite people to look in your pocket, to look at your drug habits, at your alcohol consumption, then go right ahead.

This punitive micromanagement that does nothing to build the capacity and resilience of people is absolutely galling, and I find the focus on making the cashless debit card compulsory in the Northern Territory implicitly and overtly racist. It is overtly racist, just like other examples in Australian history. We had a debate this week about saving a seat in the Northern Territory. In 1911 the Northern Territory was split from South Australia to become a territory, and effectively had its Senate voting rights at that time removed. It had its democratic House of Representatives voting rights removed. South Australia got its 12 senators, and the people of the Northern Territory lost their right to vote for senators. Would we have done that to the population of the Northern Territory back then, in 1911, had the population of the Northern Territory been all white? The answer is obvious. It's intrinsically obvious. The answer is, of course, no. I think in the future when people look back on this debate about the cashless debit card, when they reflect on this debate, they will know that the Northern Territory is being singled out because the majority of people who live there are First Nations people.

So when it comes to these debates, we must, as others have said, leave the cultural authority and leadership around finding things that work for community in the hands of those communities. We are too far and too remote. It's not them; it's not those in the communities of the Northern Territory that are remote. It's we that are remote from them. We have to talk about the issues in their communities in a way in which they have the voice in it, not us as representatives in this place, with all the privileges and income that come with that.

I implore the Senate to reflect morally on what it is to single out the Northern Territory and the other trial sites, essentially and in a large part for their Indigeneity. The government will say, 'This now applies to everyone in the Northern Territory.' But I take you back to the principle. Is the government about to apply this to Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia—to everybody? There are 1.4 million people on JobSeeker payments in our nation. What gives this place the right to start interfering with their budgeting and with their freedom within our society?

These impacts are very real. We leave stupid bureaucratic systems in charge of the fundamental details of people's lives. A person gave evidence to the committee who was a student, a hospitality worker, paying their own rent and earning their own income. Once they finished their study and went onto a JobSeeker payment, they were, of course, also moved onto a cashless debit card. And what did that young person who'd finished their education tell us? They told us that they had lost count of the number of times Indue blocked the payment of their rent. The simple fact is that the cashless debit card is a big bureaucracy that doesn't meet people's needs, that is, their needs to exchange money with family members, to participate in a cash economy, to do basic things like pay their rent. So this afternoon, in this debate, I call on senators to reflect morally on this issue. (Time expired)

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia) (16:02): I look forward to a more fulsome debate on this subject when the bill eventually does come before the Senate, but I do want to place a few things on the record and deal with some of the issues that have been raised by those opposite.

I really do respect the contribution of senators in this place. I don't in any way want to take away or diminish their sincerity and their commitment to the substantive issues that are dealt with when talking about this subject. But, for me and for this government, we certainly believe that every child has the right to feel safe, receive a good education and have high hopes for the future. Yet, through the work that I've done over many years across Australia, particularly in Indigenous communities, I've seen firsthand that not every Australian is afforded those opportunities, sadly. Alcohol and drug fuelled harm, enabled by unaccountable welfare provided to parents or guardians, has robbed far too many children of these rights. But, in those communities where the cashless debit card exists and based on the testimony of people living in those communities, we are thankfully seeing improvements. This is through the trial of a more responsible delivery of welfare, the cashless debit card.

The CDC is a user-friendly, sophisticated bank card that offers participants access to payWave, BPAY, online shopping, recurring deductions and the ability to transfer funds between program accounts. Rent can be paid through it. We've heard testimony here from other senators who said that rent couldn't be paid. That's simply not true. There might have been a situation where there wasn't enough funds in the account and that's why the payment wasn't made.

But there's no technical limitation on a person's ability to pay rent and pay for essential services for their families. When a payment is loaded onto the card, 80 per cent of it is quarantined for bills, groceries and living and school expenses—anything except alcohol, gambling or cash, which could then be used to purchase drugs. The other 20 per cent can be used to purchase any items that don't fall into these categories. I've been on the ground in the trial site communities, speaking to local community leaders and meeting with organisations directly involved in the delivery of the scheme and the wraparound services which support it. Their feedback, along with the evidence, has been very clear: participants have reported consistently that they are drinking less. That doesn't mean every single one of them has been able to deal with their issues. Of course not. No-one has said the cashless debit card is a silver bullet. No-one has said the cashless debit card is going to be the solution to the issues that are there.

I have been in those communities. I am not some academic at a desktop in Canberra, Melbourne or Sydney. I have been to these places and spoken to people on the ground. What they tell me is that it has become a circuit-breaker, particularly if they are providing social services to the community—counselling services, drug and alcohol services, and support to the community—they are telling me it is a circuit-breaker so they can help connect with people.

Just last week, a group got together from various parts of the country. It was organised by the Minderoo Foundation. I used to work for the Minderoo Foundation. I was part of the development of the cashless debit card when it was first put to government. The Minderoo Foundation brought together people from the communities in which the cashless debit card operates, including a few other places where they operate the BasicsCard. This legislation before the Senate will replace the BasicsCard, which is a very rudimentary technology. There are only 16,000 merchants across the country who will accept the BasicsCard, whereas there are 900,000 merchants who will accept the cashless debit card, which is essentially just a Mastercard. It can be used at EFTPOS machines right around the country, whereas the BasicsCard is very limited in where it can be used. There were individuals representing themselves at that forum and, in many cases, representing organisations. They were from the Northern Territory and from Cape York in Queensland, where the BasicsCard is in operation. There were Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in the room when I was there. There were about 50 people who had gathered together. Sadly, because of the border restrictions, the people from Ceduna weren't able to come; but they participated online through Zoom or one of those mediums.

At the end of that forum they wrote a communique, which has just been released. I want to quote one section of it. It says: 'We support the continuation of the cashless debit card as an ongoing income management program to make the existing CDC trial sites permanent and to transition income management in the Northern Territory and Cape York region from the BasicsCard to the CDC.' So this assertion that the communities where the cashless debit card is operating now don't want it, or that it is not supported in the community, is simply not true. If any of us went to a community we would of course find people who don't support it. But the overwhelming sense that you get from people when you speak to them on the ground is that they do support the CDC—the mothers and the grandmothers in particular. They care deeply about their children and they're sick of the humbug, where others come and hassle them for money. If you sit down on the grass with them and listen to them, they'll tell you—when there's not the threat of being ostracised or maybe being abused for speaking out openly, like they did last week when they came to Perth—that they support the extension of this program.

One of the great parts of this legislation—just to give comfort to those who are listening—which was dealt with through the committee process is that it removes the power of the minister, through regulation, to expand it into other communities. Therefore it would require further legislation to come to this place in order to take it anywhere else. At that time, we'd be able to have a debate about the future of it and where it would go.

This legislation primarily deals with the fact that the BasicsCard needs to be replaced with a better solution so that when someone runs out of fuel, or is running low on fuel, and drives past a service station which doesn't accept the BasicsCard then they don't run the risk of running out of fuel in driving further down the road where a service station sells fuel by using the BasicsCard. The cashless debit card will be able to be used wherever an EFTPOS machine is. It makes it seamless and frictionless for the participant, and they won't have the hassle that they currently would have with the BasicsCard.

This is going to help communities across the Northern Territory and across Cape York. Those communities which have the cashless debit card already want the certainty of it going forward, rather than just 12 month, to 12 month to 12 month extensions, so they can continue to build on and deal with the issues that they so desperately want to deal with and to get on top. That's what this bill is about and, ultimately, that's what this report has demonstrated.

Question agreed to.

Senator GALLACHER (South Australia) (16:12): On behalf of the Economic References Committee, I present the report of the committee, Final report: Inquiry into the indicators of, and impact of, regional inequality in Australia, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

At the outset, I'd just like to put on the record the confidence, professionalism and dedication of the secretariat in preparing the report after assessing a large number of submissions. It's always a pleasure to work with the professional people in the secretariat.

Before I go into the detail of the report, it's incredible that sometimes in this place the debate preceding an item is very cognisant of the item. This is about regional inequality, and there's no greater area of regional inequality than in some areas of Indigenous activity—the lack of educational opportunities and the like. I enjoyed the contribution of previous senators on the matter and I think a central theme of all of it was that there are areas for improvement by state, local and federal governments which would impact on the topic before us.

On 14 February 2018 the Senate referred an inquiry into the indicators of, and impact of, regional inequality in Australia for inquiry and report by the last sitting day of 2019. This date was subsequently extended. One of the unfortunate things due to the pandemic was that we weren't able to travel as frequently or as far as we would have liked to, but we did get a substantial number of visits in.

Our terms of reference were:

The indicators of, and impact of, regional inequality in Australia, with particular reference to government policies and programs in the following areas:

a. fiscal policies at federal, state and local government levels;

b. improved co-ordination of federal, state and local government policies;

c. regional development policies;

d. infrastructure;

e. education;

f. building human capital;

g. enhancing local workforce skills;

h. employment arrangements;

i. decentralisation policies;

j. innovation;

k. manufacturing; and

l. any other related matters.

As at about 15 December 2019 the committee had received a total of 140 submissions to the inquiry—129 during the 45th Parliament and a further 11 during the 46th Parliament—and conducted five public hearings in the following regional areas: Emerald, 29 August 2018; Darwin, 5 November 2018; Townsville, 7 November 2018; Port Augusta, 19 November 2019; and Traralgon, 21 November 2019. As I've said, we always get plenty of submissions, plenty of interesting evidence and plenty of good contributions from regional Australia, because there is a necessity to do this systematically and to continue through, no matter who's in government. It doesn't really matter who's in government. This work needs to continue systematically, and the methodology needs to be agreed. Each stakeholder needs to know their part. And we need to get on with it.

I will give credit to the other side of the chamber, because I think Senator Payne, in the position of Minister of Defence, took onboard our inquiry into the involvement of Defence spend around their regional bases. We identified some areas of concern and, almost in an eye blink, Senator Payne was on to it and incorporated that strategy of direct involvement, engagement and employment around regional defence bases. I suppose the irony of the chamber is that it was Senator Reynolds who claimed the credit for it; I'm sure Senator Payne had a wry grin when that happened.

Anyway, we've been around, and there's a continual theme in this particular area that shouldn't go unreported or unrecognised, which is the lack of education and training opportunities in regional Australia. The view that education and training were neglected and that they are important to the regions was a common one. A number of submissions argued that it was difficult for people living in the regions to have the same level of access to education as those living in major cities. The Regional Universities Network commented:

There is significant inequality in educational attainment between the regional Australia and major cities. Regional Australia is a generation behind in educational attainment compared to major cities, and it may well take a generation or more to address this inequality.

This theme is not coming from just one area; it's coming from right around the country. Uniting Country SA, when asked what could be better in terms of support, made this first point:

Investment in education and training opportunities across our regions. We have a lot of people that have to leave their communities to access that sort of service. Policies and procedures that encourage investment from industry within our service area as well to provide greater career opportunities and greater wealth within the community.

They also said:

We've got TAFE, and they do offer a range of courses, but there are not enough opportunities.

So, once again, if you educate people you need to have a pipeline of opportunity. Without that pipeline of opportunity we're condemning people, in come cases in the Indigenous sector, almost to a lifetime of inequality. If they can't complete high school or if there are no opportunities when they complete high school to go into an apprenticeship or a traineeship then we really have failed those regions.

Take the vibrant city of Whyalla—I'm being a bit parochial here, and I apologise to those people I don't mention in the short time I have today, but any senator will tell you that they always take the opportunity to mention their home state first—Mayor Clare McLaughlin of Whyalla City Council observed:

We are a city with ageing infrastructure—both industry and community assets—with pressure on council's budget to balance financial sustainability against the need to upgrade assets to improve livability.

And:

Continued cost-shifting from other levels of government places significant strain on our ability to ensure financial sustainability in the future whilst managing and upgrading our ageing infrastructure to become a more desirable, livable city. We encourage increased funding allocations to upgrade regional community assets—something that is integral to our vision for the city.

She went on to say:

A lot of our infrastructure is very old. It was built back in the 1970s, when the town was booming. We would definitely appreciate some more funding—

for those sorts of upgrades. This is a continual theme taken up by many communities right around the country: education, infrastructure, opportunity and the like.

In the short time that I have I would like to put on the record that Mr David Ross, director of the Central Land Council, advocated government investment in infrastructure as one of the several recommendations to assist Indigenous people to fill their potential:

The government needs to take urgent action to reverse these trends. I know better than most that this problem is complex. However, I believe that there are clear steps that can be taken now to narrow these gaps. These include…investing in vital basic infrastructure in remote and very remote areas to improve opportunities for Aboriginal-driven development on Aboriginal land and sea, including in roads, water, power, telecommunications and access to essential health and education services.

I think I met Mr Ross in the early 1970s, when we were both truck drivers for John Dring transport in Alice Springs. He knows what he's talking about. He's lived in that area all of his life and he's contributed to that area all his life. I humbly suggest that those who make decisions that will impact on this area listen to his advice, because it's coming from the right place.

We made a couple of recommendations. One was:

The committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government fundamentally re-examine its regional infrastructure spending plan and make an expanded infrastructure programme the basis for its stimulus plan for Australia’s economic recovery from the impacts of the COVID—19 pandemic.

This recommendation means that the government should use the opportunity the pandemic has created by funding infrastructure properly in regional Australia.

Secondly:

In order to establish to most appropriate response in terms of regional investment, the committee recommends the Commonwealth Government undertake a series of round table consultations with:

Commonwealth departments and agencies;

State, and Local Governments;

regional associations; and

community organisations.

I think this is a very timely report as it was tabled just after the debate on the cashless welfare card. I know that the various positions on the cashless welfare card are deeply felt and I think this report points to the way forward. We have to improve the infrastructure, education and training. We have to listen to the Indigenous people who have been in the regions for a long time and explore the opportunities. Even investing in telehealth infrastructure in remote communities would bring about remarkable change. People could be diagnosed over the internet, which would mean that we could remediate problems early and quickly. I commend the report to the Senate and seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (16:22): I rise to make a very brief contribution to the debate on this report, following the contribution of the chair of the committee, Senator Gallacher. As the deputy chair of the committee, I will add my thanks to the secretariat and all those who made submissions to the inquiry. I also pay tribute to the role played by Senator Gallacher, who drove this inquiry, and all the senators who participated in the inquiry. Obviously, across the chamber many members of this place wish to see rural and regional Australia advance. There are some additional comments from coalition senators noting some of the very important things that this government is doing in the space: things such as investment in infrastructure and job creation. I note the presence in the chamber of the minister, who has been central to driving some of those changes in terms of jobs programs and the like.

One of the frustrations of 2020 has been that the committee's plan had been to get out into the regions much more than we were able to do. In light of events of this year, that is the least important thing that has happened this year, but it was a frustration for many of us who would like to have seen this place take its committee work out into the regions much more. Unfortunately, events of this year haven't allowed that, and we all know why. But this is an important report, because it is a very important policy issue. I certainly commend this report for examination to all those listening to this debate. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator WATT (Queensland) (16:24): I present the interim report of the Select Committee on the effectiveness of the Australian Government's Northern Australia agenda and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Senator WATT: In the time available I'll make a relatively short contribution on this report. For those listening at home, the Senate inquiry into the effectiveness of the Australian government's northern Australia agenda commenced very early in this term. It was always intended to be a fairly long running inquiry to give the Senate an opportunity to review just exactly how the government's northern Australia agenda is progressing. What we've done today is table an interim report of the committee. The intention is that the final report of this committee will be tabled at the end of March next year. Like every inquiry that's been conducted over this term, this inquiry has, of course, been disrupted by COVID-19, particularly with the limitations on travel. That's been especially an issue for this inquiry, given that, by its very nature, it involves travelling and hearing from people in some of the most remote parts of this country. Of course, that hasn't been possible as much as we would have liked this year, which is the reason for the extension of this inquiry into next year. But, notwithstanding that, today's interim report, I think, does make some important recommendations to the government about how it can improve the performance of probably its key funding mechanism for the northern Australia agenda, which is the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, the NAIF. I'll come back to that, shortly, and what the committee has recommended for the NAIF.

I want to put on record my thanks to the other committee members: Senator McDonald, the deputy chair of the committee; my colleagues from Labor, Senators McCarthy and Dodson; and Senator Roberts, Senator Siewert and Senator Dean Smith. Again, travel limitations have made it a little bit difficult for people to participate in all the hearings, but I do appreciate the efforts that everyone has put in. I do want to thank everyone as well for reaching a unanimous position in this interim report. That's, obviously, not always possible, so I think we've handled ourselves very maturely, and no doubt we can continue to do that in the course of this inquiry. Can I also thank the secretariat, who worked very hard over this inquiry on the logistics and, of course, the preparation of this report. We do all very much appreciate your efforts and your beavering away to get this report done behind the scenes.

What we have achieved to date are a number of hearings in Darwin, Townsville, Mount Isa, Mackay and Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land. Over the last few months, particularly since COVID hit, we have made a point of this inquiry continuing and have undertaken a number of hearings by teleconference so that we do keep it progressing and we continue to hear from witnesses.

As I said, the decision we made was that the interim report should focus on the NAIF, partly because it is the only funding mechanism that is within the portfolio of northern Australia and partly because it is a body that has, in my view, attracted quite a lot of deserved attention and, in some quarters, criticism. Also, the government themselves were conducting a review of the NAIF over the last few months, and we thought it important that the committee did bring down an interim report to provide some recommendations to government which they can hopefully listen to and act on when it comes time to legislating some changes to the NAIF.

I do want to recognise that the northern Australia minister, Mr Pitt, has already announced that there will be a number of changes made to the NAIF, which is very welcome, from the point of view of both the opposition and, I think, the committee as a whole, given the recommendations that we've made. We haven't seen the legislation yet, but, certainly, what I've seen from the minister does look encouraging. It does seem that the government recognises that there are some pretty significant changes that need to be made to the NAIF so that it does work effectively, so that it does get money out the door and so that it does build the projects and create the jobs that it was intended to. It's well known that I have been a very strong critic of the NAIF up until now. As I made clear at the Developing Northern Australia Conference in Rockhampton last week, my criticism is not of the officials of the NAIF or its board members. I think it has lacked political direction and political leadership, and I am pleased to see some of these changes that the minister is now flagging.

As I have said before, I just don't think it's acceptable that, five years after this body was first announced, we see only $218 million of its $5 billion budget having actually been released to fund projects. That's less than 5c in the dollar released five years after this body was first announced. We of course hear from the government on a regular basis that the NAIF has approved funding of over $2 billion for projects, and that's very good, but what they never want to accept and acknowledge is that the amount of money that's actually flowing out the door is considerably less than that—$218 million. What that really means, not just in numerical terms, is that we've got billions of dollars of lost opportunities for northern Australia, which is particularly important now as we are in recession and as we're starting to recover from COVID.

Again, as I made clear in my speech to the Developing Northern Australia Conference last week, there are some incredible opportunities in northern Australia as we recover from COVID. There's renewed interest in decentralisation and in people moving out of big cities, particularly in the southern states, which have borne the burden of COVID-19 and its lockdowns. I was in Darwin a couple of weeks ago, and people are really excited about the fact that the population there is increasing for the first time in some time. You can actually feel a bit more energy and optimism in places like Darwin than we have seen for some time. So it is important that the government takes this opportunity that we've been given through COVID, where people are thinking about things differently, to really drive this Northern Australia agenda home and deliver on its expectations.

This report makes a number of recommendations as to how the NAIF can be improved. These recommendations go beyond the changes the government has already flagged. The report acknowledges the changes to the NAIF that the government has flagged and congratulates it on doing so. But the committee as a whole does think there are some other amendments and changes that could be made to the NAIF.

The recommendations include broadening the eligibility for the NAIF to allow for funding of smaller projects and a broader range of industries. A main piece of feedback that I've received, both through the inquiry and on separate work as the shadow minister, is that one of the problems with the NAIF is that, up until now, it has focused on the funding of large projects, in the tens of millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars. While there are some projects of that scale kicking around in northern Australia and seeking financing, there are a lot more projects that are much smaller in nature but do need finance through this government facility and have found it very difficult to access that funding through the NAIF. So we are recommending in this report that the NAIF have a good look at its eligibility criteria and its focus to make sure that it is paying enough attention and providing enough support to those smaller projects.